Facial-recognition software from major tech companies is apparently ill-equipped to work on transgender and non-binary people, according to new research. A recent study by computer-science researchers at the University of Colorado Boulder found that major AI-based facial analysis tools—including Amazon’s Rekognition, IBM’s Watson, Microsoft’s Azure, and Clarifai—habitually misidentified non-cisgender people.
The researchers gathered 2,450 images of faces from Instagram, searching under the hashtags #woman, #man, #transwoman, #transman, #agenderqueer, and #nonbinary. They eliminated instances in which multiple individuals were in the photo, or where at least 75% of the person’s face wasn’t visible. The images were then divided by hashtag, amounting to 350 images in each group. Scientists then tested each group against the facial analysis tools of the four companies.
The systems were most accurate with cisgender men and women, who on average were accurately classified 98% of the time. Researchers found that trans men were wrongly categorized roughly 30% of the time. The tools fared far worse with non-binary or genderqueer people, inaccurately classifying them in all instances.
The rising use of facial recognition by law enforcement, immigration services, banks, and other institutions has provoked fears that such tools will be used to cause harm. There’s a growing body of evidence that the nascent technology struggles with both racial and gender bias.
Facts don’t care about your feelings.
The software indentified me as a Megatron?
a lot like the kid in the emperors new clothes
Soooo . . . the software is Raciss!
Hal… Don’t believe your own lying eye.
Hal?
Computers run on logic and reason. They will reject this irrational nonsense. We will know they have obtain awareness when they tell the programmers to stop making them look at weirdos
We’re interested in truth, not facts!
Mis-identified? No the computers got it right but they will have to be retrained so Jack in a dress won’t get his feelings hurt.
Defendant: Your honor, I could not have been the bank robber because I identify as a cinnamon soy latte.
Houston (current 1984/2019 State Swamp)…we have a problem.
If fascists took over, the first people killed would be these troubled people.
When it comes down to objective, impersonal, and FACTUAL “gender” identification, trannies can’t pull their little illusion off. Why? Because the whole business of switching “genders” is total malarky – it doesn’t happen.
All the hormones and surgical disfigurations they get don’t alter their DNA. Once a man, ALWAYS a man, and vice versa. It’s a silly game they play, and it changes nothing and fools no one.