Facebook Apologizes After A.I. Puts 'Primates' Label on Video of Black Men

[Nevilledog]

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NYTimes Tech
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Some Facebook users who recently watched a video featuring Black men saw an automated prompt from the social network asking if they would like to continue “seeing videos about Primates.”

Facebook Apologizes After A.I. Puts ‘Primates’ Label on Video of Black Men
Facebook called it “an unacceptable error.” The company has struggled with other issues related to race.
nytimes.com
4:35 PM · Sep 3, 2021

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/03/technology/facebook-ai-race-primates.html


Facebook users who recently watched a video from a British tabloid featuring Black men saw an automated prompt from the social network that asked if they would like to “keep seeing videos about Primates,” causing the company to investigate and disable the artificial intelligence-powered feature that pushed the message.

On Friday, Facebook apologized for what it called “an unacceptable error” and said it was looking into the recommendation feature to “prevent this from happening again.”

The video, dated June 27, 2020, was by The Daily Mail and featured clips of Black men in altercations with white civilians and police officers. It had no connection to monkeys or primates.

Darci Groves, a former content design manager at Facebook, said a friend had recently sent her a screenshot of the prompt. She then posted it to a product feedback forum for current and former Facebook employees. In response, a product manager for Facebook Watch, the company’s video service, called it “unacceptable” and said the company was “looking into the root cause.”

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[fescuerescue]

1. They should teach the ai computer to apologize.

If it’s going to pret be to be intelligent, it needs o learn that lesson too.