The Guardian - "Do Google's 'unprofessional hair' results show it is racist?"

[Halubaris Maphotika]

http://archive.is/pORXW - Article by Leigh Alexander.

 

 

"Google Images was conceived in response to what people most wanted to see. Maybe it hasn’t decided yet what we most need to see."

 

~Direct quote from Article.

 

Discuss, do you feel Google's algorithm is intentionally racist? A fault of the community search rates? Or just a conspiracy theory?

[Yui]

(I've waited a long time to use this gif)

 

Digital numbers and letters don't care for the color of a person's skin; all that is to a programmed algorithm is just a few more hexadecimal values to keep in mind. Machines are learning new things a lot lately, but they still don't feel, and without feeling they can't think that one race is superior to others. As a result, it's quite impossible for a nonliving entity to be racist. Now, I'd say "this doesn't always apply to its creator", but I doubt that's the case either. Gotta keep in mind Google's algorithm was created a long time ago during an era where we as humans didn't go out of our way to find something to be offended by; if there just so happens to be more white guys & gals with formal hair styles on the web, nothing we can do about that besides mass-upload black folks with similar hair styles.

 

I'd also like to point out that unless I've suddenly become race-blind, the number of black people in that first image is roughly equal to non-black, as opposed to "a surprising majority". I counted.

[vla1ne]

this is the kind of thing that editors were hired for. whoever let this pass under the radar deserves to have their position reevaluated. it's something that i honestly can't believe any news report would seriously cover. there's really nothing more that can or should be said on this topic.

[~ P O L A R I S ~]

The image results are not what Google deems to be unprofessional hair, but images posted in conjunction with those keywords. In this case, the results largely correspond with people lamenting that their employers consider their hairstyle "unprofessional". Those employers could more reasonably be accused of racism. 

 

Of course, hairstyles are completely independent of qualifications and any workplace that determines professionalism or a lack thereof from hairstyles probably isn't worth working for in the first place. 

[Ryusei the Morning Star]

 

How is GOOGLE racist, if it's only reflecting what PEOPLE want....

 

>:7