Widely used social network media company Twitter Inc. (TWTR) is planning to launch a competition for computer researchers and hackers based on its image cropping algorithm which since last year has been talked about by social media users who alleged the algorithm tended to exclude black people and men.
The company says this competition will be part and parcel of its wider efforts by the tech industry to ensure that ethical practices are observed in artificial intelligence technologies.
Twitter says this bounty competition will be aiming at identifying potential harms of the algorithms beyond what the company’s technical team has already identified.
Winners of the competition will take home cash prizes ranging from $500 to $3,500, additionally, they will be invited to present their work at a workshop hosted by the company slated for this month.
The company has already publicly released the computer code which decides how images are cropped in the twitter feed. It asked the participants to find how the algorithm could cause harm such as unfairly criticizing a specific group of people.
