The European Tribune is a forum for thoughtful dialogue of European and international issues. You are invited to post comments and your own articles.
Please REGISTER to post.
'A white mask worked better': why algorithms are not colour blind - Guardian
A lot of your work concerns facial recognition technology. How did you become interested in that area? When I was a computer science undergraduate I was working on social robotics - the robots use computer vision to detect the humans they socialise with. I discovered I had a hard time being detected by the robot compared to lighter-skinned people. At the time I thought this was a one-off thing and that people would fix this. Later I was in Hong Kong for an entrepreneur event where I tried out another social robot and ran into similar problems. I asked about the code that they used and it turned out we'd used the same open-source code for face detection - this is where I started to get a sense that unconscious bias might feed into the technology that we create. But again I assumed people would fix this. So I was very surprised to come to the Media Lab about half a decade later as a graduate student, and run into the same problem. I found wearing a white mask worked better than using my actual face.
Later I was in Hong Kong for an entrepreneur event where I tried out another social robot and ran into similar problems. I asked about the code that they used and it turned out we'd used the same open-source code for face detection - this is where I started to get a sense that unconscious bias might feed into the technology that we create. But again I assumed people would fix this.
So I was very surprised to come to the Media Lab about half a decade later as a graduate student, and run into the same problem. I found wearing a white mask worked better than using my actual face.
by Frank Schnittger - Aug 1 20 comments
by Frank Schnittger - Aug 3 4 comments
by Oui - Jul 12 46 comments
by gmoke - Aug 1
by gmoke - Jul 31 3 comments
by Oui - Jul 19 67 comments
by Oui - Aug 92 comments
by Oui - Aug 77 comments
by Frank Schnittger - Aug 34 comments
by Oui - Aug 31 comment
by Oui - Aug 23 comments
by Frank Schnittger - Aug 120 comments
by gmoke - Jul 313 comments
by Oui - Jul 3016 comments
by Oui - Jul 30
by Oui - Jul 261 comment
by Oui - Jul 253 comments
by Oui - Jul 239 comments
by Oui - Jul 1967 comments
by Oui - Jul 1926 comments
by Oui - Jul 1686 comments
by Oui - Jul 151 comment
by Oui - Jul 137 comments
by Oui - Jul 125 comments
by Oui - Jul 1246 comments