Facial Recognition Is Accurate, if You’re a White Guy

The New York Times ^ | 09 Feb 2018 | Steve Lohr

[doorgunner69]

It’s a good thing that most criminals are white guys,

Absolute truth, all those alarm company commercials seem to back that up!

[OrangeHoof]

Black privilege.

[Trillian]

So are they saying all you have to do is darken your skin in some way to get past this?

[rlmorel]

LOL I see Internet Memes being created shortly...

[rlmorel]

I knew this would be an interesting thread...:)

[RedMonqey]

All WHITE GUYS look the same...

Duuh !

[MountainWalker]

Technology again proving that common sense is not racist: darker subjects are harder to identify. There’s a reason why thieves dress in dark colors and prefer to operate at night.

[Dr. Bogus Pachysandra]

And werar the Groucho glasses mask. mustache and nose

[a fool in paradise]

Or you could calibrate the cameras differently, no?

How about using IR to “light up” the subject?

But then some lighter skinned subjects might “disappear” (not register) and that would be “racist profiling”...

[chris37]

Good for us then. Must suck to be not us.

[a fool in paradise]

They’ve been saying it.

https://gizmodo.com/5431190/hp-face-tracking-webcams-dont-recognize-black-people
HP Face-Tracking Webcams Don’t Recognize Black People
Adam Frucci
12/21/09 10:00am

How is it even “news” at this point?

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/603996/the-fbis-facial-recognition-program-is-sprawling-and-inaccurate/
Around half of all adult Americans are on the agency’s image database, and its software is incorrect 15 percent of the time.
by Jamie Condliffe March 27, 2017

Last year, we learned about the remarkable scale of the FBI’s facial-recognition technology, with its access to nearly 412 million photos—many originating from sources unrelated to crime, such as ID documents. The intelligence agency has been trying to create a system that can accurately identify criminals in, say, CCTV footage—though it wasn’t then known how well the bureau’s software worked, nor whether it actually improved investigations.

Now, we have at least a little more insight into the program. The Guardian reports that a House oversight committee hearing last week revealed some interesting new details about the proliferation and abilities of the FBI’s facial-recognition systems.

First, there is a very good chance that you, as an American, appear within the database. Among those many millions of photos, it turns out, are the likenesses of around half the country’s adult population. That’s possible because images that are derived from sources unrelated to crime account for 80 percent of the database. So when you send off forms and pictures for a passport, driver’s license, or some other official identification, you’re likely helping grow the data set...

...The software also appears to incorrectly identify black people more frequently than it does white people. Sadly, that effect is predictable: we’ve explained in the past that facial-recognition systems are inherently biased because they’re trained on data sets that underrepresent some demographics.

But that problem can have troubling consequences. As the Guardian notes, black people are more likely to have facial-recognition software used to identify them, so it seems strange—unfair even—to use tools that are clearly ill-equipped to discern their likeness...

https://www.fastcompany.com/3065778/baidu-says-new-face-recognition-can-replace-checking-ids-or-tickets
11.17.16MIND AND MACHINE
Baidu Says Its New Face Recognition Tech Is Better Than Humans At Checking IDs
China’s Baidu claims new tricks for finding and reading faces are more accurate than humans and the fastest way to verify who someone is.

“When I go to a Broadway show, I’m not very happy that scalpers have bought up all the tickets,” says Andrew Ng, chief scientist of Baidu Research, the Silicon Valley branch of the tech company often described as the Google of China. Baidu has proposed a new artificial intelligence solution not only to thwart scalpers but to speed up the wait at any place where checking tickets or IDs leads to long lines. Today the tech giant announced new face recognition technology that it says is up to 99.77% accurate—able to distinguish people even better than a human can...

[a fool in paradise]

In China (where there are a billion+ Chinese people to put in the system) there is a boasted 99.77% success rate.

But yes, in the west, less success with Asian faces in addition to black faces.

[a fool in paradise]

>>There’s a reason why thieves dress in dark colors and prefer to operate at night.

I thought it was because they were moonlighting

[Crucial]

I call BS.

[a fool in paradise]

[W.]

Pretty Fly for a White Guy...

[Salamander]

OMG, it was said.

:D

[higgmeister]

I foresee the widespread use of black face in the future.

In Heinlein's "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress", when fleeing from the Lunar Authority, Wyoming Knott, changed herself from a bombshell blonde babe to a beautiful black woman à la John Howard Griffin, nasal inserts and all. And yes, there was a reference to the question "why not" and Mannie did.

TANSTAAFL!

[higgmeister]

First, there is a very good chance that you, as an American, appear within the database. Among those many millions of photos, it turns out, are the likenesses of around half the country’s adult population. That’s possible because images that are derived from sources unrelated to crime account for 80 percent of the database. So when you send off forms and pictures for a passport, driver’s license, or some other official identification, you’re likely helping grow the data set...

I suspect the good chance grows exponentially for us near or over twenty year Freepers.

[shibumi]

Must have both heard the voice of the Zeitgeist.