Are HP Computers Racist?

Hetep and Respect Im 4Me, you seem to have the oddest response to things.

What is your ethnicity?

HP just doesn't care.

Well I bet you they care now that this video has gone viral. They were having their hands full with Dell cleaning their clock, this surely will not help their bottom line. The President of HP is probably walking the Product Line manage to the door as we speak.

I am getting call, twits and Im's from all over the place.

Oh, and Happy Kwanzaa.

tnx, I think.

Hetep and Respect silver163, I looked at your column, you seem pretty sharp on non-cultural matters and I like your politics. but really, think about what you just said.

again this all null oriented so the white skin gives off a higher spectrum than the black skin does. this is the technology they made, it is simply not sensitive enough to pick up the black skin spectrum.

If it is true that this is one of the only camera's on earth that can not detect melanin, then there should have been a consumer warning placed on it, "For Whites Only", so that unsuspecting consumers did not take it home an traumatize their Black children by causing them to think that they are invisible. :-).

Suppose the HP camera equipment does not recognize Asians, is that OK too? Not news worthy?

Hetep and Respect Simplistic Reality, I had hoped you were always learning given your great love and focused attention to your own Cultural Health.

What does all this mean? What can we learn from it?

Nothing really..

Any time there is a Cultural event it is a Cultural Literacy opportunity and we should all be learning.

except it's probably a light / wavelength issue. Not just HP's cameras / software that have this issue.

I have google face recognition software and just used it to recognized more then four thousand faces. The faced included every ethnic group under the sun in all kind of light including dam near none. Guess what, it recognized all the Black people too. It even tagged Second life Avatar pics that looked like the people it new.

To imply or assume HP did this on purpose as a slant to Black people is ludicrous.

I never mention on purpose, you did. Unless HP tells us what happened I would think we will never know exactly how it happened. However, what we do know as a matter of fact is that the bata test part of their camera tracking project was a failure.

If I were the PL manager, I would fire the Beta project manager just before the division VP fired me.

Had this computer been in a different setting, different lighting, and him wearing a brighter color shirt, etc.

Right, if this were true then the logitech follow me camera's would not track Black People either, but they do.

I'm sure this issue will get fixed.

Now here you are right. I was just in Staples (place that sells computers to the business community) I was looking at the HP follow me cam and said to myself, self you should get this after the holiday when the price drops. Guess which camera I will not be buying. Guess which cam I will never recommend. Your right because it is costing them a lot of money.

This has been on every TV news Channel I watched. None technical people will not remember the details, they will be shocked and remember that their is something wrong with HP and Black People and stay away from the product. Dell stock should go through the roof. This is retail you don't get to make a non-bullet proof product and live to tell about it, remember the apple newton.

Also I build my own computers since I was a kid.. so I never have problems with them :)

Now you have solved the problem for yourself and that is a good thing. I hope the beta test project manager did not say this on his interview.

What can we learn? Here is one thing that we can learn from a Cultural Literacy perspective. I think that the product was tested, tested only on one ethnic group by someone or group of people that believed the "color blind" theory of ethnicity. I.e. that we are all identical ("equal") and one test fits all, wrong. In this case, wrong, is not just theoretical, but can leave egg on one's face and cost one a ton of money and good will.

P.S. whenever someone asks you what did you learn you should not say "Nothing". +[;-)

Hetep and Respect MoonCrow thanks for lending us your thoughtful commentary.

Maybe the unit is faulty. Sometimes a lemon is just yellow.

You might be right, I am sure there are retail store managers all over the country testing your theory as we speak and pulling any "White only" cam before they piss off their Christmas customers at the busiest time of the year. I suspect that HP has had people out in the field checking how many faulty cams are out there. You might find this link interesting. Click Here

Hetep and Respect Im 4Me, good to see U again. Technically you naturally are correct. The problem for HP is that the consumer is not technical they are cultural.

If you take your average African American, they are going to hear something about HP computers can't see Black people. They are going to respond by saying something like, really, well I guess the family will by an Apple.

Now there is the other side, let's say you are a European American, say a nice friendly Swede who's children have Black friends that come over to play with their children. Do you and you children need the aggravation of a computer that reportedly does not see Black people?:-)

Hetep and Respect Dr. Fell this is a good possibility. Cultural Poisoning as I mentioned in #3.1 could produce this everyone is identical error.

What can we learn? Here is one thing that we can learn from a Cultural Literacy perspective. I think that the product was tested, tested only on one ethnic group by someone or group of people that believed the "color blind" theory of ethnicity. I.e. that we are all identical ("equal") and one test fits all, wrong. In this case, wrong, is not just theoretical, but can leave egg on one's face and cost one a ton of money and good will.

It is most interesting how cultural confusion leads to practical errors on the ground. For instance, Africans, Asians and Caucasians are all equal in kind but different in degree. No where should this reality be more self-evident then in the physical sciences.

So the question is, how did these educated folks who designed and tested this product miss that reality in school, and can we help reprogram this reality back into them and the school system.

Hetep and Respect Big Brother Commission, very interesting way you laid you case out. I agree with you, with some slight adjustments.

All technologies and inventions start off neutral.

Agreed. Computers, as I have always built them and known them, are Culturally Neutral.

Then, some evil-hearted person or people take them to do their bidding.

Yes, I remember when IBM sold the bad guys in Azania (South Africa) computers for tracking those native to the land.

Can computers be programmed to be racist: Absolutely! They are racist, not because they choose to be racist, but because someone who is racist programmed it to be racist.

This sounds a lot like what happen to the human children of a person who believes in White supremacy. In the Cultural Health business we say, If you want to really understand the parents look at the children.

Speaking of racism: Bank tellers, retail store clerks and

Now the people and behavior you describe is important, because I would suspect that in more cases then not it is the result of Cultural Poisoning not racism. There is a middle ground between humanism and racism, that middle ground is Culturalism brought on by Cultural Poisoning.

Cultural Literacy Minute: Culturalism: a state of Cultural disorientation found in the cultural vacuum between humanism and racism.

You have called them racist when the behavior you describe is Culturally poisoned behavior, not behavior rising to the level of a Klu Klux Klans person who is a self avowed White supremacist dedicated to being the mortal enemy of Blacks for life.

I fear that our misguided HP computer, put on Youtube blast by the two friendly good cultural Health Samaritans my be suffering the same fate as your humans. That is, the computers Culturally Poisoned behavior is being labeled as racist inappropriately.

because this issue will never be solved by mankind.

The good book says, we are made in the image of God, if so, then we at least have the potential to solve this admitted complex and seemingly intractable problem. While you are waiting for God's son, what do you think you/we can do to improve the Cultural Health in your environment.

Hetep and Respect bigsaf, glad to see u.

Besides Dell and Apple, there's Lenovo, Asus, Acer, Sony, etc, which do just fine as replacements.

If nothing else, hopefully HP will get this part of the equation.