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It reminds me of the early Kodak 35mm film which worked great if you were white but they were horrible when using them with darker skinned people. It took a co

It reminds me of the early Kodak 35mm film which worked great if you were white but they were horrible when using them with darker skinned people. It took a complaint by furniture and chocolate makers that the photos of their products were shit before Kodak fixed it. So were the chemists racist ???. Obviously not but their subconscious bias of being white slipped in when designing it - it is the same as any algorithm or technology designed by a non diverse team.

notRobot 5y ago
Relevant article (and podcast episode): https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/shirley-cards/ https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/shirley-cards/ > Each Kodak printer needed to be calibrated and standardized before photos were printed on it. And so the printers came with something called a “Shirley Card,” which was a color reference card created by Kodak in the 1950s. Shirley was a white woman, and so the cameras used to be calibrated to white skin tones, and performed poorly with darker skin tones.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
ComradePhil 5y ago
> but their subconscious bias of being white slipped in when designing it Or they didn't have dark skinned people around them to test it on... and didn't think about why it would not work on darker skins. By saying "subconscious bias" you're implying that deep down they didn't want it to work for dark skinned people.
- tibbydudeza 5y ago
  No you are misconstruing it. They did not think of it even though the US has a significant population of African Americans - they moved in social circles or lived in areas where black people simply did not feature in their life. Out of sight - out of mind.
  - ZeroGravitas 5y ago
    In a capitalist economy, if there's a group with less money the system is explicitly designed to discriminate against them. Why would you optimise your product for people who can't afford it? > The typical black family had almost no wealth in 1968 ($2,467; data refer to 1963). Today, that figure is about six times larger ($17,409), but it is still not that far from zero when you consider that families typically draw on their wealth for larger expenses, such as meeting basic needs over the course of retirement, paying for their children’s college education, putting a down payment on a house, or coping with a job loss or medical crisis. > Over the same period, the wealth of the typical white family almost tripled, from a much higher initial level. In 2016, the median African American family had only 10.2 percent of the wealth of the median white family ($17,409 versus $171,000).8
    - emteycz 5y ago
      I don't see why a "capitalist economy" participant would spend a single cent on discrimination of not-customers. Seems to me they would just not care about them, instead of actively discriminating, and they wouldn't try to stop them from being new customers too.
      - ZeroGravitas 5y ago
        I note you added the word 'actively'. They don't need to actively discriminate, that was my point, the invisible hand does it, just like it turns their selfish desire for money into goods and services for the rich.
        emteycz 5y ago
        Why the rich? Nobody got rich by providing services only to the rich. People get rich by providing services to the masses.
        ZeroGravitas 5y ago
        Sell a man a fish and he'll be fed for a day, teach a man to fish and you'll never get rich selling fish to the masses. Though, ideally if you could make the fish addictive, and if it kills them then only slowly and in a way that needs statistics to be tied back to your product, that's the ideal.
- noobermin 5y ago
  It could have been subconcious, or it could have been unintentional bias, which is what I think OP meant.
- karmakaze 5y ago
  Hanlon's razor: "never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity." I usually use 'incompetence' or 'ignorance' rather than 'stupidity'.

notRobot 5y ago

Relevant article (and podcast episode): https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/shirley-cards/ https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/shirley-cards/ > Each Kodak printer needed to be calibrated and standardized before photos were printed on it. And so the printers came with something called a “Shirley Card,” which was a color reference card created by Kodak in the 1950s. Shirley was a white woman, and so the cameras used to be calibrated to white skin tones, and performed poorly with darker skin tones.

deleted 5y ago
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ComradePhil 5y ago

> but their subconscious bias of being white slipped in when designing it Or they didn't have dark skinned people around them to test it on... and didn't think about why it would not work on darker skins. By saying "subconscious bias" you're implying that deep down they didn't want it to work for dark skinned people.

tibbydudeza 5y ago
No you are misconstruing it. They did not think of it even though the US has a significant population of African Americans - they moved in social circles or lived in areas where black people simply did not feature in their life. Out of sight - out of mind.
- ZeroGravitas 5y ago
  In a capitalist economy, if there's a group with less money the system is explicitly designed to discriminate against them. Why would you optimise your product for people who can't afford it? > The typical black family had almost no wealth in 1968 ($2,467; data refer to 1963). Today, that figure is about six times larger ($17,409), but it is still not that far from zero when you consider that families typically draw on their wealth for larger expenses, such as meeting basic needs over the course of retirement, paying for their children’s college education, putting a down payment on a house, or coping with a job loss or medical crisis. > Over the same period, the wealth of the typical white family almost tripled, from a much higher initial level. In 2016, the median African American family had only 10.2 percent of the wealth of the median white family ($17,409 versus $171,000).8
  - emteycz 5y ago
    I don't see why a "capitalist economy" participant would spend a single cent on discrimination of not-customers. Seems to me they would just not care about them, instead of actively discriminating, and they wouldn't try to stop them from being new customers too.
    - ZeroGravitas 5y ago
      I note you added the word 'actively'. They don't need to actively discriminate, that was my point, the invisible hand does it, just like it turns their selfish desire for money into goods and services for the rich.
      - emteycz 5y ago
        Why the rich? Nobody got rich by providing services only to the rich. People get rich by providing services to the masses.
        ZeroGravitas 5y ago
        Sell a man a fish and he'll be fed for a day, teach a man to fish and you'll never get rich selling fish to the masses. Though, ideally if you could make the fish addictive, and if it kills them then only slowly and in a way that needs statistics to be tied back to your product, that's the ideal.
noobermin 5y ago
It could have been subconcious, or it could have been unintentional bias, which is what I think OP meant.
karmakaze 5y ago
Hanlon's razor: "never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity." I usually use 'incompetence' or 'ignorance' rather than 'stupidity'.