Consumer Reports Claims Kinect Is Not Racist

[CrystalShadow]

Yeah... Somehow I doubt if there was an issue, that it was intentional. I mean, an optical tracking system having difficulty tracking darker colours?

Who would have thought it... (And since it has an IR projection pattern, that would probably make it worse.)

But the kinect technology is rife with potential discriminatory issues; It contains a lot of image recognition features that are related to biometrics.

Considering it can recognise and load your user profile, it means it can determine who you are based on how you look.

But, from the rumours I've heard, it can also recognise people without a profile and classify them according to gender...
And if you think failing to track dark-skinned individuals is racism, what about when it mis-classifies your gender?

Anyone care to think about the reaction you'd have if the system decided you were a girl?
(Or male, if you happen to be female.)

Every time you intentionally program a system to classify people into groups, you're far closer to issues relating to discrimination than if your system happens to fail to recognise certain racial groups due to technical issues.

One is an unintended consequence of how the technology works, the other is explicitly programming the device to discriminate, and probably pissing off anyone who seems to be somewhat ambiguous.

Still, how many features of kinect can we list that have the potential to be offensive to some groups of people?

 

[DTWolfwood]

So not only do you need an enormously spacious room you also need a well lit one? Bah! make your system requirements less restrictive MS!

 

[Steve the Pocket]

anybody else reminded of that Better Off Ted episode where the doors, lights and bathrooms were fitted with sensors...that couldn't pick up dark skin?

You'd know if you had actually read any of the posts instead of jumping straight to the Reply button.

I enjoy how you can't find a the word "racist" in the GameSpot story and only find it in the Consumer Reports story as a tangential to another item. I then enjoyed all the people who commented about GameSpot sensationalizing their news, as opposed to recognizing that Greg Tito here actually sensationalized it.

Yep. As if unfounded accusations of racism weren't enough of a problem, now we're getting unfounded accusations OF unfounded accusations of racism. We're like a windmill attacking imaginary Don Quixotes.

 

[BrEnNo1023]

Yep. As if unfounded accusations of racism weren't enough of a problem, now we're getting unfounded accusations OF unfounded accusations of racism. We're like a windmill attacking imaginary Don Quixotes.

Meh, the page was new, i hadn't refreshed the tab it was in in a loooooong time, too busy watching zero punctuation and others -.-

But anyway, that's just how the news works. The medias need to rumour that there's a rumour before the rumour becomes a rumour to the majority...most news reporters get their stories from other bigger news reporters anyway, and some articles are even based on facts gleamed from celebrities' Twitter tweets..it depends on the credibility of the particular news group you read the info from.