What goes on under the hood at Wolfram Alpha is a mystery to my simple mind, but after seeing the results of this search, I hope whatever it is gets an overhaul quickly.
You see, tipster Jon-Paul snagged this screen shot of his search for “dumb” (which I cropped to cut out his desktop, fyi).
I then did a search of my own to dismiss any Photoshopping concerns. The results were the same in each case: Racist synonym trees that associated the word dumb with black.
What the heck, Wolfram? [Wolfram Alpha - Thanks, John-Paul]
Jason Cleeland
Monday, May 25, 2009 at 1:30 PMThe synonym network shows Black (as in the colour black, not race) as an extension of synonyms for the word dumb. Dumb -> Dim -> Black.
I love Gizmodo, and consider this a bit of an error and evidence of too-quick posting and poor editorial control, but really, maybe the synonym network in this case should have listed Gizmodo as a synonym for dumb. If there were any actual evidence of wolframalpha being actually racists, I’d be there with bells on complaining about it.
MadMike
Monday, May 25, 2009 at 2:39 PMI think WolframAlpha explained it pretty well themselves.
http://blog.wolframalpha.com/2009/05/24/yes-thats-dumb-a-lexicographic-footnote/
Alex
Monday, May 25, 2009 at 3:48 PMParaphrasing the title given to the screenshot: GizmodoFAIL?
greyman
Monday, May 25, 2009 at 3:55 PMwhat kind of a post is this? its completly over reactive and the writier clearly did not think it might have something to do with the colour not the race.