Google: The Blurred Cow Moos
September 29, 2016
I read “How a Blurry Cow Highlights Weaknesses in Google’s Face Recognition.” Write ups which criticize the Alphabet Google thing’s stellar technology ripple the pond in Harrod’s Creek. We learned:
The search engine’s algorithms accidentally blurred a cow’s face in the name of privacy.
Cows are people to in Harrod’s Creek. Many here in rural Kentucky use lab grown “meat” instead of terminating Bessie and grilling her prime parts.
The write up stated:
Like all machine-learning algorithms, though, Google’s must be trained using as many examples as possible. The blurry cow on the River Cam is proof that even with an image database as massive as Street View’s to learn from, the algorithms still aren’t perfect. To help further their training, Google is making appeals to third-party developers, who can harness the detection technology in their own websites and apps via an API.
Yes, we will assist the Google.
We highlighted this quote from a Google professional “spokesperson”:
“We thought you were pulling the udder one when we herd the moos, but it’s clear that our automatic face-blurring technology has been a little overzealous. Of course, we don’t begrudge this cow milking its five minutes of fame.”
Google has a sense of humor to accompany technology which is less than perfect. What happens when one applies Google facial recognition to an autonomous killer drone? My hunch is that Google will find a way to make light of the glitch.
Stephen E Arnold, September 29, 2016
Comments
-
- Subscribe to Beyond Search
Feature archive
News archive
-
