Twitter has received complaints in recent days that the platform’s photo preview tool is automatically cropping out the faces of Black people who appear in images alongside white people.
The social media giant said this week that it had tested the algorithm before its launch, but that the technology had never demonstrated any preference for skin color until now.
Photo previews enable users to quickly see a cropped version of a larger image as they scroll through a news feed. The entire image is enabled once the user clicks on it.
Tests are continuing on the cropping tool and “it’s clear that we’ve got more analysis to do,” the company acknowledged in a statement, according to CBS News.
Some social media users detected the system’s bias last weekend.
Colin Madland, a white doctoral student, said the Twitter preview of a photo he posted of himself with a Black colleague was cropped down to only his face, CBS reported.
Tony Arcieri, a programmer, also posted a telling demonstration of how the algorithm was behaving — posting an image that included former President Barack Obama and U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell side by side.
Twitter’s cropping tool narrowed down to McConnell and cropped out Obama even when Arcieri tried altering the original image, CBS reported.
The artificial intelligence isn’t necessarily biased, experts say, but the technology appears to be “reflecting and amplifying historical patterns of discrimination” created by humans, said Sarah Myers West, who studies artificial intelligence bias at New York University, CBS reported.
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