IBM Pulls Racially-Biased Facial Recognition Technology

Facial recognition is skewed to fail on black faces.

All companies perform better on lighter subjects as a whole than on darker subjects as a whole with an 11.8% - 19.2% difference in error rates.

IBM had the largest gap in accuracy, with a difference of 34.4% in error rate between lighter males and darker females.IBM Watson leaders responded within a day after receiving the performance results and are reportedly making changes to the Watson Visual Recognition API. Official Statement.

http://gendershades.org/overview.html

In conclusion, we want to sincerely thank the authors of this paper for their dedication to ensuring a more diverse and inclusive world.

http://gendershades.org/docs/ibm.pdf

IBM will no longer offer general purpose facial recognition or analysis software, IBM CEO Arvind Krishna said in a letter to Congress today. The company will also no longer develop or research the technology, IBM tells The Verge . Krishna addressed the letter to Sens. Cory Booker (D-NJ) and Kamala Harris (D-CA) and Reps. Karen Bass (D-CA), Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), and Jerrold Nadler (D-NY).

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