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In twelve years in the software business, I've never met an African-American software developer so accidental racism could be in play here. They just forgot to test on darker skin. On the other hand, there would certainly be Indian programmers around who would be as dark as the man in the video.
As a software tester by profession, this is a pretty cool bug. I love stuff that only happens in a certain environment, like time sensitive bugs.
They just forgot to test on darker skin. On the other hand, there would certainly be Indian programmers around who would be as dark as the man in the video.
Considering the enormous number of man-hours required to make an algorithm like this work at all, it's pretty much impossible that no one thought to try.
More likely the algorithm just doesn't work very well with darker skin, or isn't optimised for it, or even more likely it isn't able to cope with this combination of skin colour and lighting.
Please note: Although my skepticism is real, it does not run deep. At one consultancy where I worked, a senior consultant's full time job was damage control for HP's QC screw-ups.
It's much more likely that the algorithm could not cope with store lighting, where the background is lit up and the faces aren't. My webcam can't track my face when the foreground lighting is dim. Last time I moved, it fixated on my dog in the background and refused to turn back to me. But I doubt that my webcam is animist ...
"It's much more likely that the algorithm could not cope with store lighting, where the background is lit up and the faces aren't." Yeah it's just bad software.
photo by splunge
photo by TheophileEscargot
photo by Kronos_to_Earth
photo by ethylene
