Inaccurate image results when searching for “white people”

xx

When I search for “white people” on Kagi Search images, I can also see black people instead of just white people. This is doesn’t seem to be the case when I search for “black people” or “Asian people,” where I always see the correct images.

I’ve noticed this issue with other search engines as well, so I decided to test it myself. It seems there’s a bias against whites when searching for images of white people on most mainstream search engines. Before people start getting upset, let me clarify that this isn’t a race issue for me. It’s an accuracy issue. For example, if I searched for an image of Darth Vader, I would want to see a picture of Darth Vader, not Luke Skywalker.

I am on the UK region if that helps.

Thank you for reading this, I hope this can be improved.

xx

Search all 3 of those queries and scroll down and you’ll see for yourself

kirkmc

I think there's quite a difference between searching for a character (Darth Vader) and searching for an amorphous selection of people whose skin color matches what you want. I don't think a search engine can easily index photos of people by their skin color, nor do I think they should.

xx

kirkmc If I worked in marketing, for example, and I’m looking for a stock image of a black or white person, it needs to be as accurate as possible. After all, it’s a search engine at the end of the day. If I’m searching for a query, I’d expect it to be as accurate as possible.

Maybe you’re right that it’s not easy, but I’m not sure. It seems to work fine for the black and Asian people query I made.

kirkmc

If you worked in marketing, you'd probably already subscribe to a stock photo service, which would have tags for all its photos and you would have no trouble finding them. I honestly don't expect a search engine to be able to determine something like that.

xx

kirkmc That’s a fair assessment, it’s just weird how it doesn’t get mixed up for the other races?

carl

A similar thing has been up before: https://kagifeedback.org/d/392-misleading-image-results-for-white-couple/16

The above thread could be of interest, it touches on similar matters.

My question: Who would need to do an image search to know what white people look like?

For stock images: You can generate photo realistic people of any appearance you prefer, using AI. And it's also not hard to find real stock photos of white people in any situation you prefer.

I think the image results get like this because when does anybody talk about "white people" when it's not within a discussion about race or race relations? If you search for "non-white people", you also get a lot of white people mixed in with the results.