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Incident 332: Google Image Showed Racially Biased Results for “Professional” Hairstyles

Description: Google Image search reportedly showed disparate results along racial lines, featuring almost exclusively white women for “professional hairstyles” and black women for “unprofessional hairstyles” prompts.

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Alleged: Google developed and deployed an AI system, which harmed Black women , Black people and Google users.

Incident Stats

Incident ID
332
Report Count
4
Incident Date
2016-04-05
Editors
Khoa Lam
Applied Taxonomies
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 Occurrence+1
Woman is shocked by 'racist' Google search results
+1
Why The Google Search Results For Unprofessional Hairstyles Are Seriously Disturbing
Woman is shocked by 'racist' Google search results

Woman is shocked by 'racist' Google search results

dailymail.co.uk

This Is the Appalling Result When You Google “Unprofessional” Hairstyles

This Is the Appalling Result When You Google “Unprofessional” Hairstyles

teenvogue.com

Why The Google Search Results For Unprofessional Hairstyles Are Seriously Disturbing

Why The Google Search Results For Unprofessional Hairstyles Are Seriously Disturbing

allure.com

Do Google's 'unprofessional hair' results show it is racist?

Do Google's 'unprofessional hair' results show it is racist?

theguardian.com

Woman is shocked by 'racist' Google search results
dailymail.co.uk · 2016

A woman was left shocked after googling the phrase 'unprofessional hairstyles at work' and seeing that the results were all pictures of black women.

Bonnie Kamona, from Botswana, posted on Twitter: 'I saw a tweet saying "Google unprofession…

This Is the Appalling Result When You Google “Unprofessional” Hairstyles
teenvogue.com · 2016

Googling hairstyles is nothing new — many of us often hit up the search engine to find inspiration for our next cut, color, or music festival plait. But, as Mic reports, a recent search for “professional” and “unprofessional” styles, has re…

Why The Google Search Results For Unprofessional Hairstyles Are Seriously Disturbing
allure.com · 2016

The subject of women's hair choices in the workplace has long been a fraught topic, and it's infinitely more so for women of color who embrace their natural hair texture. It's the perfect storm of sexism and racism, and it's just the worst.…

Do Google's 'unprofessional hair' results show it is racist?
theguardian.com · 2016

Recently, an MBA student named Rosalia discovered something alarming: Googling “unprofessional hairstyles for work” yielded image results mainly of black women with natural hair, while searching for the “professional” ones offered pictures …

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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