MOUNTAIN VIEW/CALIFORNIA (Web Desk) – Google has apologized after its new Photos app classified two black friends as ‘gorillas’, placing their photos in a special album.
The tech giant has since removed the tag from the program, saying it is “genuinely sorry” for the mistake, reported RT.
The cringeworthy mishap came into light when New York resident, Jacky Alcine was going through his pictures, when he found picture of himself with his friend in an album titled ‘Gorillas’.
He immediately took to Twitter, complaining the tech giant. Alcine also asked Google, “What kind of sample image data you collected that would result in this son?”
What kind of sample image data you collected that would result in this son?
— diri noir avec banan (@jackyalcine) June 29, 2015
And it’s only photos I have with her it’s doing this with (results truncated b/c personal): pic.twitter.com/h7MTXd3wgo
— diri noir avec banan (@jackyalcine) June 29, 2015
Google engineer Yonatan Zunger responded to Alcine’s tweets, admitting the”shudder” factor of the mistake and saying “this is 100% Not OK.”
@jackyalcine Thank you for telling us so quickly! Sheesh. High on my list of bugs you *never* want to see happen. ::shudder::
— Yonatan Zunger (@yonatanzunger) June 29, 2015
Zunger asked if Google could access Alcine’s account to see why the problem occurred, and later said the bug had been fixed.
