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Microsoft's New AI Mistakenly Identifies Photos, Ignores Hitler (mashable.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Microsoft's newest online AI, CaptionBot, tries to identify what's in an uploaded photo, using two recognition APIs recently released by Microsoft Cognitive Services for app developers-- "Computer Vision" and "Emotion". But while Microsoft brags that their AI "can understand thousands of objects, as well as the relationships between them," bloggers are also sharing funny examples of CaptionBot's many mistakes. While it correctly identified Bea Arthur, Ozzy Osbourne and Joan Jett, and a movie poster with Arnold Schwarzenegger, it mistakenly identified Gene Simmons of KISS as "a woman in a red jacket...sitting on a motorcycle," described a wedding dress as "a cat wearing a tie," mistook Michelle Obama for a cellphone, and described one man's Twitter avatar as "a close up of two giraffes near a tree."
But CNNMoney reports that the AI is apparently programmed to ignore all images of Hitler and other Nazi symbolism (as well as Osama bin Laden), reporting that Microsoft's AI "often came back with 'I really can't describe the picture' and a confused emoji. It did, however, identify other Nazi leaders like Joseph Mengele and Joseph Goebbels."
But CNNMoney reports that the AI is apparently programmed to ignore all images of Hitler and other Nazi symbolism (as well as Osama bin Laden), reporting that Microsoft's AI "often came back with 'I really can't describe the picture' and a confused emoji. It did, however, identify other Nazi leaders like Joseph Mengele and Joseph Goebbels."
Microsoft's AI keeps embarrassing them. It's like they thought their corporate image problem from being a ham-handed OS monopoly wasn't big enough: they needed to automate gaffes.
Table-ized A.I.
Both Microsoft and Google's varieties are rather fun.
The key to CaptionBot is to feed it lots of images, and always give 1 star when it's spot on and 5 when it's most ridiculously wrong. Over time, it "improves".
Computers are inherently racist because they don't understand what it's like being black.
Doesn't help that crime and education statistics reinforce the negative stereotypes about black Americans. When all the machine looks at is data, all it will get is conclusions from data.
They don't have any problem identifying photos of Hitler as Hitler. The problem is false positives: If the software mistook the photo of some living person as Hitler, and that was somehow published, that person would not be happy, and might start a lawsuit.
Problem is easily solved by telling the software "if you think it is Hitler, you say you don't recognise it". There was a case a while ago where some photo analysis software mistook a woman for a gorilla. Highly embarrassing for everyone involved.
I would think that software makers would nowadays add precautions to make particularly embarrassing mistakes less likely. (Mistaking a gorilla for a woman is no big deal, the other way round it's very bad).
Sorry dude, it's the law. A white guy must be racist and any guy must be misogynist. Took me a while to get used to it but once you're accustomed to being a racist woman hater it's not that bad. I can't shave with a straight razor anymore 'cause I fear I might off that asshole, but that's a small price to pay to fit into the politically correct paradigm again.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
And yet I'm a white guy who doesn't seem to run into accusations of either racism or chauvinism. It makes me wonder if all the people who complain about being harassed by the politically correct hordes are, in fact, the innocent victims they try to present themselves as.
Your bravery is an inspiration to us all.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.