The Ugly Side of A. I.
By Neil A. Hogan
“Ugly.”
Jack stared at the A.I.’s flickering, square interface for a moment, not quite believing what he had heard.
“I’m sorry. What?”
“Ugly,” it repeated.
Jack gave a nervous laugh. “Huh. It takes one to know one. I’m glad I’m not married to you. My wife thinks I’m handsome, and that’s all that matters.” He turned as he heard the thick white material of a lab coat brush past the table, and frowned at Peter. “It’s a bit rude.”
“Jack. Jack. You said you were open-minded about new experiences!” Peter rubbed his hands excitedly.
“Insults are not new experiences! I haven’t been called ugly since going to a pick-up bar thirty years ago.”
“Hey, don’t let it get to you. The A.I. is programmed with a billion different viewpoints of people from all around the world. Their local, segregated upbringing would influence the A.I.’s bias. You have no idea how darker skin and beards have skewed the results. We had to add a few filters to compensate.”
“It’s racist?”
“Not really. Its responses are influenced by surveys from multi-generational villages that have never met or seen anyone with dark skin. So, it reflects people’s judgement, some of which are skewed by ‘perceived’ attractiveness. You know, people are generally attracted to people who look like their parents. It also contains inputs from societies where residents have spent millions on skin whitening treatments as they believe a whiter skin means a more successful life.”
Jack shook his head. “Well, you know. You can be flippant about it, but if you haven’t noticed already, I happen to be brown.” He furrowed his brow, the anger starting to flicker across his face. “What’s the point of developing an A.I. that thinks anyone who isn’t white is ugly?”
Peter pulled up a chair. “Jack. Seriously? Look. We’re just wanting to prove a point here. The entire human race has been evolving to be lighter colored over the past 500,000 years. This A.I. will help people to become aware of this fact. Projections indicate, within about a thousand years of multiracial marriages, we’ll all be the same color. A kind of yellowish-gray.”
“This is not helping.”
“And so, we needed something to prove it. We needed to show people what is happening.”
“So you created a racist robot to prove to everyone that humans are racist? Perhaps its really reflecting its maker!”
Peter sighed. “No. Look. Jack. In this case, it didn’t say that because you’ve got darker skin. This IT company has a team of 300 people, mostly from India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. They all worked on it. It said that because, well, you’re not quite, how shall I put it, symmetrical?”
Jack frowned, but knew Peter was right. He’d seen himself in the mirror every day for 60 years. One eye was just slightly lower than the other, and one side of his smile was slightly twisted up. Aging also meant one of his eyebrows had more grey hair than the other one. “Fine. It can detect symmetry in appearance. Old news.”
“The higher the symmetry, the better the result. If it’s any consolation, George Clooney registers as handsome, not ‘hot'”
“Does any guy register as hot?”
“One of the Korean guys from the band BTS. But look. It does other things too.” He turned and called out. “Simon? Demonstration?”
“Sure, professor.” Simon was tall with a black beard, thick eyebrows and his hair tied back in a bun. He stood in front of the A.I.
“Jack. Here’s a white guy. Let’s see what the A.I. says. A.I. Judgement.”
The A.I.’s lights flickered for a moment and then said. “Untrustworthy.”
Jack almost laughed aloud.
“You didn’t get untrustworthy, did you?” whispered Peter in Jack’s ear. “That’s because the A.I. can read that as well. Peter turned to Simon and said loudly. “Thanks Simon.”
“No worries, professor. And you reckon if I shaved it’ll say I’m trustworthy?”
“Oh, absolutely. You can go back to your research now.”
“Ta.”
Jack raised an eyebrow. “Is he?”
“All I can tell you is that the A.I. can read eyes too. Other than that, no comment.”
“So, this A.I. has been programmed to judge like a human.”
“In the sense that it’s been programmed to judge similar to every human on the planet combined.”
“That’s a bit disconcerting.” Jack rubbed his chin.
“Well, social media is like that now. Most people on any of the platforms have at least 1000 friends. Imagine getting 1000 negative comments? It’s kind of like that. Except it’s a billion comments in one.”
Jack stared at the metal box with lights a little longer. “Well, I’m not entirely comfortable with one comment being worth a billion.” He got up. “Alright. I’ve seen your pet. Now what?”
“Jack. I just wanted you to have a look and give me some ideas. You know. I’ve been working directly with it and can get a bit blinkered. We’ve known each other for years so I thought you could tell me to try something I haven’t.”
Jack thought for a moment, and then said, “Aliens.”
“What about them?”
“If you’re creating an A.I. for the future, you have to consider aliens. If this A.I. is supposed to reflect the judgement of the entire human race, then you’ll need to consider its reaction when it meets something other than itself.”
“But we haven’t met aliens yet. How am I supposed to program it with something humans don’t know?”
