Facebook Apologizes for AI Labeling Video of Black Men as Being ‘About Primates’
Mark Zuckerberg Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
Facebook apologized on Friday after one of its algorithms identified a video featuring Black people as being about “primates.”
The video was posted to Facebook by The Daily Mail on June 27, 2020, and featured a montage of Black men in confrontations with police officers and White civilians. Recently, users who watched the video received a prompt asking if they wanted to “keep seeing videos about Primates.”
The company called the labeling “an unacceptable error.”
“As we have said, while we have made improvements to our A.I., we know it’s not perfect, and we have more progress to make,” said a spokesperson for Facebook. “We apologize to anyone who may have seen these offensive recommendations.”
The New York Times reported that the issue was flagged after a former content design manager at Facebook named Darci Groves received a screenshot of the prompt from a friend. Groves proceeded to post it in a forum accessible to current and former employees of the social media network. One product manager for the company said Facebook would ascertain “the root cause” of the problem.
