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Incident 144: YouTube's AI Mistakenly Banned Chess Channel over Chess Language Misinterpretation

Description: YouTube's AI-powered hate speech detection system falsely flagged chess content and banned chess creators allegedly due to its misinterpretation of strategy language such as "black," "white," and "attack" as harmful and dangerous.

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Entities

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Alleged: YouTube developed and deployed an AI system, which harmed Antonio Radic , YouTube chess content creators and YouTube users.

Incident Stats

Incident ID
144
Report Count
6
Incident Date
2020-06-28
Editors
Sean McGregor, Khoa Lam
Applied Taxonomies
GMF, CSETv1, MIT

CSETv1 Taxonomy Classifications

Taxonomy Details

Incident Number

The number of the incident in the AI Incident Database.
 

144

AI Tangible Harm Level Notes

Notes about the AI tangible harm level assessment
 

It is possible that Antonio Radic may have lost some revenue from having his YouTube channel suspended for 24 hours, given its popularity. However, this is not explicitly mentioned in the reports.

Special Interest Intangible Harm

An assessment of whether a special interest intangible harm occurred. This assessment does not consider the context of the intangible harm, if an AI was involved, or if there is characterizable class or subgroup of harmed entities. It is also not assessing if an intangible harm occurred. It is only asking if a special interest intangible harm occurred.
 

no

Date of Incident Year

The year in which the incident occurred. If there are multiple harms or occurrences of the incident, list the earliest. If a precise date is unavailable, but the available sources provide a basis for estimating the year, estimate. Otherwise, leave blank. Enter in the format of YYYY
 

2020

GMF Taxonomy Classifications

Taxonomy Details

Known AI Goal Snippets

One or more snippets that justify the classification.
 

(Snippet Text: YouTube's overeager AI might have misinterpreted a conversation about chess as racist language. , Related Classifications: Hate Speech Detection), (Snippet Text: Using the software on over 680,000 comments taken from five popular YouTube chess channels, they found 82 percent of the comments flagged in a sample set didn't include any obvious racist language or hate speech., Related Classifications: Hate Speech Detection)

MIT Taxonomy Classifications

Machine-Classified
Taxonomy Details

Risk Subdomain

A further 23 subdomains create an accessible and understandable classification of hazards and harms associated with AI
 

7.3. Lack of capability or robustness

Risk Domain

The Domain Taxonomy of AI Risks classifies risks into seven AI risk domains: (1) Discrimination & toxicity, (2) Privacy & security, (3) Misinformation, (4) Malicious actors & misuse, (5) Human-computer interaction, (6) Socioeconomic & environmental harms, and (7) AI system safety, failures & limitations.
 
  1. AI system safety, failures, and limitations

Entity

Which, if any, entity is presented as the main cause of the risk
 

AI

Timing

The stage in the AI lifecycle at which the risk is presented as occurring
 

Post-deployment

Intent

Whether the risk is presented as occurring as an expected or unexpected outcome from pursuing a goal
 

Unintentional

Incident Reports

Reports Timeline

Incident Occurrence+4
AI mistakes ‘black and white’ chess chat for racism
Why a YouTube Chat About Chess Got Flagged for Hate Speech
AI mistakes ‘black and white’ chess chat for racism

AI mistakes ‘black and white’ chess chat for racism

independent.co.uk

YouTube algorithm accidentally blocks 'black v white' CHESS strategy

YouTube algorithm accidentally blocks 'black v white' CHESS strategy

dailymail.co.uk

AI May Mistake Chess Discussions as Racist Talk

AI May Mistake Chess Discussions as Racist Talk

cmu.edu

YouTube AI Misinterprets Chess Chat Involving 'Black' And 'White' Pieces, Flags for Racism

YouTube AI Misinterprets Chess Chat Involving 'Black' And 'White' Pieces, Flags for Racism

techtimes.com

YouTube AI blocks chess channel after mistaking 'black v white' discussion as racism

YouTube AI blocks chess channel after mistaking 'black v white' discussion as racism

tribune.com.pk

Why a YouTube Chat About Chess Got Flagged for Hate Speech

Why a YouTube Chat About Chess Got Flagged for Hate Speech

wired.com

AI mistakes ‘black and white’ chess chat for racism
independent.co.uk · 2021

Online discussions about black and white chess pieces are confusing artificial intelligence algorithms trained to detect racism and other hate speech, according to new research.

Computer scientists at Carnegie Mellon University began invest…

YouTube algorithm accidentally blocks 'black v white' CHESS strategy
dailymail.co.uk · 2021

YouTube's overeager AI might have misinterpreted a conversation about chess as racist language.

Last summer, a YouTuber who produces popular chess videos saw his channel blocked for including what the site called 'harmful and dangerous' con…

AI May Mistake Chess Discussions as Racist Talk
cmu.edu · 2021

"The Queen's Gambit," the recent TV mini-series about a chess master, may have stirred increased interest in chess, but a word to the wise: social media talk about game-piece colors could lead to misunderstandings, at least for hate-speech …

YouTube AI Misinterprets Chess Chat Involving 'Black' And 'White' Pieces, Flags for Racism
techtimes.com · 2021

It might be unbelievable at first that a YouTube algorithm has detected a chess discussion as 'racist' and flagged it for punishment. In the case of the chess YouTuber, he was blocked by the video-streaming company for the alleged, sensitiv…

YouTube AI blocks chess channel after mistaking 'black v white' discussion as racism
tribune.com.pk · 2021

The world’s most popular YouTube chess channel was blocked after artificial algorithms set up to detect racist content and hate speech mistook discussion about black and white chess pieces as racism, reports Independent UK.

On June 28, 2020…

Why a YouTube Chat About Chess Got Flagged for Hate Speech
wired.com · 2021

Last June, Antonio Radić, the host of a YouTube chess channel with more than a million subscribers, was live-streaming an interview with the grandmaster Hikaru Nakamura when the broadcast suddenly cut out.

Instead of a lively discussion abo…

Variants

A "variant" is an incident that shares the same causative factors, produces similar harms, and involves the same intelligent systems as a known AI incident. Rather than index variants as entirely separate incidents, we list variations of incidents under the first similar incident submitted to the database. Unlike other submission types to the incident database, variants are not required to have reporting in evidence external to the Incident Database. Learn more from the research paper.

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