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Microsoft's New AI Mistakenly Identifies Photos, Ignores Hitler (mashable.com)

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the totally-not-racist dept.

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."

8 of 214 comments (clear)

  1. I'd say by bferrell · · Score: 4, Funny

    They don't want another nazi-bot

    1. Re:I'd say by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      Computers are inherently racist because they don't understand what it's like being black.

    2. Re:I'd say by ultranova · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Sorry dude, it's the law. A white guy must be racist and any guy must be misogynist.

      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.

      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.

      Your bravery is an inspiration to us all.

      --

      Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.

  2. PhB.B.B.B.B.B by Tablizer · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.
  3. 1/2 of /. readers say AI will take their job by raymorris · · Score: 4, Funny

    I'm reminded that about half of Slashdotters are afraid that AI like this will put them out of a job soon. The other half of Slashdotters can tell the difference between a cell phone and the first lady, so they won't be replaced by Microsoft software.

    On the other hand, 15% of Slashdot readers can't tell the difference between Obama and Hitler, with this AI can do so.

  4. Put up or shut up. by westlake · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

    It is trivially easy to get a instant mod-up on Slashdot by pointing to the Microsoft's AI's occasional mistakes and not its successes. But most of the time Microsoft's AI seems to be getting it right. If you have something better, put it up where we can see it.

    1. Re:Put up or shut up. by phantomfive · · Score: 4, Interesting

      IBM - Watson, a computer that can win at Jeopardy
      Google - AlphaGo, a computer that wins at Go
      Microsoft - Tay, a racist chatbot

      Is there really a comparison? Even if Microsoft has some decent technology, they're definitely losing on the marketing front, they are making themselves look like dancing monkey cousins.

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
  5. All for legal reasons by gnasher719 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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).