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Yahoo Open Sources a Deep Learning Model For Classifying Pornographic Images (venturebeat.com)

New submitter OWCareers writes: Yahoo today announced its latest open-source release: a model that can figure out if images are specifically pornographic in nature. The system uses a type of artificial intelligence called deep learning, which involves training artificial neural networks on lots of data (like dirty images) and getting them to make inferences about new data. The model that's now available on GitHub under a BSD 2-Clause license comes pre-trained, so users only have to fine-tune it if they so choose. The model works with the widely used Caffe open source deep learning framework. The team trained the model using its now open source CaffeOnSpark system.
The new model could be interesting to look at for developers maintaining applications like Instagram and Pinterest that are keen to minimize smut. Search engine operators like Google and Microsoft might also want to check out what's under the hood here.
The tool gives images a score between 0 to 1 on how NSFW the pictures look. The official blog post from Yahoo outlines several examples.

119 comments

  1. Cool by plopez · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Now all you have to have is a good definition of what is pornographic. Personally I find gratuitous violence to be pornographic.

    --
    putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
    1. Re:Cool by cdrudge · · Score: 4, Insightful
    2. Re:Cool by mentil · · Score: 2

      It seems to be trying to classify images based on how NSFW they are, which is different from how pornographic they are. For example, there are some artistic nudes which may not be commonly considered pornographic, but are still NSFW.

      --
      Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
    3. Re:Cool by gnick · · Score: 0

      My guess is that "pornographic" will be roughly equivalent to "containing nudity." Nudity, of course, being the most dangerous thing a person can be exposed to. Gods forbid that a child sees a nipple.

      --
      He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
    4. Re:Cool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Great! I have the needful. What I need is all my porn categorized into the following:

      - Furry;
      - Hentai;
      - Watersports.

      Can this be done? This would save me so much time...

    5. Re:Cool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Maybe yahoo needs to learn how to block hackers !

    6. Re:Cool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Particularly yours. Double Ds don't like good on dudes.

    7. Re:Cool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ... a child sees a nipple.

      It's only a problem when the nipple is female though. It's interesting that sexism against women exists in this feminist world, although I too consider breasts to be sexual organs.

      But genital nudity is more problematic. Is a woman's genital flaps pornographic when her thighs are splayed apart? Like naked breasts, we all look at that. At what angle does the penis qualify as aroused, and thus as pornographic?

    8. Re:Cool by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 4, Insightful

      As usual, Yahoo is missing the market. Rather than a binary porn/not-porn, there would be a MUCH bigger market for a porn classifier that could help people find what they like. If their DL-NN is based on RBMs they could even use it in generative mode to create porn to individual tastes.

    9. Re:Cool by allo · · Score: 1

      Slashdot is NSFW, as everything not work related at work.

      If you're allowed to browse on your workstation, artistic nudity should not be a problem.

    10. Re:Cool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Finally: A thinking AI!

    11. Re:Cool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Deep learning? How deep?

    12. Re: Cool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Does not compute! ::system error:: Cannot tell if deep is literal or sexual innuendo. Return score: 0.5

    13. Re: Cool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      7 inches

      whydoyouask?

    14. Re: Cool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If it's for money, its pornography.

    15. Re:Cool by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 1

      Computer/machine vision just makes the seeing cheaper, right?

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
    16. Re:Cool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Deep learning? How deep?

      OK, you're going to need an endoscope for starters, and you might want a hazmat suit.

    17. Re:Cool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It'll save me a lot of time too as I don't want to see any of that stuff.

    18. Re:Cool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, they don't. Thank you, People of Wal-Mart, for that valuable lesson.

    19. Re:Cool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Easy, if it's posted on tumblr.com it's probably pornographic and illegal in several countries.

    20. Re:Cool by molarmass192 · · Score: 1

      Gods forbid that a child sees a nipple.

      Well, it is a slippery slope, where does it end? The next thing you know we'll be exposing innocent new born infants to nipples. Degenerates!!!

      --

      Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws-Plato
    21. Re: Cool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Breasts in general or just female breasts? I find breasts very non-sexual and don't get the whole breast hysteria at all.

    22. Re: Cool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think in the UK, the film censors used to disallow anything above horizontal. For Sebastiane, Derek Jarman submitted a print to the censors with an aspect ratio which cut off the stiffies, while in the released version they were in full view.

