Claims it’s the first algorithmic bias bounty competition
Twitter’s saliency algorithm – otherwise known as its automated image cropping tool – has a problem with gender and race bias. The micro-blogging service is hoping to fix it by offering what it reckons is the industry’s first algorithmic bias bounty competition. The saliency algorithm employed by Twitter uses machine learning to crop images around the first spot eyes most frequently fall. In fall of 2020, some users complained the image cropping favoured light skin over dark, and women’s legs and breasts over their faces. Twitter promised to investigate, decided the machine learning code it employed was not really ready to have the keys to the castle, and gave the image-cropping controls back to humans. Employees published an academic paper describing the problem, and the company made its code public through GitHub.