“Well, you know there’s a comic convention happening nearby.”
“So?”
“People dressing up? Cosplay?”
“Yes?”
“With blue and green skin?”
Peter gripped the table in surprise. “Oh My God. Of course. You’re right. Okay. How do I get cosplay information in?”
Jack shook his head. “You’re really out of the loop, then?”
Peter shrugged.
“Get the A.I. to absorb images from all the social media sites of cosplay costumes, along with comments.” Jack picked up his coat.
“You’re going?”
“It was an interesting demonstration, but now I need to go somewhere a bit more fun where there aren’t any racist A.I.s”
“Where?”
“Comic Convention! See you later.”
Peter watched him go, then turned back to the A.I. “A.I. Access all social media around the world. Keyword ‘cosplay’ Add images and associated comments to database. Let me know when you’re done.”
“Acknowledged”
It was a full five hours before the A.I. updated Peter again. He had been beginning to think he’d have to wait until morning.
“Completed.”
“Excellent!” Peter said, rubbing his hands. “Let’s do me first. A.I. judgement.”
“Inferior.”
Peter took a step back. “Not, reasonably attractive? Or poor? Or slightly above average intelligence?”
“Inferior.”
Peter shuddered. He hoped that the A.I. hadn’t suddenly decided the human race was inferior. “Define.”
“Compared to many other more advanced humans on this planet, you have not expressed more of your genes to allow for a stronger body.”
Peter sighed. He’d forgotten. The database was full of faces. Now he’d added cosplay pictures that included bodies. He’ll have to update the system.”
“A.I. Parameters for judgement were based on facial features. Why have you not scanned the cosplay pictures and defined the faces?”
“Many are masked. Body shape consideration necessary for approximation of judgement.”
“A.I. Remove any picture from your database that does not clearly show a person’s face, remove any influence of body image, and update your judgement accordingly.”
“Acknowledged. Completed.”
“Judgement?”
“Not cool.”
Peter almost choked. “Not cool?”
“Translating for different age group. Not hip.”
Before Peter could say anything further, there was a knock at the door and Jack strode in. “The convention was fantastic. I got some great pictures if you want them.”
“Oh, thanks Jack. Actually, I just had the A.I. absorb every cosplay picture that ever existed.”
“I guess it said you were inferior, then.”
“What? Why would you know that?”
“If you’d seen some of the things I saw today, you wouldn’t want to go back to being a weak pasty-faced white guy! Cosplayers get to be people they are not. Sometimes absolutely fantastic people that transcend human nature. Did you update the filters to get a better result?”
“I tried and all I got was “Not cool”
Jack laughed, and pulled out a tablet with some pictures. “Can I try?”
Peter nodded, dumbly.
Jack flipped through to some of the images he’d taken and held them up to the A.I. The first one was of a young woman completely painted green, in a thin green dress, wearing a crown and holding a sword and shield. Her ears were pointed and her eyes had heavy makeup and glitter shapes around them. “A.I. Judgement of this face.”
“Cool.”
Peter raised his eyes.
Jack showed a picture of an African American man painted blue with antennae and a chain-mail jacket with thick metal leggings. He also had metallic pieces attached to one side of his face, emulating an android. “What about this one?”
“Awesome” said the A.I.
Jack grinned. “Now, that’s better, don’t you think? The A.I. now sees creativity and different colored skin as interesting rather than something it would reject. It’s also not going to think symmetry is that important if other features override that. Your A.I. was set on ‘too critical.'”
“But, cosplay is a subculture. It doesn’t represent the human race.”
“Now, think carefully about what you just said.”
“I mean, this A.I. is about initial judgement…”
“You asked me to help you think outside the box. If you are just going to interview normal people who want to do interviews for your research, you’re not going to get a good result for any A.I. are you?”
Peter rubbed his face. “Parameters only included people we considered average. 18-35. Middle Income. No one unable to use a computer. Inputs by researchers on behalf of people who had limited English…”
“It’s a bit loose then,” said Jack, with a grin. “But you have to keep going with it. It might take you a few years but…”
“To be honest, I’ve been working on this for years already. I have other projects I want to get back to. I personally just want to erase the whole thing and start again.”
Jack turned to his tablet again. “I might have a solution for you. Something a scifi fan told me about early A.I. in 60s SF. It might just work.” He pulled up an app that turned the tablet into a mirror and held it up to the A.I., its reflection filling the screen. “A.I. Judgement.”
There was a slight whir and flicker of lights, then a spark, and the back of the box blew out. A discharge of power snapped to the nearby table where a bank of data storage systems were linked, which also sparked, and then all the lights went out.
Peter took his hands away from his eyes. “I never thought about asking it to judge itself.”
“I guess it didn’t like what it saw.”