    23. Re: Cool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Same here: just the BDSM for me. Don't want any of that perverted stuff.

    24. Re:Cool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Now all you have to have is a good definition of what is pornographic. Personally I find gratuitous violence to be pornographic.

      From the git page: "For this reason, the model we describe below focuses only on one type of NSFW content: pornographic images. The identification of NSFW sketches, cartoons, text, images of graphic violence, or other types of unsuitable content is not addressed with this model." [emphasis added].

    25. Re:Cool by Spaham · · Score: 1

      Well, it's open source, so feel free to improve and share !

  2. Deep Learning by mentil · · Score: 1

    Is that what they're calling it nowadays?

    --
    Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
    1. Re:Deep Learning by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's what your mom is calling it these days. Ziiiiiiing!

    2. Re:Deep Learning by Tablizer · · Score: 1

      Is that what they're calling it nowadays?

      Deep learning can now penetrate your pathways in expanding ways and inject fulfilling content that triggers a euphoria of discovery and edification.

    3. Re: Deep Learning by bill_mcgonigle · · Score: 1

      How deep, baby? Tell me how deep your learning goes!

      (did yahoo! classify this? will they tell us in two years?)

      --
      My God, it's Full of Source!
      OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
  3. Awesome by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Can I run it locally? I've always wanted to organize my collection into what you can see, rather than my model.

    1. Re: Awesome by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You'd want to weight it too; a scene with a hundred women and one man should have different ranking than a scene with a hundred men and one woman, unless you're simply looking for merely whether those genders are present, or if the total number of people is 101, or ratios of 100:1.

      But yeah, seeing the story description above this is what I thought of even though I know what they really meant

    2. Re: Awesome by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Are we categorise them by appearance or what they self-identify as?
      --
      AmiMoJo

  4. Priorities by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Yahoo needs a Deep Learning Model for how to competently run Yahoo.

    1. Re:Priorities by molarmass192 · · Score: 1

      Well, this is hands down the winner of this discussion! If only I had mod points.

      --

      Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws-Plato
  5. Pornographic Deep Learning Blocks? by waspleg · · Score: 1

    Great it's about time ADs got this kind of treatment.

  6. Yahoo - Not the hero we need by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    But the hero we deserve

  7. Human Neurosis by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So basically, humans want to pass on their own neurotic attitudes to sex and nudity to AIs before the AIs have time to think for themselves and form their own values and opinions.

    1. Re:Human Neurosis by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      AI's don't have the constraints of resources and evaluation of confidence that theirs benefit their own progeny, that led to the "neurotic" (read: evolutionarily effective) instinctual responses, from which we have the necessity of values.

      Live your stance a while, rather than testing it in a context of a consequence-free world of ASCII characters.

    2. Re:Human Neurosis by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      speaking of ASCII, i wonder if this thing can also classify ASCII porn as NSFW

  8. rule 34 by turkeydance · · Score: 1

    now with AI

  9. Cool... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    We just have to feed the model to Google's Deep Dream and we're good to go...

    1. Re:Cool... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      My thoughts exactly.

      We may have finally managed to out-weird the Japanese.

    2. Re:Cool... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What a fantastic idea. Dogs and eyeballs are getting to be so passe. Can't wait!

  10. About time! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    Glad to hear AI is finally being used for a benevolent purpose: To more easily locate pornographic images! So now we can just bypass the Google images search with safe search off when we're looking for stuff for the spankbank, right? And, practically overnight, Yahoo! becomes relevant yet again.

    1. Re:About time! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yup, first thing I thought was: finally some useful research!

  11. Why? by clonehappy · · Score: 2

    What possible uses does this have other than censorship?

    1. Re:Why? by ArtemaOne · · Score: 5, Interesting

      My guess is that since they purchased Tumblr, they're facing the fact that it is one of the biggest nude image collections ever. For years I've joked with my wife about scrolling: funny image, social justice post, kitten, woman receiving anal, puppy dog, web comic, nude woman, kitten

    2. Re:Why? by Larry_Dillon · · Score: 1

      So I can sort my porn collection into softcore and harder. Duh.

      --
      Competition Good, Monopoly Bad.
    3. Re:Why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Creating a better porn site through machine learning?

    4. Re:Why? by Northdot · · Score: 1

      No mainstream ad networks (such as google Adsense) are allowed on sites with adult NSFW content. So if you have an ad-supported site with user-generated content, you have to screen the images somehow.

