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Incident 73: Is Pokémon Go racist? How the app may be redlining communities of color

Description: Through a crowdsourcing social media campaign in 2016, several journalists and researchers demonstrated that augmented reality locations in the popular smartphone game Pokemon Go were more likely to be in white neighborhoods.

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Entities

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Alleged: Niantic Labs developed and deployed an AI system, which harmed non-white neighborhoods and communities of color.

Incident Stats

Incident ID
73
Report Count
8
Incident Date
2016-03-01
Editors
Sean McGregor, Khoa Lam
Applied Taxonomies
CSETv0, CSETv1, GMF, MIT

CSETv1 Taxonomy Classifications

Taxonomy Details

Incident Number

The number of the incident in the AI Incident Database.
 

73

CSETv0 Taxonomy Classifications

Taxonomy Details

Problem Nature

Indicates which, if any, of the following types of AI failure describe the incident: "Specification," i.e. the system's behavior did not align with the true intentions of its designer, operator, etc; "Robustness," i.e. the system operated unsafely because of features or changes in its environment, or in the inputs the system received; "Assurance," i.e. the system could not be adequately monitored or controlled during operation.
 

Specification

Physical System

Where relevant, indicates whether the AI system(s) was embedded into or tightly associated with specific types of hardware.
 

Software only

Level of Autonomy

The degree to which the AI system(s) functions independently from human intervention. "High" means there is no human involved in the system action execution; "Medium" means the system generates a decision and a human oversees the resulting action; "low" means the system generates decision-support output and a human makes a decision and executes an action.
 

Unclear/unknown

Nature of End User

"Expert" if users with special training or technical expertise were the ones meant to benefit from the AI system(s)’ operation; "Amateur" if the AI systems were primarily meant to benefit the general public or untrained users.
 

Amateur

Public Sector Deployment

"Yes" if the AI system(s) involved in the accident were being used by the public sector or for the administration of public goods (for example, public transportation). "No" if the system(s) were being used in the private sector or for commercial purposes (for example, a ride-sharing company), on the other.
 

No

Data Inputs

A brief description of the data that the AI system(s) used or were trained on.
 

user data from the game Ingress

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
 

1.3. Unequal performance across groups

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

+1
How Nintendo changed this racist Pokémon's design for the better
Pokemon Go is augmented reality. Too bad reality is still racist.+4
Is Pokémon Go racist? How the app may be redlining communities of color
Power of Numbers: Pokemon Go!
How Nintendo changed this racist Pokémon's design for the better

How Nintendo changed this racist Pokémon's design for the better

splinternews.com

Pokemon Go is augmented reality. Too bad reality is still racist.

Pokemon Go is augmented reality. Too bad reality is still racist.

vox.com

Is Pokémon Go racist? How the app may be redlining communities of color

Is Pokémon Go racist? How the app may be redlining communities of color

usatoday.com

Pokemon Go accused of racism after more Poke Stops in white neighborhoods

Pokemon Go accused of racism after more Poke Stops in white neighborhoods

dailymail.co.uk

Is Pokemon Go racist?

Is Pokemon Go racist?

stuff.co.nz

Is Pokémon Go Racist? Users Complain Of Lack Of Poké Stops In Black Areas

Is Pokémon Go Racist? Users Complain Of Lack Of Poké Stops In Black Areas

ladbible.com

Pokemon Go: The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly

Pokemon Go: The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly

ivebeenmugged.typepad.com

Power of Numbers: Pokemon Go!

Power of Numbers: Pokemon Go!

medium.com

How Nintendo changed this racist Pokémon's design for the better
splinternews.com · 2016

In celebration of Pokémon's 20th birthday this past weekend, Nintendo re-released the original Red, Blue, and Yellow games as digital downloads through its online shop. In addition to finally giving players the chance transfer all 151 origi…

Pokemon Go is augmented reality. Too bad reality is still racist.
vox.com · 2016

"Warning: Pokémon Go is a death sentence if you’re a black man," Omari Akil argued in an essay at Medium over the weekend.

It’s a startling, even extreme-sounding claim. How could a virally popular smartphone game featuring adorable Japanes…

Is Pokémon Go racist? How the app may be redlining communities of color
usatoday.com · 2016

CLOSE There are more Pokéstops in majority white areas than in majority black areas, which could suggest digital redlining within the game.

Timi Ajiboye and Tobi Akinnubi use the Pokemon Go application at the University of Lagos. (Photo: St…

Pokemon Go accused of racism after more Poke Stops in white neighborhoods
dailymail.co.uk · 2016

Aura Bogado (pictured), an environmental reporter for news outlet Grist, realized Pokemon Go's Poke Stops appeared more frequently in white areas than predominantly black and Latino neighborhoods and began collecting data

A Pokemon Go playe…

Is Pokemon Go racist?
stuff.co.nz · 2016

There are typically fewer PokeStops in non-white areas, if there are any at all.

While playing the popular augmented-reality game Pokemon Go in Long Beach, a city that is nearly 50 per cent white, Aura Bogado made an unsettling discovery - …

Is Pokémon Go Racist? Users Complain Of Lack Of Poké Stops In Black Areas
ladbible.com · 2016

Featured image credit: PA

When you think of Pokémon Go you probably think of crashing servers, grown men acting like teenagers and how fucking hard it is to catch a Charizard. You might not think of racism, but now one US player has found w…

Pokemon Go: The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly
ivebeenmugged.typepad.com · 2016

The game's popularity proliferated after a July 6 launch in Australia, New Zealand, and the United States: 7.5 million downloads during its first week; 50 million downloads from Google Play during its first month; and it was WikiPedia's mos…

Power of Numbers: Pokemon Go!
medium.com · 2018

Power of Numbers: Pokemon Go!

Sandra Az Blocked Unblock Follow Following Feb 24, 2018

Numbers

Metrics play a powerful and intensifying role in ordering and shaping our everyday lives. David Beer (2016), in his book, discusses some ways in w…

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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