Microsoft Facial Recognition Search Improves Skin & Gender Detection

Artificial Intelligence is playing a significant role in many technologies these days and as that grows, the discussion around biases making their way into these advanced algorithms is also increasing. One area of bias that was recently highlighted involved the inability of the facial recognition search tools from Microsoft, IBM, and Megvii in China to properly detect certain skin tones and different genders. This issue was pointed out by MIT researcher Joy Buolamwini earlier this year in a paper titled Gender Shades: Intersectional Accuracy Disparities in Commercial Gender Classification.

At the time, when she asked Microsoft about her findings, they responded that they had already taken steps to improve the accuracy of our facial recognition technology and they were working to recognize, understand and remove bias. In fact, Microsoft established a new AI and Ethics in Engineering and Research (AETHER) committee around the time they were announcing Terry Myerson's departure from the company back in March of this year. The goal of this committee, headed by Microsoft President Brad Smith, is to develop internal policies around AI concerning its development and use in Microsoft products and technologies.

Microsoft shared details this week about updates to the company’s facial recognition search algorithms to address this shortcoming. They report improvements in its ability to recognize gender across different skin tones and the updated tools available to Azure Cognitive Services customers using the Face API for their applications.

The improvements were accomplished by making three changes to help eliminate the bias in their original algorithm. This included expanding and revising their benchmark datasets, new data collection to include increased variety around skin tone, gender and age, plus they tweaked their classifier to result in better precession in the results.

Microsoft admits they do not have all the answers concerning bias in these AI algorithms, but they are now having those discussions with users as they work to refine artificial intelligence.

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