HP computers are racist

wzamen01 · 3.2M views · 2009-12-10 · 2:16

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Overview

A short 2009 amateur video showing an HP MediaSmart webcam whose face tracking follows a white face but fails to track a black face. The uploader presents it as humorous.

On Hacker News

HN cites it as the standard example of algorithmic bias in face detection and of how skewed training data produces biased tech.

Discussed on HN; no positive recommendation is recorded in this export · HN mentions 2013–2023

Topics

Computer vision, speech & NLP Social issues & culture Consumer devices & gadgets

What people said

shadowgovt · 2023-05 · Reference
Functions are tools for humans to cause the computer to achieve a desired output. If the function isn't generating the desired output, change the function. We can talk all day about how the history of facial recognition has used things like the eye-nose-mouth T-shape or high-contrast contours to lock in on the target, but if at the end of the day the solution works for people with light skin and not people with dark skin, "HP computers are racist" for every meaningful (i.e. user-experienced) definition of the concept. (reference: [VIDEO] )
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saltminer · 2021-11 · Reference
> I can't remember which company it was that launched a camera with face identification features, but that didn't recognize any face that wasn't lilly white like every single engineer that worked at that company It was HP [VIDEO]
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Steltek · 2020-10 · Reference
My first thought was about the diversity of faces used in the demo and how ten years ago, computers didn't think black people were humans. [VIDEO] But after that, I was reminded of the paranoia (or not?) around Zoom and that, for an extreme example, the CCP was mining and generating facial fingerprints and social networks using video calls. It seems like this technology is the same concept except put to a useful purpose.
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Sources

Video by wzamen01, played through YouTube.

HN Library · Source license

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