Can Artificial Intelligence ever truly replace human discretion? This question has for long been a topic of debate and now, an incident involving a parent, his child, and some photographs taken for medical reasons has once more brought the matter into focus.

Google uses an automated tool to flag abusive images of children.&nbsp;While the system clearly has its advantages, it may also go wrong and have severe consequences for the individuals involved.

In one such example, which the New York Times broke first, a stay-at-home father in San Francisco is under police investigation after taking images and recordings of an infection on his son's genitalia.

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The man, who has only been identified by his first name, noticed that his toddler's penis was causing him pain and looked swollen. Mark used his phone to click pictures for online consultation with the doctor.

While the infection soon went away thanks to antibiotics prescribed based on those pictures, Mark's troubles did not.

Mark and his wife used the phone and their service provider Google to upload the images to their healthcare provider's messaging system and soon after received a notification that his Google account has been blocked because of “harmful content” that was “a severe violation of Google’s policies and might be illegal.”

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While the particular reason was not provided, the list of possible reasons why this may have happened did have “child sexual abuse &amp; exploitation.”

Puzzled, the couple recalled the pictures in question and contacted Google to clear up the issue. However, the big tech firm refused to reinstate his account and in a statement said, “Child sexual abuse material is abhorrent and we’re committed to preventing the spread of it on our platforms.”

The San Francisco Police Department investigation was headed by Nicholas Hillard, who upon investigating concluded: "that no crime occurred".

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However, in spite of Mark submitting the police report to Google, the tech giant has decided to permanently delete his account. The move is costing the stay-at-home dad a lot of data and almost all of his digital presence. &nbsp;

In a similar case in Texas, another father Cassio had a similar thing happen to me.

As per the report, these two cases are only a drop in the bucket.&nbsp;Technology behemoths identify millions of images of sexually abusing or exploiting youngsters each year. Google alone reported child abuse content in excess of 600,000 times in 2021, leading to the account suspension of over 270,000 users.

(With inputs from agencies)

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Can Artificial Intelligence ever truly replace human discretion? This question has for long been a topic of debate and now, an incident involving a parent, his child, and some photographs taken for medical reasons has once more brought the matter into focus.

Can Artificial Intelligence ever truly replace human discretion? This question has for long been a topic of debate and now, an incident involving a parent, his child, and some photographs taken for medical reasons has once more brought the matter into focus. Google uses an automated tool to flag abusive images of children. While the system clearly has its advantages, it may also go wrong and have severe consequences for the individuals involved. In one such example, which the New York Times broke first, a stay-at-home father in San Francisco is under police investigation after taking images and recordings of an infection on his son's genitalia. Watch | Futuristic airports around the world | Tech It Out The man, who has only been identified by his first name, noticed that his toddler's penis was causing him pain and looked swollen. Mark used his phone to click pictures for online consultation with the doctor. While the infection soon went away thanks to antibiotics prescribed based on those pictures, Mark's troubles did not. Mark and his wife used the phone and their service provider Google to upload the images to their healthcare provider's messaging system and soon after received a notification that his Google account has been blocked because of “harmful content” that was “a severe violation of Google’s policies and might be illegal.” Also read | How does Google make money? While the particular reason was not provided, the list of possible reasons why this may have happened did have “child sexual abuse & exploitation.” Puzzled, the couple recalled the pictures in question and contacted Google to clear up the issue. However, the big tech firm refused to reinstate his account and in a statement said, “Child sexual abuse material is abhorrent and we’re committed to preventing the spread of it on our platforms.” The San Francisco Police Department investigation was headed by Nicholas Hillard, who upon investigating concluded: "that no crime occurred". Also read | Brazil elections: Da Silva calls Jair Bolsonaro a 'cheap copy' of Donald Trump However, in spite of Mark submitting the police report to Google, the tech giant has decided to permanently delete his account. The move is costing the stay-at-home dad a lot of data and almost all of his digital presence. In a similar case in Texas, another father Cassio had a similar thing happen to me. As per the report, these two cases are only a drop in the bucket. Technology behemoths identify millions of images of sexually abusing or exploiting youngsters each year. Google alone reported child abuse content in excess of 600,000 times in 2021, leading to the account suspension of over 270,000 users. (With inputs from agencies) Watch WION LIVE HERE: You can now write for wionews.com and be a part of the community. Share your stories and opinions with us here.

Google accuses US father of 'child sex abuse' for clicking pictures of an infection on toddler's genitals

An expert said that Apple should revive its plans to scan iPhones for child abuse imagery. The use of the software by the company to scan the photo library of every individual who uses the iPhone was deemed controversial.&nbsp;

But the inventor of the scanning technology, Prof Hany Farid, has argued that Apple should take a hint from warnings issued by the security services of the United Kingdom.&nbsp;

While speaking to the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) on the child safety group's latest podcast, Prof Farid said that Apple should be emboldened to revive its plans after an intervention from the technical leads of GCHQ and the National Cyber Security Centre as they are backing an extension of the technology on to individual phones. &nbsp;

Prof Farid is an expert in image analysis at the University of California, Berkeley. He is the inventor of PhotoDNA, which is an "image hashing" technique. It is generally used by companies across the web to remove illegal images after&nbsp;identifying them.&nbsp;&nbsp;

During the latest podcast, Farid said, "The pushback was from a relatively small number of privacy groups. I contend that the vast majority of people would have said 'sure, this seems perfectly reasonable', but yet a relatively small but vocal group put a huge amount of pressure on Apple and I think Apple, somewhat cowardly, succumbed to that pressure."&nbsp;

He added, "I think they should have stuck their ground and said: 'This is the right thing to do and we are going to do it.' And I am a strong advocate of not just Apple doing this, but Snap doing this, and Google doing this – all the online services doing this."&nbsp;

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An expert said that Apple should revive its plans to scan iPhones for child abuse imagery. The use of the software by the company to scan the photo library of every individual who uses the iPhone was deemed controversial.

An expert said that Apple should revive its plans to scan iPhones for child abuse imagery. The use of the software by the company to scan the photo library of every individual who uses the iPhone was deemed controversial. But the inventor of the scanning technology, Prof Hany Farid, has argued that Apple should take a hint from warnings issued by the security services of the United Kingdom. While speaking to the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) on the child safety group's latest podcast, Prof Farid said that Apple should be emboldened to revive its plans after an intervention from the technical leads of GCHQ and the National Cyber Security Centre as they are backing an extension of the technology on to individual phones. Prof Farid is an expert in image analysis at the University of California, Berkeley. He is the inventor of PhotoDNA, which is an "image hashing" technique. It is generally used by companies across the web to remove illegal images after identifying them. During the latest podcast, Farid said, "The pushback was from a relatively small number of privacy groups. I contend that the vast majority of people would have said 'sure, this seems perfectly reasonable', but yet a relatively small but vocal group put a huge amount of pressure on Apple and I think Apple, somewhat cowardly, succumbed to that pressure." He added, "I think they should have stuck their ground and said: 'This is the right thing to do and we are going to do it.' And I am a strong advocate of not just Apple doing this, but Snap doing this, and Google doing this – all the online services doing this." WATCH WION LIVE HERE You can now write for wionews.com and be a part of the community. Share your stories and opinions with us here.

Should Apple scan iPhones for child abuse images? Here's what expert has to say

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Google accuses US father of 'child sex abuse' for clicking pictures of an infection on toddler's genitals

Should Apple scan iPhones for child abuse images? Here's what expert has to say