Google Photos identified black people as 'gorillas,' but racist software isn't new

Recent reports of Google Photos incorrectly identifying black people as 'gorillas' have once again brought to light the issue of AI bias and accountability. While this incident may seem shocking, it is not unprecedented in the realm of AI development.

Matched TAIM controls

Suggested mapping from embedding similarity (not a formal assessment). Browse all TAIM controls

MAP 1.6 — similarity 0.529, rank 1. TAIM detail and related incidents →
MAP 4.1 — similarity 0.495, rank 2. TAIM detail and related incidents →
MEASURE 2.10 — similarity 0.493, rank 3. TAIM detail and related incidents →

AI governance case studies

For forensic AI governance failure analysis (TAIMScore™ case studies), browse Human Signal’s Failure Files™.

Source

Data from the AI Incident Database (AIID). Cite this incident: https://incidentdatabase.ai/cite/16

Data source

Incident data is from the AI Incident Database (AIID).

When citing the database as a whole, please use:

McGregor, S. (2021) Preventing Repeated Real World AI Failures by Cataloging Incidents: The AI Incident Database. In Proceedings of the Thirty-Third Annual Conference on Innovative Applications of Artificial Intelligence (IAAI-21). Virtual Conference.

Pre-print on arXiv · Database snapshots & citation guide

We use weekly snapshots of the AIID for stable reference. For the official suggested citation of a specific incident, use the “Cite this incident” link on each incident page.