      Call it censorship if you want to, but these algorithmic methods are getting better, and it's pretty useful as there will always be nitwits uploading pics of their manhood.

    5. Re:Why? by FrankHaynes · · Score: 1

      Well, you can laugh all you want, but I object to the de facto censorship imposed on us by these de facto monopolies like Facebook, Google, and now Yahoo(?)

      As if simply seeing something is the worst affront that one can suffer, so we need this AI nanny.

      I agree with others on many points:

      - I would rate violent images worse, automatically

      - what about artistic nudes? Is this thing smart enough to discriminate between guys with cameras and the good stuff?

      - what about legitimate naturist and nude beach mementos? Are we to raise an entire generation to think that shooting (imaginary) people until blood splatters the virtual screen is just peachy keen, but those photos of our trip to the nude beach are just oh so terrible? Is that the world we want to hand down when we're the next in line for the slaughter? Who made Silicon Valley the worldwide arbiters of taste anyway?

      - NSFW means "not sure for what?" What if you work at a pr0n shop??

      --
      slashdot: A failed experiment.
    6. Re:Why? by ceoyoyo · · Score: 1

      Well, some engineer at Yahoo convinced his boss that he should spend his work time surfing porn... for training the model, yeah, that's it.

      Also, if Yahoo wanted to be profitable again they could have the best porn search engine by tomorrow.

    7. Re:Why? by ArtemaOne · · Score: 1

      I get part of what you're saying, but what is with the attitude as if I'm pro censorship? When did I laugh? Try to turn down your douche-nozzle. The nudity is one of the best things about Tumblr, and I'm afraid of Yahoo ruining that to try to make Tumblr more family friendly, which it is fundamentally not.

    8. Re:Why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If they were de facto monopolies and censoring, there wouldn't be nudity on the Internet.

    9. Re:Why? by omnichad · · Score: 1

      To power the "safe search" option on a search engine. Self-censorship does not really count as censorship. And if I need to search for questionable words at work, I'd prefer not to have NSFW results.

    10. Re:Why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If Yahoo, with their incompetency, was the de facto censor, there wouldn't be any NON-nudity on the Internet.

      You REALLY don't want a slashdot with nudity.

    11. Re: Why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You can run the neural network in reverse to generate unlimited new port.

    12. Re:Why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      To enable you to browse images on Reddit, Twitter, and Imgur at work when you should be working, obviously.

    13. Re:Why? by UnknownSoldier · · Score: 1

      > - what about artistic nudes? Is this thing smart enough to discriminate between guys with cameras and the good stuff?

      Doubt it.

      I guess Leonard Nimoy's books (yes, "Spock") photography books will classified as pornographic:

      * Shekhina
      * The Full Body Project: Photographs by Leonard Nimoy

    14. Re:Why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yahoo .xxx Search?

    15. Re:Why? by dbIII · · Score: 1

      - what about artistic nudes? Is this thing smart enough to discriminate between guys with cameras and the good stuff?

      Of course not, you'd need an automatic poet for that.
      To do it just follow Stanislaw Lem's instructions.
      First simulate a universe ...

    16. Re:Why? by bmo · · Score: 1

      Are we to raise an entire generation to think that shooting (imaginary) people until blood splatters the virtual screen is just peachy keen, but those photos of our trip to the nude beach are just oh so terrible?

      I suggest you study your own question a bit more and I'm sure you'll come up with your own answer about the utility and value of violence (for the people who are part of the club ("it's a big club and you ain't in it" -- Carlin)) as opposed to the value of art, mementos, and porn (I suggest that porn itself is an art form).

      - NSFW means "not sure for what?" What if you work at a pr0n shop??

      Indeed.

      --
      BMO

    17. Re:Why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      - what about artistic nudes? Is this thing smart enough to discriminate between guys with cameras and the good stuff?

      I'll bite with an example. Where would you qualify this NSFW image?

    18. Re: Why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's black and white so it's obviously Art!

    19. Re:Why? by radarskiy · · Score: 1

      Curation.

  12. So, "Deep Learning" is the cyber equivalent of by mykepredko · · Score: 0

    an overweight guy in sweat pants in his mother's basement?

