At Yale, they’re tackling the tough issues. And that includes the potential racism of fake hair.
On the university’s website, its School of Engineering and Applied Science has announced it’ll be putting to good use a “1,000,000 gift from the Bungie Foundation.” With such a donation, Yale’s “For Humanity” campaign will “develop new tools and algorithms to bring inclusivity to the digital screen.”
As it turns out, there’s a white supremacist bias in video game rendering among phony follicles:
One of the physical characteristics that is most revealing of algorithmic bias is the representation of human hair. Computer graphics research has historically favored the simulation and rendering of straight hair, which is racially coded as European or Caucasian hair. The tools and algorithms that digital artists deploy treat this form of hair as the baseline. No equivalent model has been developed for naturally kinky hair — also known as Type 4 hair — a characteristic that most commonly occurs in Black communities.
Theodore Kim, associate professor of computer science and co-lead of the Yale Computer Graphics Group, explains his planned project’s mission to manhandle “harm”:
“This research will serve as an example of how to identify the products of systemic racism in computer graphics and demonstrate how to take concrete steps to ameliorate their harm.”
We’re living in an era of “antiracism,” which is the belief that white people comprise an oppressive race. Per UCLA Law Professor Kimberlé Crenshaw, antiracism aims to obliterate the normalization of “white dominance.”
To that end, Yale’s locked and loaded.
Here’s more:
“The tools and algorithms we aim to develop will allow the full range of human hair, in its elegant variation and diversity, to be faithfully represented in film and games,” said [Theodore].
Kareem Shuman, Bungie Technical Dialogue Designer and Co-Lead of Black at Bungie employee resource group (ERG) said [Theodore’s] work to expand representation is inspiring and especially important to younger audiences.
Where social justice is concerned, Yale has stayed on the cutting edge. The school is absolutely anti-racist:
Yale Medical School Welcomes Psychiatrist Who Dreams of ‘Unloading a Revolver Into the Head of Any White Person’ https://t.co/pLlgF7JIYB
— RedState (@RedState) June 5, 2021
Will the university’s crusade end white-fueled racism onscreen? Or might it simply find a way to waste a million dollars? Only time will tell.
For the moment, inspiration abounds:
Kareem Shuman, Bungie Technical Dialogue Designer and Co-Lead of Black at Bungie employee resource group (ERG) said [Theodore’s] work to expand representation is inspiring and especially important to younger audiences.
“By supporting this research, we get the opportunity to affect change on a much bigger scale,” he said. “The tools as they exist today do not work in favor of creating characters that look like us, but Prof. [Theodore’s] team is working to fix that. And we’re so excited to see them succeed!”
Christine Edwards, Senior Manager of the Bungie Foundation, said it’s “truly an honor” to support Kim’s work.
“We endeavor to move our industry forward in anti-racism through our corporate and philanthropic work,” she said. “I am filled with optimism, knowing that the outputs of [Theodore’s] research will create the opportunity for a massive shift in the industry’s ability to create truly representative characters.”
If the crew is aghast at an inattention to black characters’ defining traits, they ought to peruse the work of past programmers.
For a social justice fix, they should see what was done to white people; faceless Harrison Ford was beige and bald:
Raiders of the Lost Ark is trending. Before I ever saw the film, I had the video game. pic.twitter.com/sF1RPfjSgr
— seibermaki (@seibermaki) June 16, 2021
“It’s not the years, honey. It’s the mileage.” The first time Indiana Jones showed up in video games was on the Atari 2600. Who remembers playing Raiders of the Lost Ark? #indianajones #raidersofthelostark #atari2600 #classicgaming #gamerslounge pic.twitter.com/qZYG8LSatF
— Gamers Lounge | The Original GL | Since 2000 (@gamerslounge) August 21, 2022
-ALEX
See more content from me:
‘Joey’ Biden Recalls the Time He Crushed Crime With an Old Upstairs Woman He Used to Visit
You Now Have to Prove You’re 21 to Buy Whipped Cream Canisters in New York
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