530
An Asian MIT student asked AI to turn an image of her into a professional headshot. It made her white with lighter skin and blue eyes. (www.businessinsider.com)
submitted 3 years ago by [M, B] to c/technology@lemmy.world
131 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

An Asian MIT student asked AI to turn an image of her into a professional headshot. It made her white with lighter skin and blue eyes.::Rona Wang, a 24-year-old MIT student, was experimenting with the AI image creator Playground AI to create a professional LinkedIn photo.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] 150 points 3 years ago* (last edited 3 years ago) (4 children)

It’s less a reflection on the tech, and more a reflection on the culture that generated the content that trained the tech.

Wang told The Globe that she was worried about the consequences in a more serious situation, like if a company used AI to select the most "professional" candidate for the job and it picked white-looking people.

This is a real potential issue, not just “clickbait”.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 8 child comments
    •
  • [–] 34 points 3 years ago (2 children)

    If companies go pick the most professional applicant by their photo that is a reason for concern, but it has little to do with the image training data of AI.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 4 child comments
    •
  • [–] 28 points 3 years ago (2 children)

    A company using a photo to choose a candidate is really concerning regardless if they use AI to do it.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 4 child comments
    •
  • [–] 20 points 3 years ago* (last edited 3 years ago) (2 children)

    Some people (especially in business) seem to think that adding AI to a workflow will make obviously bad ideas somehow magically work. Dispelling that notion is why articles like this are important.

    (Actually, I suspect they know they’re still bad ideas, but delegating the decisions to an AI lets the humans involved avoid personal blame.)

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 4 child comments
    •
  • [–] 6 points 3 years ago

    It's a massive issue that many people (especially in business) have this "the AI has spoken"-bias.

    Similar to how they implement whatever the consultant says, no matter if it actually makes sense, they just blindly follow what the AI says .

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 5 points 3 years ago

    Businesses will continue to use bandages rather than fix their root issue. This will always be the case.

    I work in factory automation and almost every camera/vision system we've installed has been a bandage of some sort because they think it will magically fix their production issues.

    We've had a sales rep ask if our cameras use AI, too. 😵‍💫

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 8 points 3 years ago*

    Again, that's not really the case.

    I have Asian friends that have used these tools and generated headshots that were fine. Just because this one Asian used a model that wasn't trained for her demographic doesn't make it a reflection of anything other than the fact that she doesn't understand how MML models work.

    The worst thing that happened when my friends used it were results with too many fingers or multiple sets of teeth 🤣

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 2 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    No company would use ML to classify who's the most professional looking candidate.

    1. Anyone with any ML experience at all knows how ridiculous this concept is. Who's going to go out there and create a dataset matching "proffesional looking scores" to headshots?
    2. The amount of bad press and ridicule this would attract isn't worth it to any company.
  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] 7 points 3 years ago

    Companies already use resume scanners that have been found to bias against black sounding names. They’re designed to feedback loop successful candidates, and guess what shit the ML learned real quick?

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent