Incident 63: Google Photo Merge Decapitates Subject

Description: Google Photos' AI Assistant created a strange hybrid photograph when merging three different pictures from a ski trip.

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Entities

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Alleged: Google developed and deployed an AI system, which harmed Alex Harker.

Incident Stats

Incident ID

Report Count

Incident Date

2018-01-25

Editors

Sean McGregor

CSETv1 Taxonomy Classifications

Taxonomy Details

Harm Distribution Basis

none

Sector of Deployment

Arts, entertainment and recreation, information and communication

CSETv0 Taxonomy Classifications

Taxonomy Details

Full Description

According to Android user Alex Harker, the Google Photos AI assistant created a strange hybrid of three photos he took on a ski trip. Two of the photos were of a forest landscape, while one photo was of Harker's friend. Google Photos created a stranged merged photo showing the friend's head half-merged behind the trees.

Short Description

Google Photos' AI Assistant created a strange hybrid photograph when merging three different pictures from a ski trip.

Severity

Negligible

AI System Description

Facial recognition software used by Google Photo Assistant

System Developer

Google

Sector of Deployment

Arts, entertainment and recreation

Relevant AI functions

Perception, Cognition

AI Techniques

Facial recognition

AI Applications

Facial recognition

Location

Banff, Alberta

Named Entities

Google Photos, Assistant, Android, Alex Harker, Alberta

Technology Purveyor

Google

Beginning Date

01/2018

Ending Date

01/2018

Near Miss

Unclear/unknown

Intent

Accident

Lives Lost

Data Inputs

Photographs

Incident Reports

Reports Timeline

Google Photos tried to fix this ski photo

qz.com

qz.com · 2018

Google Photos’ intrepid Assistant just wants to help.

Part of the Android-maker’s photo app, it helps organize the thousands of photos stored on your phone. It can make little albums of places you went based on geolocation data, and through…

Variants

A "variant" is an incident that shares the same causative factors, produces similar harms, and involves the same intelligent systems as a known AI incident. Rather than index variants as entirely separate incidents, we list variations of incidents under the first similar incident submitted to the database. Unlike other submission types to the incident database, variants are not required to have reporting in evidence external to the Incident Database. Learn more from the research paper.