GIA Lab Is Moving to Automated Clarity Grading

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PinkDiamond
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GIA Lab Is Moving to Automated Clarity Grading

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Technology is great, but it doesn't replace the human eye when it comes to assessing gemstones. They tried for over a decade to find with a way to automate clarity grading unsuccessfully, but now they turned to IBM and think they've got machines that are reliable. That said, they admit many will still require human verification, but for small stones that are inconsequential it should do a good job and assess them much faster, and leave gemologist appraisers to verify important gems. So what's your take on it; is this a good thing, or a bad thing? :?:

GIA Lab Is Moving to Automated Clarity Grading
July 27, 2020 by Rob Bates

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"The Gemological Institute of America’s (GIA) diamond grading lab has developed a system, working with IBM, that will use artificial intelligence to largely automate its diamond clarity grading.

The new clarity grade system is currently in use the GIA’s laboratories in New York City and Carlsbad, Calif., and could soon be expanded elsewhere.

Tom Moses, GIA executive vice president and chief laboratory and research officer, says that while GIA’s color and cut grading has become largely automated, so far clarity grading by machine has proven elusive.

“Clarity has been the last frontier,” he says. “It’s complex. It’s very hard to image. We have to assess the size, number, nature, and type of many different characteristics. Then we have to factor in all those dimensions and interpret them together.”

He notes that GIA has been trying to try to automate clarity grading for more than a decade. It ended up turning to IBM, a leader in artificial intelligence, to help develop this new system.

The new method has several advantages, says Moses. For one, it’s quicker.

“This automation will allow us to grade more stones, smaller sizes, and to do it more efficiently,” he says.

It is also generally more consistent, he says: “We have already determined the repeatability is higher with machine learning. It isn’t across all grades yet but for the majority of the grades it has demonstrated more repeatability.”

The system will eventually mean “less human intervention,” but Moses believes there will always be a place for humans in the grading process, particularly with more important diamonds.

“There will likely be some human intervention is some cases. Gemstones are unique. You really need that raw intelligence developed over decades. I wouldn’t say that one day you just put this thing down in the machine. There is ... "

https://www.jckonline.com/editorial-art ... y-grading/
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Re: GIA Lab Is Moving to Automated Clarity Grading

Post by SwordfishMining »

It will remove a lot of hourly workers around the world in the long run & make factory diamonds even cheaper. The world is constantly changing methods to reduce labor. They were working on an Australian Opal grader too at one point, but the machine could not grade beauty apparently. Other than factory production, every diamond is inspected by hand by the final resellers.
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