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What Image Should Represent All of Humanity On Wikipedia? (wired.com)
An anonymous reader writes: If aliens ever do come across the Pioneer spacecraft and make assumptions about the entire human species based on the man and woman etched onto the plaque it carries, this is what they will think of us: We all look like white people; we all look about 30ish years old; we do not wear clothes. It's a problem you encounter anytime you have to choose a few individuals to represent an entire group, and it's one that the editors of Wikipedia have debated for years: What image should grace the top of the "human" entry in the online dictionary?
The photo that's there now, after years of feverish debate, is of an Akha couple from a region of Thailand along the Mekong river. "The photo of the Akha couple remain humanity's type specimens on Wikipedia," writes author Ellen Airhart. "Just as a shriveled northeastern leopard frog at the University of Michigan Museum of Zoology represents its whole species, so this couple stands for all of us."
Such musing about the taxonomic representation of the human species could actually have a big impact on our digital future. "Future scientists will have to teach computers, not aliens, to recognize the human image. Right now, software engineers program artificial intelligence to recognize people by feeding them millions of pictures of faces," she writes. "But whose faces? Computer scientists run into the same questions about gender, race, and culture that the Wikipedia editors encountered. Being able to use more than one photo expands the conversation but does not necessarily make it easier."
The photo that's there now, after years of feverish debate, is of an Akha couple from a region of Thailand along the Mekong river. "The photo of the Akha couple remain humanity's type specimens on Wikipedia," writes author Ellen Airhart. "Just as a shriveled northeastern leopard frog at the University of Michigan Museum of Zoology represents its whole species, so this couple stands for all of us."
Such musing about the taxonomic representation of the human species could actually have a big impact on our digital future. "Future scientists will have to teach computers, not aliens, to recognize the human image. Right now, software engineers program artificial intelligence to recognize people by feeding them millions of pictures of faces," she writes. "But whose faces? Computer scientists run into the same questions about gender, race, and culture that the Wikipedia editors encountered. Being able to use more than one photo expands the conversation but does not necessarily make it easier."
a 'Boot on a face'. It sums up most of history marvelously.
A photo of one of the survivors of Auschwitz (day of liberation).
.cx
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
It's not about you. It's not about inclusion. It's just a stupid picture and not important.
Stop categorizing each other and creating divisive conversations all because you expect life to be fair. Stop getting upset because your color/ethnic background isn't getting the spotlight. Your pride is causing all of us to fall.
Move on with your lives and concentrate on doing something important.
Not like me wasting my time commenting on this post.
I rarely read replies, it's my opinion and if you thought about your opinion a little more, I'm OK with that.
We're bipedal, have two arms with five fingers each, a mouth, a nose, two eyes and two ears and our species has two sexes.
The proportions are also about accurate for most of us.
I think that's enough for first contact information. I mean where does it end? Do we need to tell them our social structures and capacity for empathy and destruction as well?
I'd think those are info bits for a second or third contact...
We can make the next plaque with black or Asian people, I don't care.
The Vitruvian Man to be more specific.
The man on the pioneer plaque was supposed to look African and the woman was supposed to look Asian. However, after years of exposure to cosmic rays and micrometeorites, I'm sure the aliens will believe we have acne and pits all over our bodies.
. . . .that reads:
"Stop sending us naked pictures of yourselves and directions to your home planet. It's ***CREEPY***. . . . ."
(evil grin)
Well, I think the Thailanders photo works OK. (Forget about ethnicity for a moment: Their clothing and context imply a pre-industrial way of life that was dominant throughout human history but now is diminishing rapidly!) However I would have more likely have suggested a recognizably African couple. My reasoning: Humans originated from Africa, and it still holds the greatest genetic and cultural diversity of any region. People elsewhere in the world are offshoots from that root.
