Google: Unprofessional Hair = Black women?

[pErvinalia]

"Can an algorithm itself be racist? Or is it only reflecting the wider social landscape?"
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/ ... ?CMP=fb_gu

[Forty Two]

The Guardian.... refers to this not as interesting or as a curiosity. Oh, no. This is "alarming."

I did the google, and then looked at what came up.

The first two images are from articles showing how natural hair can be professional. The first is an image from an article about "natural hair myths" and is a representation of what would be seen as professional natural hair, not unprofessional hair. The image result is not google saying "this is unprofessional hair" -- this is an image from an article that uses the words "professional" and "unprofessional" and hair a lot, but the image itself is on a slide of a slideshow to show the reader that the idea that natural hair is unprofessional is a myth. The second, too, shows a well-groomed but "natural hair" woman, to show that it's not that there is anything inherently unprofessional about "natural hair."

The third image is a woman with purple hair, from an article where the do's and don'ts of hair are discussed. The issue with the third woman's hair is that it is purple, not that it or she is black.

The fourth image is from an article about a woman who believes she is being treated unfairly at work because she chose to let her hair become "natural." This is, again, not any suggestion that the hair in the image is unprofessional, as the image used is not of the person complaining about being treated unfairly. The image is being used to show how the natural hair looks o.k. and nobody would really complain about it being unprofessional. It's designed to show the unreasonableness of calling natural hair unprofessional.

The fifith image is from a youtube video made by a black woman who is discussing professional and unprofessional hairstyles in the workplace. The image used is, again, designed to show that it's not unprofessional, because it's an example of nice looking natural hair. And, the sixth image is from an article also discussing hairstyles and professionalism, specifically in the context of "ethnic hairstyles."

The first white woman comes up in the seventh image, and she has pastel purple hair. The image comes from a pinterest page with no reference to the workplace or appropriateness involved. The image just comes up because a commenter wrote that part of her thinks it would be unprofessional.

The eighth image is also from Pinterest, but is a black woman, and is described as "purple hair that does NOT look unprofessional."

After that, there are images like one where the woman has a big ball of hair that appears to be resting on the top of her head, and another where the hair is all beaded in bright, multicolor beads that look kind of like rainbow dangling cornrows.

That's pretty much it. The people whining about this need to understand that when you google something, the system isn't really answering your question. Entering "unprofessional hair" and looking at the images isn't resulting in a list of images that are supposed to be of unprofessional hair. It's just as likely that the hair is professional, and came from an article ABOUT whether hair is professional or unprofessional. That appears to be the bulk of the "alarming" problem here....

Thanks Guardian, for another piece of important journalism.

Wouldn't it be just as alarming that none of the issues are of men, or at least there aren't any men until way way down the list?

[Tyrannical]

I guess he forgot about the picture identifier I think Google was using that kept getting blacks confused with apes.

[JimC]

I guess he forgot about the picture identifier I think Google was using that kept getting blacks confused with apes.

Fuck off.

[Tyrannical]

I guess he forgot about the picture identifier I think Google was using that kept getting blacks confused with apes.

Fuck off.

I'm just reporting the news!

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/ ... -photo-app

Google has apologized after its new photo app labelled two black people as “gorillas”.

The photo service, launched in May, automatically tags uploaded pictures using its own artificial intelligence software.

“Google Photos, y’all fucked up. My friend’s not a gorilla,” Jacky Alciné tweeted on Sunday after a photo of him and a friend was mislabelled as “gorillas” by the app.

Google is not the only platform trying to work out bugs in its automatic image labelling.

In May, Flickr’s auto-tagging system came under scrutiny after it labelled images of black people with tags such as “ape” and “animal”. The system also tagged pictures of concentration camps with “sport” or “jungle gym”.

[pErvinalia]

That was a bit of a fuck up. Like Microsoft's recent Taybot which turned into a 13 yr old racist sexbot.

[Tyrannical]

That was a bit of a fuck up. Like Microsoft's recent Taybot which turned into a 13 yr old Nazi sexbot.

Fixed it for you

But yeah that was hilarious, I spent a bit of time reading those tweets.

[Svartalf]

I guess he forgot about the picture identifier I think Google was using that kept getting blacks confused with apes.

Fuck off.

No, no, NO!! it's !
do it correctly