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| Google apologises for Photos app's racist blunder | |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| Google says it is "appalled" that its new Photos app mistakenly labelled a black couple as being "gorillas". | Google says it is "appalled" that its new Photos app mistakenly labelled a black couple as being "gorillas". |
| Its product automatically tags uploaded pictures using its own artificial intelligence software. | Its product automatically tags uploaded pictures using its own artificial intelligence software. |
| The error was brought to its attention by a New York-based software developer who was one of the people pictured in the photos involved. | The error was brought to its attention by a New York-based software developer who was one of the people pictured in the photos involved. |
| Google was later criticised on social media because of the label's racist connotations. | |
| "This is 100% not OK," acknowledged Google executive Yonatan Zunger after being contacted by Jacky Alcine via Twitter. | |
| "[It was] high on my list of bugs you 'never' want to see happen." | "[It was] high on my list of bugs you 'never' want to see happen." |
| Mr Zunger said Google had already taken steps to avoid others experiencing a similar mistake. | Mr Zunger said Google had already taken steps to avoid others experiencing a similar mistake. |
| He added it was "also working on longer-term fixes around both linguistics - words to be careful about in photos of people - and image recognition itself - eg better recognition of dark-skinned faces". | He added it was "also working on longer-term fixes around both linguistics - words to be careful about in photos of people - and image recognition itself - eg better recognition of dark-skinned faces". |
| This is not the first time Google Photos has mislabelled one species as another. | This is not the first time Google Photos has mislabelled one species as another. |
| The news site iTech Post noted that the app was tagging pictures of dogs as horses in May. | The news site iTech Post noted that the app was tagging pictures of dogs as horses in May. |
| Users are able to remove badly identified photo classifications within the app, which should help it improve its accuracy over time - a technology known as machine learning. | Users are able to remove badly identified photo classifications within the app, which should help it improve its accuracy over time - a technology known as machine learning. |
| However, Google has acknowledged the sensitivity of the latest mistake. | However, Google has acknowledged the sensitivity of the latest mistake. |
| "We're appalled and genuinely sorry that this happened," a spokeswoman told the BBC. | "We're appalled and genuinely sorry that this happened," a spokeswoman told the BBC. |
| "We are taking immediate action to prevent this type of result from appearing. | "We are taking immediate action to prevent this type of result from appearing. |
| "There is still clearly a lot of work to do with automatic image labelling, and we're looking at how we can prevent these types of mistakes from happening in the future." | "There is still clearly a lot of work to do with automatic image labelling, and we're looking at how we can prevent these types of mistakes from happening in the future." |