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Incident 165: Image Upscaling Algorithm PULSE Allegedly Produced Facial Images with Caucasian Features More Often

Description: Image upscaling tool PULSE powered by NVIDIA's StyleGAN reportedly generated faces with Caucasian features more often, although AI academics, engineers, and researchers were not in agreement about where the source of bias was.

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Alleged: Duke researchers developed and deployed an AI system, which harmed people having non-Caucasian facial features.

Incident Stats

Incident ID
165
Report Count
2
Incident Date
2020-06-20
Editors
Sean McGregor, Khoa Lam
Applied Taxonomies
GMF, MIT

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
 

1.1. Unfair discrimination and misrepresentation

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. Discrimination and Toxicity

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 OccurrenceWhat a machine learning tool that turns Obama white can (and can’t) tell us about AI biasOnce again, racial biases show up in AI image databases, this time turning Barack Obama white
What a machine learning tool that turns Obama white can (and can’t) tell us about AI bias

What a machine learning tool that turns Obama white can (and can’t) tell us about AI bias

theverge.com

Once again, racial biases show up in AI image databases, this time turning Barack Obama white

Once again, racial biases show up in AI image databases, this time turning Barack Obama white

theregister.com

What a machine learning tool that turns Obama white can (and can’t) tell us about AI bias
theverge.com · 2020

It’s a startling image that illustrates the deep-rooted biases of AI research. Input a low-resolution picture of Barack Obama, the first black president of the United States, into an algorithm designed to generate depixelated faces, and the…

Once again, racial biases show up in AI image databases, this time turning Barack Obama white
theregister.com · 2020

A new computer vision technique that helps convert blurry photos of people into fake, realistic images has come under fire for being racially biased towards white people.

The tool known as PULSE was introduced by a group of researchers from…

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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