Beautiful Virgin Islands

Monday, Sep 01, 2025

Amazon To Warn Customers On Limitations Of Its Artificial Intelligence

Amazon To Warn Customers On Limitations Of Its Artificial Intelligence

Amazon chose software touching on sensitive demographic issues as a start for its service cards.
Amazon.com Inc is planning to roll out warning cards for software sold by its cloud-computing division, in light of ongoing concern that artificially intelligent systems can discriminate against different groups, the company told Reuters.

Akin to lengthy nutrition labels, Amazon's so-called AI Service Cards will be public so its business customers can see the limitations of certain cloud services, such as facial recognition and audio transcription. The goal would be to prevent mistaken use of its technology, explain how its systems work and manage privacy, Amazon said.

The company is not the first to publish such warnings. International Business Machines Corp, a smaller player in the cloud, did so years ago. The No. 3 cloud provider, Alphabet Inc's Google, has also published still more details on the datasets it has used to train some of its AI.

Yet Amazon's decision to release its first three service cards on Wednesday reflects the industry leader's attempt to change its image after a public spat with civil liberties critics years ago left an impression that it cared less about AI ethics than its peers did. The move will coincide with the company's annual cloud conference in Las Vegas.

Michael Kearns, a University of Pennsylvania professor and since 2020 a scholar at Amazon, said the decision to issue the cards followed privacy and fairness audits of the company's software. The cards would address AI ethics concerns publicly at a time when tech regulation was on the horizon, said Kearns.

"The biggest thing about this launch is the commitment to do this on an ongoing basis and an expanded basis," he said.

Amazon chose software touching on sensitive demographic issues as a start for its service cards, which Kearns expects to grow in detail over time.

SKIN TONES

One such service is called "Rekognition." In 2019, Amazon contested a study saying the technology struggled to identify the gender of individuals with darker skin tones. But after the 2020 murder of George Floyd, an unarmed Black man, during an arrest, the company issued a moratorium on police use of its facial recognition software.

Now, Amazon says in a service card seen by Reuters that Rekognition does not support matching "images that are too blurry and grainy for the face to be recognized by a human, or that have large portions of the face occluded by hair, hands, and other objects." It also warns against matching faces in cartoons and other "nonhuman entities."

In another warning card seen by Reuters, on audio transcription, Amazon states, "Inconsistently modifying audio inputs could result in unfair outcomes for different demographic groups." Kearns said accurately transcribing the wide range of regional accents and dialects in North America alone was a challenge Amazon had worked to address.

Jessica Newman, director of the AI Security Initiative at the University of California at Berkeley, said technology companies were increasingly publishing such disclosures as a signal of responsible AI practices, though they had a way to go.

"We shouldn't be dependent upon the goodwill of companies to provide basic details of systems that can have enormous influence on people's lives," she said, calling for more industry standards.

Tech giants have wrestled with making such documents short enough that people will read them yet sufficiently detailed and up to date to reflect frequent software tweaks, a person who worked on nutrition labels at two major enterprises said.
Newsletter

Related Articles

Beautiful Virgin Islands
0:00
0:00
Close
Chinese and Indian Leaders Pursue Amity Amid Global Shifts
European Union Plans for Ukraine Deployment
ECB Warns Against Inflation Complacency
Concerns Over North Cyprus Casino Development
Shipping Companies Look Beyond Chinese Finance
Rural Exodus Fueling European Wildfires
China Hosts Major Security Meeting
Chinese Police Successfully Recover Family's Savings from Livestream Purchases
Germany Marks a Decade Since Migrant Wave with Divisions, Success Stories, and Political Shifts
Liverpool Defeat Arsenal 1–0 with Szoboszlai Free-Kick to Stay Top of Premier League
Prince Harry and King Charles to Meet in First Reunion After 20 Months
Chinese Stock Market Rally Fueled by Domestic Investors
Israeli Airstrike in Yemen Kills Houthi Prime Minister
Ukrainian Nationalist Politician Andriy Parubiy Assassinated in Lviv
Corporate America Cuts Middle Management as Bosses Take On Triple the Workload
Parents Sue OpenAI After Teen’s Death, Alleging ChatGPT Encouraged Suicide
Amazon Faces Lawsuit Over 'Buy' Label on Digital Streaming Content
Federal Reserve Independence Questioned Amid Trump’s Push to Reshape Central Bank
British Politics Faces Tumultuous Autumn After Summer of Rebellions and Rising Farage Momentum
US Appeals Court Rules Against Most Trump-Era Tariffs
UK Sought Broad Access to Apple Users’ Data, Court Filing Reveals
UK Bank Shares Dive Over Potential Tax on Sector
Germany’s Auto Industry Sheds 51,500 Jobs in First Half of 2025 Amid Deepening Crisis
Bruce Willis Relocated Due to Advanced Dementia
French and Korean Nuclear Majors Clash As EU Launches Foreign Subsidy Probe
EU Stands Firm on Digital Rules as Trump Warns of Retaliation
Getting Ready for the 3rd Time in Its History, Germany Approves Voluntary Military Service for Teenagers
Argentine President Javier Milei Evacuated After Stones Thrown During Campaign Event
Denmark Confronts U.S. Diplomat Over Covert Trump-Linked Influence in Greenland
Starmer Should Back Away from ECHR, Says Jack Straw
Trump Demands RICO Charges Against George Soros and Son for Funding Violent Protests
Taylor Swift Announces Engagement to NFL Star Travis Kelce
France May Need IMF Bailout, Warns Finance Minister
Chinese AI Chipmaker Cambricon Posts Record Profit as Beijing Pushes Pivot from Nvidia
After the Shock of Defeat, Iranians Yearn for Change
Ukraine Finally Allows Young Men Aged Eighteen to Twenty-Two to Leave the Country
The Porn Remains, Privacy Disappears: How Britain Broke the Internet in Ten Days
YouTube Altered Content by Artificial Intelligence – Without Permission
Welcome to The Definition of Insanity: Germany Edition
Just a reminder, this is Michael Jackson's daughter, Paris.
Spotify’s Strange Move: The Feature Nobody Asked For – Returns
Manhunt in Australia: Armed Anti-Government Suspect Kills Police Officers Sent to Arrest Him
China Launches World’s Most Powerful Neutrino Detector
How Beijing-Linked Networks Shape Elections in New York City
Ukrainian Refugee Iryna Zarutska Fled War To US, Stabbed To Death
Elon Musk Sues Apple and OpenAI Over Alleged App Store Monopoly
2 Australian Police Shot Dead In Encounter In Rural Victoria State
Vietnam Evacuates Hundreds of Thousands as Typhoon Kajiki Strikes; China’s Sanya Shuts Down
UK Government Delays Decision on China’s Proposed London Embassy Amid Concerns Over Redacted Plans
A 150-Year Tradition to Be Abolished? Uproar Over the Popular Central Park Attraction
×