As we trust computers to do more and more things for us, we're probably going to discover more an more things they can't do. This time, they just straight up "fucked up," as one understandably pissed off Google Photos app user put it.
The man, Jacky Alcine, took a screen grab after noticing that Google Photos, an app which is supposed to automatically recognize people and certain objects and tag photos accordingly, tagged a photo of him with a friend as "gorillas."
When news sites picked up the tweet and began to post about it, Yonatan Zunger, an engineer and "chief architect of social" at Google responded, pointing out the obvious: that's not OK.
Google reportedly attempted to fix the algorhythm, but when that wasn't working, they completely removed the tag "gorillas" from any photos. Zunger said Google is working on "longer-term fixes," including "better recognition of dark skinned faces," according to USA Today.
"Perhaps if the titans of Silicon Valley hired more engineers of color, things like this wouldn't happen so often. Or, you know, ever." Charles Pulliam-Moore wrote on Fusion.
