Google has opened the source code of the Monk Skin Tone (MST) 10-point skin tone scale to open-ended AI researchers and developers. In the coming months, the company plans to implement it in a number of its products.

We’re making the Monk Scale available to anyone as a more representative skin tone guide in research and product development. Our goal is to improve scale over time in partnership with the industry. #GoogleIO ↓ https://t.co/0ZtPoWvW3s

— Google (@Google) 11 May 2022

During its annual developer conference I/O 2022, the company demonstrated how scale can improve Google Search. For example, when searching for cosmetics, users can improve their skin tone and get more relevant images.

The company is working on a standardized way to markup web content that will allow creators and brands to markup content with attributes such as skin tone, hair color, and texture.

The MST scale will also appear in Google Photos. The company will update the Real Tone artificial intelligence post-processing feature for Pixel phones introduced in 2021. According to the developers, the MST scale will improve the display of faces in all tones.

New True Tone filters will be coming to Google Photos on all available platforms in the coming weeks.

The MST was created in collaboration with Harvard professor Ellis Monk. It is designed to cover a wider range of skin tones.

The company also said the scale will help create more representative datasets for training and testing AI models for bias.

During I/O 2022, Google introduced a number of other products and features for AI services.

Recall that in April, the developers of Google Lens added a simultaneous search by image and text.

In October 2021, the tech giant introduced Pixel smartphones with tensor processors for machine learning.