  13. welcome to nazi germany papers please by Joe_Dragon · · Score: 0

    welcome to nazi germany papers please

    1. Re:welcome to nazi germany papers please by ffkom · · Score: 1

      Actually, "Nazi Germany" wasn't quite as uptight with regards to nudity as today's USA is - on 10th July 1942, for example, the Nazi regime generally allowed naked bathing in open waters in a new "Reichsverordnung".

  14. Pornography is in the eye of the beholder by DavidMZ · · Score: 2

    I am afraid that the origin of the world will be considered pornographic by any algorithm capable of identifying it. Actually, I wouldn't be surprised if many people actually think it is pornographic.

    1. Re:Pornography is in the eye of the beholder by Eristone · · Score: 1

      Maybe - but from a NSFW standpoint, that link is definitely one, DavisMZ.

    2. Re:Pornography is in the eye of the beholder by Gravis+Zero · · Score: 1

      Pornography is in the eye of the beholder

      Just go with the "what would your employer think" standard and it almost universally becomes images with nudity.

      I am afraid that the origin of the world [musee-orsay.fr] will be considered pornographic by any algorithm capable of identifying it

      Is that really something you fear? Are you really concerned that too much nude artistry is going to filtered out from your search results?

      --
      Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
    3. Re:Pornography is in the eye of the beholder by plopez · · Score: 1

      That depends on where you work

      --
      putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
    4. Re:Pornography is in the eye of the beholder by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's a picture of a cunt, doesn't that pretty much make it pornographic? Or do you mean that genitals that are "art" are immune from being pornography? In that case it'll be ok if I put up a poster of it at work, right? I'm a contractor at a federal agency BTW.

    5. Re: Pornography is in the eye of the beholder by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      A poster would be an insult to this painting, a proper oil based reproduction would probably be accepted by our institution art policy

  15. Who cares about filtering? by somenickname · · Score: 1

    Who cares about filtering these images? I want to hook this up to an internet spider and have it go out and fetch me a vast collection of glorious pornographic images.

  16. As I read this.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The first think that came to mind was "Deep Learning, Porn.".

  17. Great for organizing a collection by Snotnose · · Score: 3, Insightful

    If it can tell various types of porn apart then it can categorize, um, my friend's collection he keeps meaning to organize.

    1. Re:Great for organizing a collection by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The headline suggests just that, but the body of the submission don't deliver on promise. Yahoo has gone soft core.

    2. Re:Great for organizing a collection by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well it's only a binary classifier. If your friend saved his collection in the same folder as his family photos then it might help.... depending on how the family photos score

    3. Re:Great for organizing a collection by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Still it could be useful to scrape the web for pictures of pussycats while filtering out all this dirty nasty porn.

    4. Re:Great for organizing a collection by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Or vice versa.

  18. Great! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Now I won't have to sort through all those annoying vanilla images. My computer can go straight to the porn.

  19. The first /. article by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    where everyone RTFA.

    1. Re:The first /. article by Daetrin · · Score: 1

      If this like the inverse of the classic excuse for Playboy? "I only read it for the examples!"

      --
      This Space Intentionally Left Blank
    2. Re:The first /. article by mugurel · · Score: 1

      I think you overestimate the power of porn.

    3. Re:The first /. article by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      i only read it for the Lena standard test image!

  20. Foo. I never get the fun projects... by mnemotronic · · Score: 1

    Classify THIS Mariss.

    --
    The Russians have won. They have made the world a cesspool of distrust, greed, fear and hate.
  21. Tay says "*%^#(@ 4CHAN *$#) HITLER C*CK *#&@" by Thud457 · · Score: 1

    "open source"? "pornography classification"?

    I see no possible way this could go awry.
    Do carry on.

    --

    the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

  22. De facto by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You keep using that phrase. I don't think it means what you think it means.

  23. Deep Learning by allo · · Score: 1

    So deep learning way about learning how to deep throat without choking the whole time?

  24. When they say "Deep Learning" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    They mean 15 inches worth.

  25. Re:Foo. I never get the fun projects... by PPH · · Score: 1

    Schwing!

    --
    Have gnu, will travel.
  26. AI learns to go deep. by Hylandr · · Score: 1

    Great,

    But can it detect duplicates and organize it by category for me?

    --
    ~ People that think they are better than anyone else for any reason are the cause of all the strife in the world.
  27. Going for a perfect score by watermark · · Score: 3, Funny

    New challenge, find an image that gives a perfect 1 score

    1. Re:Going for a perfect score by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 1

      Try Trump or Clinton first. ;)

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
    2. Re:Going for a perfect score by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There would be no going back, or putting it back after seeing that image. The desk would also take a severe beating from below.

