Britain’s most tattooed man says new UK age checks block him from p*rn sites as facial recognition mistakes his tattoos for a mask, calling the tech discriminatory.
It’s not a discrimination thing, I’m sure this is just facial recognition failing over his extensive facial tattoos, same as it can fail on people with very dark skin. No racism or discrimination needed to explain it, it’s just the software or sometimes even physics that causes it.
Having said that, fuck the UK government for implementing this shit.
Get your porn whilst you can because other countries will follow suit and soon even a VPN won’t save you anymore
same as it can fail on people with very dark skin. No racism or discrimination needed to explain it
That’s a classic case of implicit racism. The technology is tailored to perform optimally against lighter toned skin, because the people building and evaluating the software are all lighter skinned, themselves. Similarly, I’m sure, the developers of the technology didn’t bother to evaluate how it would work on people with facial skin conditions, markings, or tattoos.
In classic “Move Fast and Break Things” style, they rushed an application to market that only half worked on some people, and then told anyone who would fail the check by default that this was an individual’s problem to resolve.
Or, in this case, physics. You assume that, where physics is the issue, it must be racism because… Everything is racism, I guess?
Dark skin color reflect less light. Somebody with an extremely dark skinay actually reflect so little light that it’s harder to make out details. Could this be adjusted for? Up to certain levels, I’m sure. Should we call everything racist automatically?
Imagine a world in which every picture of a white person came out with them looking olive green.
And imagine the camera company - based out of the ultra-wealth Ethiopian tech sector that holds all the patents on the technology - putting out a PR brief that says “Nothing we can do. Human skin isn’t supposed to be that reflective.”
Could this be adjusted for?
Yes. But it would require people to acknowledge the problem and care enough to fix it.
The system is still discriminating against this guy’s face tattoos even if it’s unintentional. Hopefully they will fix the issue.
This is one of the many ethical issues that can come up when you build software. It might be just a bug for the engineers who built it but this probably ruined this guy’s whole life. I hope he can move on from this hahaha.
Agreed with all your points though. What a stupid law. It’s crazy they are popping up all over now. We are losing anonymity online. What little we had left.
I want there to be a difference between actual discrimination and just software not working the way it should be, or sometimes even physics.
Again as the example: facial recognition on people with extremely dark skin. The camera gets less light, less detail, it’s literally physics causing the issue, NOT discrimination.
If cour the that needs to be fixed but that might mean that the camera needs a small light to help, for example. Again, this is not discrimination, it’s just a consequence of having darker skin, doesn’t make anyone less or more, it is what it is.
I really get uncomfortable when people start throwing around “discrimination!!!” on things like this, because it means that in my job as a software developer now suddenly I can be called a nazi because a software method wasn’t done quite right
The discrimination part comes in when the decision to use it is made. In your example that’s a huge technical flaw that makes the technology useless for a large part of the population yet someone still chose to implement it in a way that would affect people’s lives.
The technology is cool on its own but why does it need to be used if it doesn’t work correctly? If you were the person making the call and you knew the technology didn’t serve all of the people it’s supposed to in a fair way and you still choose to use it that is discrimination.
Maybe it was initially a bug but once it is identified and there is no real attempt to fix it or make a work around, that would also be discrimination. It’s not the bug that is discriminating it’s the people who allow it to persist intentionally.
The technical aspect could be a systemic SDLC problem if the software wasn’t tested on a broad enough range of users. As for what’s broad enough, that’s another issue to debate.
It’s not a discrimination thing, I’m sure this is just facial recognition failing over his extensive facial tattoos, same as it can fail on people with very dark skin. No racism or discrimination needed to explain it, it’s just the software or sometimes even physics that causes it.
Having said that, fuck the UK government for implementing this shit.
Get your porn whilst you can because other countries will follow suit and soon even a VPN won’t save you anymore
That’s a classic case of implicit racism. The technology is tailored to perform optimally against lighter toned skin, because the people building and evaluating the software are all lighter skinned, themselves. Similarly, I’m sure, the developers of the technology didn’t bother to evaluate how it would work on people with facial skin conditions, markings, or tattoos.
In classic “Move Fast and Break Things” style, they rushed an application to market that only half worked on some people, and then told anyone who would fail the check by default that this was an individual’s problem to resolve.
“Who cares if this system works for <Subset of People X>?” shows up in all sorts of lowest-bidder crap work, from medical studies to mechanical engineering. Whether its left-handed car drivers get fucked by a right-hand favorable design or clinical trials that just didn’t bother including women as subjects or dark-skinned people failing facial recognition, the implicit bigotry of poor engineering is rampant in our modern world.
Or, in this case, physics. You assume that, where physics is the issue, it must be racism because… Everything is racism, I guess?
Dark skin color reflect less light. Somebody with an extremely dark skinay actually reflect so little light that it’s harder to make out details. Could this be adjusted for? Up to certain levels, I’m sure. Should we call everything racist automatically?
Probably not
But
Imagine a world in which every picture of a white person came out with them looking olive green.
And imagine the camera company - based out of the ultra-wealth Ethiopian tech sector that holds all the patents on the technology - putting out a PR brief that says “Nothing we can do. Human skin isn’t supposed to be that reflective.”
Yes. But it would require people to acknowledge the problem and care enough to fix it.
The system is still discriminating against this guy’s face tattoos even if it’s unintentional. Hopefully they will fix the issue.
This is one of the many ethical issues that can come up when you build software. It might be just a bug for the engineers who built it but this probably ruined this guy’s whole life. I hope he can move on from this hahaha.
Agreed with all your points though. What a stupid law. It’s crazy they are popping up all over now. We are losing anonymity online. What little we had left.
I want there to be a difference between actual discrimination and just software not working the way it should be, or sometimes even physics.
Again as the example: facial recognition on people with extremely dark skin. The camera gets less light, less detail, it’s literally physics causing the issue, NOT discrimination.
If cour the that needs to be fixed but that might mean that the camera needs a small light to help, for example. Again, this is not discrimination, it’s just a consequence of having darker skin, doesn’t make anyone less or more, it is what it is.
I really get uncomfortable when people start throwing around “discrimination!!!” on things like this, because it means that in my job as a software developer now suddenly I can be called a nazi because a software method wasn’t done quite right
Don’t assume evil where plain stupidity suffices
The discrimination part comes in when the decision to use it is made. In your example that’s a huge technical flaw that makes the technology useless for a large part of the population yet someone still chose to implement it in a way that would affect people’s lives.
The technology is cool on its own but why does it need to be used if it doesn’t work correctly? If you were the person making the call and you knew the technology didn’t serve all of the people it’s supposed to in a fair way and you still choose to use it that is discrimination.
Maybe it was initially a bug but once it is identified and there is no real attempt to fix it or make a work around, that would also be discrimination. It’s not the bug that is discriminating it’s the people who allow it to persist intentionally.
The technical aspect could be a systemic SDLC problem if the software wasn’t tested on a broad enough range of users. As for what’s broad enough, that’s another issue to debate.