"what they will think of us"
Indeed, the species that killed of 90% of the other species.... And we're worried about our selfie
if they use that asian couple, then what about the people's of other ethnic origin? why not a panoramic (extra wide photo) showing several couples of various ethnic origins to capture the diversity of humanity
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
Why do we require one image to signify humanity on wikipedia? The pages for cats, dogs, birds, bats, spiders and fruit all feature composite images of the many species represented in one image. Why would the page for humans be any different? Indeed, the page goes on to show many examples of humans.
Am I missing something here?
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Hoping the aliens interpret the weird etched lines correctly, they'll see two individuals with two arms, two legs, one head each and come by to get further details about such strange animals.
If they misinterpret, they'll see the head of the one of the left is between its legs, and ask why the one on the right has such big eyes towards the upper end. They'll also wander why the one of the left has its ciliated antenna at a right angle - ask if it was caught while feeding, or if it's a reproductive organ in aroused position.
"Everybody's naked underneath" -- The Doctor
Humanity is good and evil, only portraying one side of our nature is pure bias.
Norman Rockwell's The Golden Rule
https://i.pinimg.com/originals...
Care killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back.
1) A human running in a hamster wheel
2) A human running on a treadmill with a fishing pole tied to their back chasing a carrot dangling out in front of them
Oh wait that's just for the United States (disclaimer: I'm American). Ok, we need one for the United States and one for the rest of the world. For the rest of the world, it should be a dove circling the planet.
We'll make great pets
Or Caitlyn Jenner. Anyway, sure to confuse our alien overlords.
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
Comment removed based on user account deletion
If it can hire a lawyer and win the case, it is a human.
This will get more important when we start to do weird shit with genetics and AI.
Being able to use more than one photo expands the conversation but does not necessarily make it easier.
I think using a bunch of photos would easily solve the problem of conveying what humanity looks like as a whole. The photos can show people of every visibly different racial background, at every age, in various states of health, and in various types of clothing or lack thereof. Any aliens whose social structures are at an appropriate level of advancement, and/or close enough to those of Man, will be able to extrapolate from that info and would recognize our species, should they ever see us in person. A similar set of photos should also be enough to train AI to recognize humans.
Now, if the purpose of the 'conversation' is to determine how to explain humanity to aliens, (or to AI), then we'd best start by explaining us to ourselves. I'd say that, as a species, we are a long, long way from understanding ourselves and each other. I don't think more pictures will help us much in that endeavour, and they certainly won't convey our essence to either an alien race, nor to an AI.
'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
Whichever race is the most prevalent. That would be Chinese I guess.
Just take any winner of the world press photo - it will most likely portray conflict and suffering.
Feed a computer algorithm millions of pictures of people, as diverse as possible, and let it then generate what the average human looks like.
On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.
I prefer the words "Mostly Tasteless".
I agree but someone will probably complain about which continent is visible... maybe an image with both halves showing or something?
Multipass.
But as an orange colored hipster version of Kim Jung with a shitty comb-over and a neck beard. Speech bubble: "Go 'way! 'Bate'n!" Pick any female guest that's ever been on The View and give her a thick nose ring and shave half of her head. Speech bubble: "All men are evil! Lana Del Rey is #1. Why am I still single?" Place a generic smart phone between them, each holding a side of it instead of directly holding hands because otherwise that would be sexual assault. The tabs on the cell phone's screen are open to reveal Facebook, Tindr, and Instagram are running; it's symbolic because they always are no matter what you do. Both dating profiles say "bisexual" not because they actually are, but in protest for gay/transgender rights as brainwashed and guilt-tripped by their ethics professor. Each are peeing in the same urinal and wearing #blacklivesmatter tee shirts while standing on the Rebel flag. And if you look really carefully, like you're finding Waldo, you can see Putin pointing and laughing his ass off when he's not too busy snap chatting or tweeting his "friends" during protests like every young person all over the world does now. Bumbling moron playing Pokemon Go gets hit by a car. Cop gets blamed for it and it just makes them all a little worse with more excuses for surveillance and "probable cause" while tricking normal citizens into thinking it's for their protection as opposed to passive and active biometrics collection vulnerable to God knows who while the top counties around the world fall apart. This is why aliens don't visit or at least don't let us know about it. "We're here because of Elvis, cheeseburgers, and fuel. After that, we're getting the hell out of here." It might not be the world as a whole in taking account of our history, but that's where we are right now and what evidence we will leave behind if we got wiped out tomorrow.
