4 ms·

> negative outcomes for... people of color Wouldn’t it do the opposite? Instead of racial profiling it’s using a system that pulls from social media. I wouldn’

> negative outcomes for... people of color Wouldn’t it do the opposite? Instead of racial profiling it’s using a system that pulls from social media. I wouldn’t say it’s a good system but it seems less biased. EDIT: OP said “negative outcomes” and not “unfair towards”. Yeah I guess something can be more fair but still have disproportionate outcomes.

Infinitesimus 7y ago
> Wouldn’t it do the opposite? Instead of racial profiling it’s using a system that pulls from social media. Oh there'll still be plenty racial profiling because the trained models will likely inherit these biases. Instead of a store clerk following me around, it'll be an automated system that just flags me as "high risk" and who knows what other secret feedback looks that results in. I wish our leaders were smart enough to legally require that such services _must_ publish their accuracies and be open source. A system like this as a for-profit business will go about as well as for-profit prisons have gone in the US.. except more subtle and sinister
- jellicle 7y ago
  Right, and then the discrimination is AI-washed - security personnel can say they're just following people flagged as "high risk" around the store, not discriminating, even though the "AI" mostly used skin color to add the high risk flag in the first place. Discrimination: SOLVED!
- Loughla 7y ago
  >trained models will likely inherit these biases. Living in middle America, I can tell you that Joe Average absolutely does not understand this. To him, based on my conversations with the people around me, AI/ML/anything sufficiently 'futuristic' sounding is without bias. To them, these models are developed in a vacuum, and using the AI label implies that the end result actually built itself, like a baby human would grow up. And this scares me.
  - wolco 7y ago
    It does develop an idea in a vacuum. It finds the bias and uses the best biases to explain the world.
BearsAreCool 7y ago
Facial recognition along with just cameras in general have historically struggled with the faces of non-caucasian individuals. This typically results from biases in training sets and in many cases cameras simply creating images with far more contrast for lighter skin tones.
- pbhjpbhj 7y ago
  It seems more likely a function of actual contrast in the real World than a function of bias (inadvertent or otherwise)? I imagine it's down to skin tone, or do facial recognition systems really recognise dark skinned "Caucasians" better than light-skinned non-Caucasians.
  - keanzu 7y ago
    Exactly: In the extreme, perfectly black objects have no visible contrast whatsoever as demonstrated by Vantablack. https://www.wired.com/story/vantablack-anish-kapoor-stuart-semple/ https://www.wired.com/story/vantablack-anish-kapoor-stuart-s...
- keanzu 7y ago
  > faces of non-caucasian individuals The Chinese government, operating the biggest surveillance state on the planet, have had no trouble with the faces of non-caucasian individuals, historically or otherwise. Their facial recognition systems are highly adept at identifying asian faces. They also supply half the world. According to IHS Markit, China accounted for nearly half of the global facial recognition business in 2018. https://www.ft.com/content/6f1a8f48-1813-11ea-9ee4-11f260415385 https://www.ft.com/content/6f1a8f48-1813-11ea-9ee4-11f260415...
  - futurix 7y ago
    The real issue here is not Caucasian skin tones vs everyone else but instead light skin tones vs dark(er) skin tones. So Chinese government won't have an issue with current facial recognition tech.
- 7y ago

Infinitesimus 7y ago

> Wouldn’t it do the opposite? Instead of racial profiling it’s using a system that pulls from social media. Oh there'll still be plenty racial profiling because the trained models will likely inherit these biases. Instead of a store clerk following me around, it'll be an automated system that just flags me as "high risk" and who knows what other secret feedback looks that results in. I wish our leaders were smart enough to legally require that such services _must_ publish their accuracies and be open source. A system like this as a for-profit business will go about as well as for-profit prisons have gone in the US.. except more subtle and sinister

jellicle 7y ago
Right, and then the discrimination is AI-washed - security personnel can say they're just following people flagged as "high risk" around the store, not discriminating, even though the "AI" mostly used skin color to add the high risk flag in the first place. Discrimination: SOLVED!
Loughla 7y ago
>trained models will likely inherit these biases. Living in middle America, I can tell you that Joe Average absolutely does not understand this. To him, based on my conversations with the people around me, AI/ML/anything sufficiently 'futuristic' sounding is without bias. To them, these models are developed in a vacuum, and using the AI label implies that the end result actually built itself, like a baby human would grow up. And this scares me.
- wolco 7y ago
  It does develop an idea in a vacuum. It finds the bias and uses the best biases to explain the world.

BearsAreCool 7y ago

Facial recognition along with just cameras in general have historically struggled with the faces of non-caucasian individuals. This typically results from biases in training sets and in many cases cameras simply creating images with far more contrast for lighter skin tones.

pbhjpbhj 7y ago
It seems more likely a function of actual contrast in the real World than a function of bias (inadvertent or otherwise)? I imagine it's down to skin tone, or do facial recognition systems really recognise dark skinned "Caucasians" better than light-skinned non-Caucasians.
- keanzu 7y ago
  Exactly: In the extreme, perfectly black objects have no visible contrast whatsoever as demonstrated by Vantablack. https://www.wired.com/story/vantablack-anish-kapoor-stuart-semple/ https://www.wired.com/story/vantablack-anish-kapoor-stuart-s...
keanzu 7y ago
> faces of non-caucasian individuals The Chinese government, operating the biggest surveillance state on the planet, have had no trouble with the faces of non-caucasian individuals, historically or otherwise. Their facial recognition systems are highly adept at identifying asian faces. They also supply half the world. According to IHS Markit, China accounted for nearly half of the global facial recognition business in 2018. https://www.ft.com/content/6f1a8f48-1813-11ea-9ee4-11f260415385 https://www.ft.com/content/6f1a8f48-1813-11ea-9ee4-11f260415...
- futurix 7y ago
  The real issue here is not Caucasian skin tones vs everyone else but instead light skin tones vs dark(er) skin tones. So Chinese government won't have an issue with current facial recognition tech.
7y ago