Hacker News Reader

Comment by mycodesucks | Hacker News Reader

I mean... It's not wrong, we're all primates.

That's not how language works. We're also all animals but not animals at the same time. Context and culture affect the meaning of words.

I read the comment in a different way: We are all literally primates. Humans and apes share a lot of physical characteristics. It's not odd that an AI would confuse humans with primates, it's just unfortunate.

Parent's point is not irrelevant though, did the AI label only people of one specific racial background as primates?

The article doesn't really provide any details as it's only a few lines long.

The word "primate" in itself is not a slur but it can be used as a slur, as you said, depending on the context, however not much context was given in the article.

There was a discussion of this in a sibling thread with more context.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28416909

But the sibling thread doesn't seem to have additional sources. My point was that this BBC article we are discussing leaves a lot to interpretation and I wish it was more informative.

That's interesting. It may have done the same with white people the same amount but nobody called the BBC to whine, or the BBC didn't care about that.

If it had tagged all humans in all photos as primates; this wouldn't be newsworthy- but it didn’t do that. It only tagged black people. Which if you can empathise with others, is understandably offensive.

> but it didn’t do that. It only tagged black people

Do you have a source for that? I couldn't find this in the article but maybe I missed it.

We are, and when it labels both black and white people that, perhaps we can consider that a fair point.

> and when it labels both black and white people

Unfortunately the article doesn't provide any details on whether that was the case or not. I'm finding it very difficult to form an opinion about this specific issue without having more info.

You think Facebook wouldn’t be shouting that from the rooftops if it were so?

Probably they would. If we had a more thorough source we would know for sure.

Can we be certain that it didn't label any white people this way? I feel like if it did, they likely wouldn't care. This isn't a comment about whether or not the problem is racist, or what it means, which I care not to discuss.

Remember that nearly every cartoonist compared GWB to a chimp. In fairness, he kinda resembled one. Doing so to Obama would have been immediately flagged as racist.

I don't need a history lesson, or to be explained to why it's so different... I'm simply making an observation and asking a question.

If anyone can answer the initial question with certainty, then it is clear there is much work to do as they didn't train anything right.

> Can we be certain that it didn't label any white people this way?

I would expect their reps would be shouting this loudly if it were the case.

> Remember that nearly every cartoonist compared GWB to a chimp. In fairness, he kinda resembled one. Doing so to Obama would have been immediately flagged as racist.

Sure, because context and history both matter.

I definitely agree with that, absolutely.

I guess my point was, ineloquently put, humans of any color are very apelike in general. It's sheer curiosity on my part whether AI is -only- making this type of mistake with black people, not any cry of racism or reverse racism or unfairness.

How would you feel if you’d be labeled supremacist (only if your skin complexion was white)? After all the human species is the supreme species... Oh well I guess that wouldn’t bother you and you’d take it as a compliment. Now imagine the reverse of a compliment, to be given one of the labels that has been used again and again to belittle you, to make you feel inferior (only to make others feel above you), a label which you’d get stamped on regardless of any of your acomplishments, qualities, virtues and so on.

I think the core difference is that one is a honest mistake and the latter is just deprecating. It’s fine if AI calls me “white treehouse” but it’s less fine if it labels me “stupid”, even if my face really looks stupid.

The reality is that people have become extremely sensitive about some topics even if they’re not the recipients of the perceived insult.

I don’t think any algo should be in the business of labeling any people period. What you call sensitive is offensive to others as much as you being labeled stupid by the look of your face. It is wrong in your case and it is also wrong in the cases you perceive as sensitive. I actually find it quite insensitive of you to dictate what others should feel based on your experience. And selfish too

> I don’t think any algo should be in the business of labeling any people period.

You’re proving my point. What you’re saying is that we should stop any algo from categorizing anything just to avoid a 0.00001% of hurting someone’s feelings. People like you are going to bring back the dark ages. Go back to Twitter.

Can’t we just treat these incidents as bugs and fix them instead of just fueling the outrage machine?

I'm not proving any point of yours as you seem to be set on your arguments without reading what I say: I'm talking about labeling people here not just anything in general.

Monkeys aren't people. You can't label monkeys without risking to label people, therefore you're suggesting we stop labeling anything that could be mistaken for people. I'm sure you've seen "Tag this person" areas in photos that lack people entirely. Is this Mike or just a piece of wood?

Intent matters.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com