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 π€
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
News, commentary, analysis ποΈ
https://www.businessinsider.com/depixelator-turned-obama-white-illustrates-racial-bias-in-ai-2020-6
https://www.boredpanda.com/low-quality-photo-face-depixelizer/
https://analyticsindiamag.com/yann-lecun-machine-learning-bias-debate/
https://www.pcgamer.com/help-i-cant-stop-looking-at-this-ai-generated-version-of-bj-blazkowicz/
Page info
Type: Incident
Published: September 2023