Britain’s most tattooed man says new UK age checks block him from p*rn sites as facial recognition mistakes his tattoos for a mask, calling the tech discriminatory.
same as it can fail on people with very dark skin. No racism or discrimination needed to explain it
That’s a classic case of implicit racism. The technology is tailored to perform optimally against lighter toned skin, because the people building and evaluating the software are all lighter skinned, themselves. Similarly, I’m sure, the developers of the technology didn’t bother to evaluate how it would work on people with facial skin conditions, markings, or tattoos.
In classic “Move Fast and Break Things” style, they rushed an application to market that only half worked on some people, and then told anyone who would fail the check by default that this was an individual’s problem to resolve.
Or, in this case, physics. You assume that, where physics is the issue, it must be racism because… Everything is racism, I guess?
Dark skin color reflect less light. Somebody with an extremely dark skinay actually reflect so little light that it’s harder to make out details. Could this be adjusted for? Up to certain levels, I’m sure. Should we call everything racist automatically?
Imagine a world in which every picture of a white person came out with them looking olive green.
And imagine the camera company - based out of the ultra-wealth Ethiopian tech sector that holds all the patents on the technology - putting out a PR brief that says “Nothing we can do. Human skin isn’t supposed to be that reflective.”
Could this be adjusted for?
Yes. But it would require people to acknowledge the problem and care enough to fix it.
That’s a classic case of implicit racism. The technology is tailored to perform optimally against lighter toned skin, because the people building and evaluating the software are all lighter skinned, themselves. Similarly, I’m sure, the developers of the technology didn’t bother to evaluate how it would work on people with facial skin conditions, markings, or tattoos.
In classic “Move Fast and Break Things” style, they rushed an application to market that only half worked on some people, and then told anyone who would fail the check by default that this was an individual’s problem to resolve.
“Who cares if this system works for <Subset of People X>?” shows up in all sorts of lowest-bidder crap work, from medical studies to mechanical engineering. Whether its left-handed car drivers get fucked by a right-hand favorable design or clinical trials that just didn’t bother including women as subjects or dark-skinned people failing facial recognition, the implicit bigotry of poor engineering is rampant in our modern world.
Or, in this case, physics. You assume that, where physics is the issue, it must be racism because… Everything is racism, I guess?
Dark skin color reflect less light. Somebody with an extremely dark skinay actually reflect so little light that it’s harder to make out details. Could this be adjusted for? Up to certain levels, I’m sure. Should we call everything racist automatically?
Probably not
But
Imagine a world in which every picture of a white person came out with them looking olive green.
And imagine the camera company - based out of the ultra-wealth Ethiopian tech sector that holds all the patents on the technology - putting out a PR brief that says “Nothing we can do. Human skin isn’t supposed to be that reflective.”
Yes. But it would require people to acknowledge the problem and care enough to fix it.