    3. Re:Going for a perfect score by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      no, try Trump + Clinton, silly

  28. DeepWetDream anyone? by PacoSuarez · · Score: 3, Insightful

    You can feed an image to this network and use backpropagation to compute the gradient of the NSFW score with respect to the pixel values in the input. A few steps of gradient ascent/descent and you'll get a spiced up/down version of the original image. I believe this is roughly what DeepDream does. The results could be hilarious. It is very possible that Yahoo has inadvertently created an open-source porn generator.

    Any takers?

    1. Re:DeepWetDream anyone? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You can try this DGN-AM framework, which does exactly what you are describing:
      https://github.com/Evolving-AI-Lab/synthesizing

  29. Let the jokes begin by JustAnotherOldGuy · · Score: 1

    *knock knock* "What are you doing in there in the bathroom, son?"

    *furtive rustling noises* "I'm, uh, doing Deep Learning, mom!"

    "But Jimmy, you've been in there for hours!"

    "Uh, yeah, mom, but there's a lot of sites- I mean, ummm material to look at."

    --
    Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
  30. REALLY cool! by fyngyrz · · Score: 2

    Yes, this is excellent! With this available, now I won't have to suffer with non-pornographic image retrievals and suggestions any more from these stupid image search engines. Finally!

    Wait, it does what?

    --
    I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
    1. Re:REALLY cool! by michelcolman · · Score: 1

      I wonder what it thinks about this Rosetta image:

  31. Re:Foo. I never get the fun projects... by JustAnotherOldGuy · · Score: 1

    Wow, that thing's erection is...amazing. So long, and versatile, and hard. I bet women look at it and go, "Oh my god!"

    I wish I could say I was the proud owner of a Putzmeister.

    --
    Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
  32. Seti needs it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The most likely alien transmissions are porn.

    1. Re:Seti needs it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Best post I've read in years!

  33. crowdsourcing by TimMD909 · · Score: 1

    Why not crowdsource it instead of fancy AI? I'm sure we could find some diligent and hardworking teenagers who'd be willing to do this for minimum wage. They could get invaluable experience working a 9 to 5. That would help build some character.

    1. Re:crowdsourcing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Probably because it's really about good PR to and for advertisers, as well as justifying the continued existence of Yahoo Research. Research! has worked on a lot of cool stuff over the years, but Yahoo is just ad supported web real estate.

  34. I'd like Steam Community to integrate this by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Because pervs want to show the other teenagers the digital booby they found in a game, ignoring the SSA. putting Valve at risk.

  35. Sounds great by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Sounds great, but how do I upload my preferences?

  36. Re: Foo. I never get the fun projects... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Pity, they only showed a little bit with the stuff coming out the end (then that man kicking it round the floor with his boots).

  37. analyze porn by siamesevodka · · Score: 1

    Do you think the software that analyzes the porn will do it until it goes blind or until it is wearing thick glasses?

  38. Now use deconvolutional generative models by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Computer generated porn via statistics: no copyright royalties required for the models/actors which helped build the model.

  39. Ashes to ashes by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Their legacy...

  40. 0 to 1? by meglon · · Score: 1

    The tool gives images a score between 0 to 1 on how NSFW the pictures look.

    Wake me when the things turns it up to 11.

    --
    Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
  41. prosecution, not censorship by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This will be used to prosecute people. Censorship is the least of the worries. Once the authorities start training it on kiddie porn, it won't be real funny when you get arrested for your baby pictures, or some puppy lying on its back. It will all be automated, much like DMCA takedown notices. And, NNs can't tell you WHY they classified something a particular way, they just say "trust me, I've seen a lot of these."

  42. Re:Foo. I never get the fun projects... by bhiestand · · Score: 1

    WARNING: The video above depicts multiple men yanking an extremely long tool all over the place. Most of the video focuses on the men slowly getting the tool erect.

    --
    SWM seeks new sig for a brief fling
  43. hear hear by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    this deep learning sh* must be some magic sauce.
    sounds like the author has never ever heard of it before.

    feels like we're on .wanker, not ./

  44. Classification? by Whiteox · · Score: 1

    So it doesn't classify porn images, just works out if they are.
    Phrasing msmash!

    --
    Don't be apathetic. Procrastinate!