Cloud Vision API will not return gendered labels such as 'man' and 'woman'

Re:Cloud Vision API will not return gendered labels such as ... by 0x1221 on Thursday February 20, 2020 @06:58AM (#22374416)

> Given that a person’s gender cannot be inferred by appearance, we have decided to remove these labels in order to align with the Artificial Intelligence Principles at Google, specifically Principle #2: Avoid creating or reinforcing unfair bias.

Isn't this just outright wrong? A person's gender can be inferred by appearance, and with extremely high accuracy at that.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Cloud Vision API will not return gendered labels such as ... by rl3 on Thursday February 20, 2020 @07:53AM (#22374702)

While I tend to agree with you from a technical standpoint, I can't help but think Google is actually doing the morally correct thing here.

If organizations are creating systems using that API, most will just roll with man/woman labeling. If those systems are important, a lot of trans and non-binary people will end up fucked over.

At the end of the day, if the deprecated functionality is still needed, just set a threshold on masculine vs feminine. It's a far more elegant approach, even if more work.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Cloud Vision API will not return gendered labels such as ... by johnlorentzson on Thursday February 20, 2020 @08:07AM (#22374781)

Automatic gender detection should certainly not be used for data entry where the data is of any real consequence (even if we ignored trans/non-binary people), simply due to the fact that it can't be proven to be perfect.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Cloud Vision API will not return gendered labels such as ... by muzani on Thursday February 20, 2020 @09:23AM (#22375240)

I think yeah, it's easier to use masculine/feminine. Something like long hair, soft skin, pink cheeks, more curves is feminine. Someone with more squares/edges (jaw, cheeks, shoulders) is more masculine.

Humans have trouble with this too, e.g. many crushed on Taylor Hanson.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Cloud Vision API will not return gendered labels such as ... by brodouevencode on Thursday February 20, 2020 @11:09AM (#22376047)

I always get it confused: is it sex or gender that people can assign to themselves?

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Cloud Vision API will not return gendered labels such as ... by foldr on Thursday February 20, 2020 @01:02PM (#22377048)

Are you really confused about this, or just rhetorically confused? You can answer the question by googling "sex vs gender".

[ Parent | on HN ]