I'm still trying to figure out how you determine we are all white from a simple outline sketch? Looking at the plaque on the Pioneer... For all the aliens know we could be purple.
Some days I get the sinking feeling Orwell was an optimist.
...if Aliens look to Wikipedia for anything.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Any healthy adult members of H. sapiens will do, since they are biologically interchangeable. If you object to one member over another on racial grounds, it simply means that you're a racist.
Have a picture of Thor Bjornsson, "The Mountain" from Game of Thrones. No one will invade us then. BTW, it would help if /. allowed me to type his name properly.
In the interest of PC, the Greendale Human Being http://communityshow.wikia.com...
Every end has half a stick.
Because we'll never actually agree on how we should live our lives, run the world, or care for the planet. The only way we would completely mix is through conflict and most likely in a very violent, artificial manner.
A red circle with a slash through it...
a set of female and male skeletons, or a pizza because everyone who isn't a fucking weirdo or contrarian douche likes pizza.
Right now, software engineers program artificial intelligence to recognize people by feeding them millions of pictures of faces," she writes. "But whose faces? Computer scientists run into the same questions about gender, race, and culture that the Wikipedia editors encountered."
At least that problem will solve itself as soon as the training set grows to 8 billion pictures.
bickerdyke
There is no continent visible in the pale blue dot. Anyone who claims they can tell what continent is facing the camera is full of it.
They don't have to be able to tell which half is showing to "know" one half is being discriminated against.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
In GOD we trust, all others we monitor.
In "To Serve Man", heavy seasonings were recommended.
We all look like white people; we all look about 30ish years old; we do not wear clothes.
You forgot to include that we are also quite athletic and not obese, and do not have pubic hair.
Free, as in your money being freed from the confines of your account.
So many people have their heads firmly lodged up their ass that it sums up humanity quite nicely.
That said, no image is better than a single misrepresentation.
The images created for the plaque were explicitly not intended to look like "two white people", and the female figure definitely has an Asian look to her. They both look a trifle pan-ethnic, given the level of detail.The dude's hair? Well, you do have a point there.
Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
Western: should be the waaaambulance sound.
...fighting over something trivial.
Maybe the guy in 5th element wasn't being sarcastic when he said he was a 'meat popsicle'
Wanna buy a shirt?
https://www.redbubble.com/people/stealthfinger/shop?asc=u
When you go to the wikipedia page, it takes a picture of you and puts it there to represent the whole humanity. That way you can feel special and represented. Because that's what's important in life.
nuff said
We could just have it be top down towards the North Pole with people laughing in igloos and riding snow mobiles yelling "wheeeee!"
We'll make great pets
You can tell by the hair. That's 100% white people hair on that plaque.
This sig is false.
(From Community) Obviously
If ever there was a perfect case for an obligatory XKCD, this is it!
Show stick figures.
thats what i think of when i think of humanity!
As a potential lottery winner, I totally support tax cuts for the wealthy
Maybe all those non-white 90 year olds in three piece suits should have launched a spacecraft then ...
Though you're probably right on that, can we maybe lie and say that due to the low light, photos like this require longer exposure times (this is true) and it took a 12 hour exposure so both sides of the planet got photographed?
Hey, now there's an idea! Just say it was a 24 hour exposure so it evenly imaged the entire planet.
It needs to be a photo gallery, not just one representative picture. Include pictures of male and female, young and adult, from countries all over the world. Our species is too varied to have just one pair from one part of the world representative of all of us.
Alternative solution: Like the Voyager golden record, use a generic, line-drawn representation of male and female humans.
