[0x1221]

> Given that a person’s gender cannot be inferred by appearance, we have decided to remove these labels in order to align with the Artificial Intelligence Principles at Google, specifically Principle #2: Avoid creating or reinforcing unfair bias.

Isn't this just outright wrong? A person's gender can be inferred by appearance, and with extremely high accuracy at that.

[rl3]

While I tend to agree with you from a technical standpoint, I can't help but think Google is actually doing the morally correct thing here.

If organizations are creating systems using that API, most will just roll with man/woman labeling. If those systems are important, a lot of trans and non-binary people will end up fucked over.

At the end of the day, if the deprecated functionality is still needed, just set a threshold on masculine vs feminine. It's a far more elegant approach, even if more work.

[johnlorentzson]

Automatic gender detection should certainly not be used for data entry where the data is of any real consequence (even if we ignored trans/non-binary people), simply due to the fact that it can't be proven to be perfect.

[muzani]

I think yeah, it's easier to use masculine/feminine. Something like long hair, soft skin, pink cheeks, more curves is feminine. Someone with more squares/edges (jaw, cheeks, shoulders) is more masculine.

Humans have trouble with this too, e.g. many crushed on Taylor Hanson.

[brodouevencode]

I always get it confused: is it sex or gender that people can assign to themselves?

[foldr]

Are you really confused about this, or just rhetorically confused? You can answer the question by googling "sex vs gender".