By Jethro Mullen CNN

When Jacky Alcine looked at his Google Photos app recently, he was appalled by what he saw. The facial recognition software had tagged pictures of him and a friend, both of them African-Americans, with the word "Gorillas."

Alcine, a computer programmer in New York, called out Google about the blunder that had served up the offensive racial slur on the photos he'd uploaded.

"What kind of sample image data you collected that would result in this?" he asked in a series of angry tweets Sunday evening.

His outraged comments quickly picked up traction and the attention of a senior engineer at Google.

Yonatan Zunger, the chief architect of the Internet giant's Google+ platform, promptly jumped into the fray, expressing horror at the bug and promising to get it fixed as quickly as possible.

"This is 100% Not OK," he told Alcine in a tweet. "Sheesh. High on my list of bugs you *never* want to see happen. ::shudder::" Zunger said in another.



On Monday, Zunger said Google would stop using "Gorillas" as a label and was still clearing up the glitch in search results.

Google is also working on longer-term improvements in the use of words to label photos and its image recognition software, which automatically generates the tags.

"Lots of work being done, and lots still to be done. But we're very much on it," Zunger tweeted, explaining that image recognition software has problems with obscured faces, as well as different skin tones and lighting.

"We used to have a problem with people (of all races) being tagged as dogs, for similar reasons," he said.

Alcine has thanked Zunger for his response.

Google didn't immediately respond to calls from CNN late Wednesday seeking comment on the matter.

It's not the first time the Internet company's programming has misidentified subjects. In May, a user caught it tagging her dogs as horses.

The photo sharing service Flickr has also faced difficulties, labeling photos of both black and white people with "ape" and "animal."

In a continuing discussion on Twitter of the problem Alcine highlighted, Zunger insisted that it was down to "ordinary machine learning trouble."

But he acknowledged that "the history of racism is what makes this error particularly bad."

Gotta find a victim anywhere possible.

Gorillas is a racial slur?  

I better go use my white privilege to get the Henry Doorly Zoo to rename their exhibit to the Hubbard G-Word Valley.

I identify as a Gorilla and I am outraged . I demand reparations

Just replace "gorilla" with something more vague, like "From Africa."

It's facial recognition, so you are telling me that they look like this?

Can someone sue someone else for this?

Mistaken identity? yes,
Racial Slur? no

I'd be okay with them flagging everyone doing duck lips as "Large Mouth Bass".

Yes, I'm sure Google intentionally labled them as gorillas. White people's hatred for blacks knows no bounds.

White people are so intrinsically racist that they even write racist computer code to automate racism.

The computer's honesty has no shame. It's only describing what it sees.

If we could power our country on butthurt, we'd be carbon neutral by 2019.

Absolutely not.

Confededate battle flag sabatoged the program.

FIFY!

Computers are racist.  

Ban them.

And to express his outrage he immediately began to beat his chest with his fist and then started knocking down nearby bamboo trees.

Just when when I think that my giveafuckometer about the black man's plight in America is irreparably broken this happens and it goes into negative numbers.

So, the graduation photo didn't count for anything positive?

An insult to Gorillas

Duplicate thread


http://www.ar15.com/forums/t_1_5/1764109_Watch_as_Google_gets_a_free_pass_for_accidentally_labeling_black_people_as_gorillas_____.html

fucking LOL

Gorilla is not a slur.

Why did he assume it was about race?


Maybe he's just ugly as sin?

How embarrassing!

I'm so glad Gorillas don't read!

Court ordered hurt feelings payout from Google in 3..2..1..

I lol'd pretty hard at that one.


Really though, how in the hell did this happen? I thought google was supposed to be a bunch of geniuses.  Obviously not.

Question, when liberal turds royally screw up like this, do they get fired or is that only for mean Republicans?

What was that term used over the radio during the Rodney King riots?

I can't seem to recall...

I believe there was quite a flap about an LAPD police radio call which was monitored by citizens during the Rodney King riots, which involved the use of that term as it had been used in a then-recently popular film title.

Facial recognition is how it happened.

They need to tweak that a bit.

Maybe she'll learn how stupid she looks making that face?

Nahh, better to blame the world.

When an objective computer algorithm says something to you, you might want to listen.

Because there's no national butthurt support network for ugly people.

I can't quit laughing.

Oops

I dunno... If a picture of white people were accidentally labeled "Crackers", I'd think it was pretty funny.

Sure paint all of us ID's a bunch of racists Especially us Northerners

I saw the photo. Made me laugh.

Or apes, monkeys, or gorillas for that matter.

I've known platy of white and black people who might be mistake by a computer algorithm for either, with the right angles and timing.

Steve Tyler and Ron Perlman come to mind, as white celebrities go.

It's just major taboo these days to suggest anyone darker skinned might also look ape like. Computer algorithms are not racist, they are unflinchingly honest.

They tried, the computer was intransigent, they finally had to remove "gorilla" as an option altogether to get the software to stop.

That's racist --------------------- everybody at Google should kill themselves...




According to penis-breath...

he needs to go to japan

I'm with runcible.