Google AI drops gender labels

Google artificial intelligence (AI)  will no longer attach gender labels on images of people to avoid bias. Its vision cloud AI tool  will cease adding gender tags “man” and “woman”. The tool can detect faces, landmarks, brand logos, and explicit content. It is used by developers to attach labels to content. Researchers also use it to identify animal species while retailers use it in visual searches.

Business Insider reported that Google made the decision to avoid bias, as one’s gender cannot always be correctly inferred from appearance. This is in line with the company’s (AI) principles that aspire to avoid reinforcing negative bias. AI has previously been flawed in identifying people, with a 2019 study finding that facial recognition algorithms often misidentify people of color.