Google apologizes after Photos app classifies black couple as gorillas

Mustn't laugh



Google has been forced to apologise after its image recognition software mislabelled photographs of black people as gorillas.

The internet giant's new Google Photos application uses an auto-tagging feature to help organise images uploaded to the service and make searching easier.

However the software has outraged users after it mislabelled images of a computer programmer and his friend as the great apes.

Google said it was 'appalled' and 'genuinely sorry' for the mistake.

Google launched its standalone Photos app in May, announcing a number of features such as automatically creating collections of people and objects like food or landscapes.

However on Monday, Jacky Alcine, from Brooklyn, New York, spotted photos of him and a female friend posing for the camera had been grouped into a collection tagged 'gorilla'.

In a series of Tweets to Google he said: 'Google Photos, y'all f***** up. My friend's not a gorilla.  'The only thing under this tag is my friend and I being tagged as a gorilla.

However, even after a fix had been issued Mr Alcine reported two photos were still showing up under the terms gorilla and gorillas.

Mr Zunger later said that Google had turned off the ability for photographs to be grouped under that label to stop the problem.

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