New research shows driverless car software is significantly more accurate with adults and light skinned people than children and dark-skinned people.

  • @typhonaut
    link
    21 year ago

    It’s not necessarily effort. Data can be expensive and difficult to obtain. If the data doesn’t exist then they have to gather it themselves which is even more expensive.

    I agree that they should be making sure they can account for both cases as much as possible. But you have to remember that from the frame of reference of the model being trained and used in these instances, the only data they’re aware of is the data they were trained on and the data they are currently seeing. If most of the data samples in the entire world feature white people 60% of the time it’s going to be much better at recognizing white people. I don’t think anyone is purposely choosing to focus on white people; I think that those tend to be the data samples that are most easily obtained or simply the most prolific.

    I also think we need to take into account quality of data. As mentioned before, contrast plays a big role in image recognition. High contrast with background results in, on average, better data samples and a better chance of usable data. Training models on data that is not conclusive on ambiguous can lead to ineffective learning and bad predictive scores.

    I don’t think anyone is saying this isn’t a problem but I also don’t believe that this is a willful failure. I think that good data can be difficult to get and that data featuring white people tends to have easier time using image recognition successfully.

    Someone else mentioned infrared imaging, which is a good idea but also more money and adds an extra point of failure. There are pros and cons to every approach and strategy.

    • snooggums
      link
      fedilink
      11 year ago

      Cost being used as an excuse not to expand the data set to represent all types of people is just excusing systemic racism and other discrimination. For example, if the system requires two arms for it to recognize a person that is also a problem, because a person comes in a wife variety of shapes, sizes, and colors.

      If the system can’t handle that then it doesn’t regocnize people. If it costs too much to do right, then that means they can’t afford to do it at all.