Associated Incidents
Only a few winners were Asian and one had dark skin, most were white
Just months after Microsoft's Tay artificial intelligence sent racist messages on Twitter, another AI seems to have followed suit.
More than 6,000 selfies of individuals who live all over the world and range in ages of 18 to 69 were judged by a robot in a beauty contest last week.
But when the results came in, there was something missing - it turned out the robots did not like people with dark skin.
Scroll down for video
The Beauty.AI beauty contest put together of robot judges to determine the winners. More than 6,000 people from around the world submitted head shots to be analysed by the algorithms
WHAT ROBOTS JUDGED THE CONTEST? Beauty.AI used five algorithms to act as judges in a beauty contest. These robots looked for youthfulness, face symmetry, skin quality, appearance and many other parameters, and then compared the results to models and actors in a database. These robots were designed by different groups of data scientists. RYNKL scored people by their youthfulness within their age group, specifically the AI looked to see if the contestant had more wrinkles than they should for their age. PIMPL analyzed the amount of pimples and pigmentation. Symmetry Master evaluated they symmetry of each person's face and AntiAgeist estimated the difference between the chronological and perceived age. MADIS took the parameters and compared them with models and actors in their age and ethnic groups that were stored in a database.
Out of the 44 winners of the Beauty.AI beauty contest, nearly all were white.
A few of the winners were Asian, and only one had dark skin, which surprised those running the competition.
Although the majority of contestants were white, large groups from India and Africa also submitted photographs.
This could be why the algorithm picked mainly white people, the company said.
'If you have not that many people of colour within the dataset, then you might actually have biased results,' Alex Zhavoronkov, chief science officer of Beauty.AI, told The Guardian.
'When you're training an algorithm to recognize certain patterns … you might not have enough data, or the data might be biased.'
The majority, 75 per cent,of contest entrants were European and white.
Seven per cent were from India, and one percent were from the African continent.
The contest used five algorithms to evaluate youthfulness, face symmetry, skin and other parameters, and then compare them to models and actors in a database.
The team at the Russia and Hong Kong-based Youth Laboratories, the masterminds behind this project, asked individuals from around the world to download the app and snap their best selfie for the first step of this ambitious challenge.
Out of the 44 winners nearly all were white. A few of the winners were Asian, and only one had dark skin. Pictured are the women who won in the age group 40-49
The rules were strict, as they stated participants could not wear makeup, sunglasses or sport a beard in their submissions.
A 'Robot Jury' was also recruited for the contest, which is a group of scientists who might want 'go down in history as one of the first data scientists who taught a machine to estimate human attractiveness'.
Youth Laboratories noted that researchers needed to use deep neural networks and GPU training in their systems.
And on July 5th, the team closed submissions for the robot judges and picked the top five shortly after.
RYNKL scored people by their youthfulness within their age group, specifically the AI looked to see if the contestant had more wrinkles than they should for their age.
Besides judging the contest, this technology is used to track people's wrinkles over time in order to see if treatments aimed at reversing signs of aging are working.
The systems announced their winners from more than 6,000 user-submitted selfies from individuals who live all over the world and are ages of 18 to 69. Pictured are the men who won in the age group 18-29
The team at Youth Laboratories, the masterminds behind this project, asked individuals from around the world to download the app and snap their best selfie for the first step of this ambitious challenge. Pictured are the women in the age group 18-29
PIMPL did what its name suggests, it analysed the amount of pimples and pigmentation.
Symmetry Master evaluated they symmetry of each person's face and AntiAgeist estimated the difference between the chronological and perceived age.
Once these parameters were determined, the fifth robot, called MADIS, compared each selfie to models and actors within their age and ethnic groups were are stored in a database.
The purpose of this futuristic beauty contest wasn't only to crown the most beautiful people in the world, it was also meant to understand people's health in new ways.
'This has enabled the team of biogerontologists and data scientists, who believe that in the near future machines will be able to get a lot of vital medical information abou