Face Depixelizer faces storm for turning Barack Obama white

Occurred: June 2020

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A tool that transformed a pixelated image of Barack Obama into a white man sparked a vigorous debate about racial bias in AI.

Based on the PULSE image facialiser developed by Duke University researchers, Face Depixelizer generates high resolution, de-pixelated photos from low-resolution, pixelated ones and was primarily intended to upscale pixelated portraits of characters from a number of video game franchises.

However, the tool was found to struggle consistently with non-white faces, including those of US politician and Congresswoman Alexandria-Ocasio Cortez and actress Lucy Liu.

The incident called into question the tool's reliability and prompted accusations of racism, including a heated public spat over the nature of algorithmic bias between Facebook chief AI scientist Yann LeCun.

System πŸ€–

Operator: Β 
Developer: Denis Malimonov
Country: USA
Sector: Politics
Purpose: Improve image quality
Technology: Computer vision; Pattern recognition
Issue: Accuracy/reliability; Bias/discrimination - race, ethnicity; Representation

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Type: Incident
Published: September 2023