People being identified as animals

[TopoTheTerror]

Why does my camera pick up my neighbors who are POC as animals? I don’t even have the animal setting on and yet it still reads as animals! This is beyond racist and extremely upsetting that my neighbors are being picked up on my video as animals! FIX THIS IMMEDIATELY!

[JamesC]

When motion is triggered and a recording is made, the Arlo cloud reviews the recording and categorizes it based on features within the image. Sometimes, this analysis gets that categorization wrong, or something else in the image causes the recording to be tagged incorrectly. While this should be a rare occurrence, Arlo continues to make adjustments and improvements within the cloud to ensure recordings are tagged appropriately with information about what caused the motion trigger. If you would like to donate your example to the dev team, this will help give the team a better understanding of how to improve the cloud analysis for recordings like the ones you're seeing. For more information on how to do this, see here: https://kb.arlo.com/000062756/How-do-I-donate-a-video-to-Arlo-and-how-does-Arlo-use-the-video

JamesC

[JamesC]

When motion is triggered and a recording is made, the Arlo cloud reviews the recording and categorizes it based on features within the image. Sometimes, this analysis gets that categorization wrong, or something else in the image causes the recording to be tagged incorrectly. While this should be a rare occurrence, Arlo continues to make adjustments and improvements within the cloud to ensure recordings are tagged appropriately with information about what caused the motion trigger. If you would like to donate your example to the dev team, this will help give the team a better understanding of how to improve the cloud analysis for recordings like the ones you're seeing. For more information on how to do this, see here: https://kb.arlo.com/000062756/How-do-I-donate-a-video-to-Arlo-and-how-does-Arlo-use-the-video

JamesC

[jguerdat]

For the record, my (white) wife has been categorized as an animal on occasion. Sometimes I agree...

[TopoTheTerror]

Hello James, the Arlo categorization is RACIST! The animal setting is removed from my alerts on the app. It shows up as a notification alert on my phone’s feed, but when I check the app it shows it as a motion. This is ridiculous. I do not want my neighbors being alerted as animals on my feed! It really makes me uncomfortable and my neighbors do not deserve this! Make the adjustment to not pick up my neighbors as animals! It’s not a rare occurrence if this keeps happening! 

[TopoTheTerror]

Fix this issue immediately! I’m tired of my door bell notifications telling me that my POC neighbors are being detected as animals! This is horrible and I do not condone this racist act! This is not the first time, or second time, or even third time that this has happened! I do not even have the animal notification setting on, on the app! Why am I still getting animal notifications anyway! This makes me really uncomfortable that my neighbors keep getting categorized as animals on this racist doorbell! Fix this!!

 

[ShayneS]

Hi @TopoTheTerror 

May I ask which troubleshooting steps you have tried so far? I don't want to suggest anything you have previously performed.

[TopoTheTerror]

I restarted the Arlo doorbell and app, signed in and out of Arlo, turned on and off the setting on Arlo. This is not helpful or helping fix the underlying issue of the camera detecting people as animals! That should be on Arlo’s end not mine to do better and be better! 

[jguerdat]

This was beaten to death a little while ago after another post by you. You seem to be trolling.

Donate the videos so the AI behind the detection can be tweaked. The process can't possibly work 100% with all the variations possible.

[StephenB]

@TopoTheTerror:  Saying the algorithm is racist is a big allegation. Are you saying that the false animal detection only happens with people of color, but not with whites? 

It is possible that there is bias in the training set used.  FWIW, I haven't seen your issue myself, and I do have some family members who are people of color.  The algorithm does frequently mis-classify, but with my cameras that doesn't appear to be related to race.  

But if there is bias, the algorithm would need to be retrained on a new training set - which is not something that can be done quickly.  @jguerdat's suggestion to donate some of these videos would be helpful for Arlo's AI team. 

[TopoTheTerror]

For the record I am not trolling. I am allowed to my own unbiased opinion about my experience using Arlo products. This is a public forum which I am allowed to bring up and discuss issues that I am having to shed some light if other people are experiencing the same issues. Just because my opinion does not agree with yours does not mean it is acceptable to name call someone within this community.