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What if it was an 8x8 grayscale photo of their face? We wouldn't be particularly surprised that it can guess race. The fact that we struggle to detect pattern

by jcims 5y ago

What if it was an 8x8 grayscale photo of their face? We wouldn't be particularly surprised that it can guess race. The fact that we struggle to detect patterns in the data doesn't mean they don't exist.

ceejayoz 5y ago
> We wouldn't be particularly surprised that it can guess race. That's actually a great example of this problem, though. https://www.theverge.com/21298762/face-depixelizer-ai-machine-learning-tool-pulse-stylegan-obama-bias https://www.theverge.com/21298762/face-depixelizer-ai-machin... > It’s a startling image that illustrates the deep-rooted biases of AI research. Input a low-resolution picture of Barack Obama, the first black president of the United States, into an algorithm designed to generate depixelated faces, and the output is a white man. > It’s not just Obama, either. Get the same algorithm to generate high-resolution images of actress Lucy Liu or congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez from low-resolution inputs, and the resulting faces look distinctly white. As one popular tweet quoting the Obama example put it: “This image speaks volumes about the dangers of bias in AI.”
- Jensson 5y ago
  Wanting the AI to have the same racial bias as Americans, that is that Barrack Obama who is half white half east African should be categorised the same as someone with west African heritage is just dumb. Barrack Obama has a white mother and a father from Kenya, so has little resemblance to African Americans who have mostly west African heritage, only reason people don't see a difference is because they are so used to categorise people by skin color. Of course getting data from all areas of Africa and all mixes of people would be great, but there are limits and adding in more west Africans wouldn't have helped accurately depixel Obamas face.
runako 5y ago
This is actually pretty funny. In much of the American Deep South, even Americans from other parts of the country can't identify race reliably when sitting next to a person. The notion that a classifier can reliably identify race based on an 8x8 grayscale is risible.
- jcims 5y ago
  Your comment is the only one in this entire thread that mentions reliability. Even if it were a meaningful metric in the context of race, an AUC of .68-.72 is a puncher's chance at best.

by jcims 5y ago

ceejayoz 5y ago

> We wouldn't be particularly surprised that it can guess race. That's actually a great example of this problem, though. https://www.theverge.com/21298762/face-depixelizer-ai-machine-learning-tool-pulse-stylegan-obama-bias https://www.theverge.com/21298762/face-depixelizer-ai-machin... > It’s a startling image that illustrates the deep-rooted biases of AI research. Input a low-resolution picture of Barack Obama, the first black president of the United States, into an algorithm designed to generate depixelated faces, and the output is a white man. > It’s not just Obama, either. Get the same algorithm to generate high-resolution images of actress Lucy Liu or congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez from low-resolution inputs, and the resulting faces look distinctly white. As one popular tweet quoting the Obama example put it: “This image speaks volumes about the dangers of bias in AI.”

Jensson 5y ago
Wanting the AI to have the same racial bias as Americans, that is that Barrack Obama who is half white half east African should be categorised the same as someone with west African heritage is just dumb. Barrack Obama has a white mother and a father from Kenya, so has little resemblance to African Americans who have mostly west African heritage, only reason people don't see a difference is because they are so used to categorise people by skin color. Of course getting data from all areas of Africa and all mixes of people would be great, but there are limits and adding in more west Africans wouldn't have helped accurately depixel Obamas face.

runako 5y ago

This is actually pretty funny. In much of the American Deep South, even Americans from other parts of the country can't identify race reliably when sitting next to a person. The notion that a classifier can reliably identify race based on an 8x8 grayscale is risible.

jcims 5y ago
Your comment is the only one in this entire thread that mentions reliability. Even if it were a meaningful metric in the context of race, an AUC of .68-.72 is a puncher's chance at best.