Read on Twitter
Trying a horrible experiment...
Which will the Twitter algorithm pick: Mitch McConnell or Barack Obama?
Which will the Twitter algorithm pick: Mitch McConnell or Barack Obama?
"It's the red tie! Clearly the algorithm has a preference for red ties!"
Well let's see...
Well let's see...
Let's try inverting the colors... (h/t @KnabeWolf)
Twitter is just one example of racism manifesting in machine learning algorithms. Other examples:
Millions of Black people affected by racist healthcare algorithms: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-03228-6
Racist predictive policing algorithms: https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/07/17/1005396/predictive-policing-algorithms-racist-dismantled-machine-learning-bias-criminal-justice/
Millions of Black people affected by racist healthcare algorithms: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-03228-6
Racist predictive policing algorithms: https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/07/17/1005396/predictive-policing-algorithms-racist-dismantled-machine-learning-bias-criminal-justice/
Several replies have tried all sorts of meticulous tweaking to get different results.
This misses the original point of my experiment: I just tried to find two relatively similar looking images and (earnestly) see what the results were.
This misses the original point of my experiment: I just tried to find two relatively similar looking images and (earnestly) see what the results were.
Several people have attributed the issue to contrast, dramatically raising the contrast on Obama and decreasing it until McConnell is a dull grey.
While this may get the algorithm to select the other image, it doesn't address the core problem. https://twitter.com/TheArtGun/status/1307508831363104768
While this may get the algorithm to select the other image, it doesn't address the core problem. https://twitter.com/TheArtGun/status/1307508831363104768
These images in particular, comparing low contrast to high contrast Obama, are much more telling. The algorithm seems to prefer a lighter Obama over a darker one: https://twitter.com/m8rbnsn/status/1307801582411689984
If you're interested in this topic in general please follow:
@AnimaAnandkumar director AI research at nVidia / pointed out this issue in 2019: https://twitter.com/AnimaAnandkumar/status/1307465594304974848
@ruha9 author: Race After Technology
@jovialjoy founder: Algorithmic Justice League
@AnimaAnandkumar director AI research at nVidia / pointed out this issue in 2019: https://twitter.com/AnimaAnandkumar/status/1307465594304974848
@ruha9 author: Race After Technology
@jovialjoy founder: Algorithmic Justice League