Alternative solution: Use morphing software to 'blend' images of male and female humans from all over the world into one homogenous pair of images.
My overall theme here, if you aren't getting it, is that it must be inclusive. This MUST NOT become a political issue!
Actually, they'd be more likely to think our skin is goldish-silver, since the plaque is made of gold anodized aluminium
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Rather racist, I'd think. I'm white and I don't have hair like that.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
https://imgprod60.hobbylobby.com/sys-master/migrated/hde/h71/h00/9120365412382/1129832_1[5].jpg
This says everything.
Incipiamus, fratres, servire Domino Deo, quia hucusque vix vel parum in nullo profecimus.
Right now I'd say a crying baby is probably the most realistic representation.
Please, proceed with arguments over what color the baby should be.
-Styopa
I don't know of a single child who's been trained to recognize humans by being fed a million faces. I also don't know of a single child who can't recognize any human face -- black, white, healthy, disfigured, old, young, or partial.
Same goes for my dog, by the way. i don't need to see every fish in order to recognize a new fish as being a fish. Fins swim. Grade 9 science was "how to read your fish".
AI is certainly artificial, but the "intelligence" part is being taken far too literally. More intel isn't any classic definition of intelligence.
The day your AI can recognize a human based on features, and not based on templates, then maybe you'll have crossed the line into what we actually call intelligence. Psychology, not computer science.
You know, two eyes (or one eye and a patch, or sunglasses), a nose (broad, narrow, broken or bleeding), a mouth (open, closed, grinning, or covered).
I don't think it's difficult to recognize a "mouth". Whether it's human, canine, iguana, or worm. A human face has two eyes, one mouth, and a nose between them. Any kind of mouth, any kind of nose, any kind of eyes. And any of those four features can be covered, damaged, open, closed, or concealed.
You don't have an AI capable of identifying a mouth. Therefore, you have nothing.
Let me know when your AI can recognize a mouth on 90% of lizards and mammals and cartoons. Then we'll talk about AI taking over the world.
You don't have image recognition. What you have is visual pattern matching. Humans don't do visual pattern matching, just like humans don't walk around a table by using calculus. We don't walk by knowing the length of our legs. We don't drive by knowing precisely how far away the next car is. We don't use lasers.
We see through blizzards, fog, rain, ice, and sun. We don't need perfectly clean lenses to do so.
I'll say it again. If your AI needs to be fed more than 100 examples of something, then it isn't learning shit. And if it needs to remember those examples, aggregated or otherwise, then again it isn't learning anything at all.
Two eyes, a mouth, and a nose between them. You need to identify four features in relative proximity. Start there.
We should speak to the goals of humanity, not necessarily how humanity currently appears.
I suggest the number 1, represented by a line of 'stars' on a black background.
Something to represent the ideal of unity of our species, and demonstrate understanding of the common source of all life and all things.
And that alone makes it a topic that should be thoroughly discussed.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I identify as a land mine.
Want to trigger me? Feeling lucky, punk?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Because then they'd actually have to DO something. And that's hard. Complaining and bullying others into changing themselves into what they want them to be is way easier.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
"Come on over, our parents aren't home!"
Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
"Human: we're the other, other white meat"
-if you remember the pork industry's advertising slogan from the '80s.
Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
If the asians were just a tiny intelligent, they would do whatever they could to REDUCE their numbers
Actually if they were intelligent they would reduce YOUR numbers given you could sustain two of them for the resource consumption of one of you.
Nothing hard about this... just take some stock photo that tries to represent multi cultural ethnicity in several age groups.
If it needs to be a single individual, it'll probably need to be, by average, a male chinese poor guy.
There's no way around this. You either go subjective, which then the image could be just about anything, or go objective, which would tie the image to statistics.
As a synesthetes, I have always seen the concept of humanity as red. The flag of Nippon should do nicely.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan#/media/File:Flag_of_Japan.svg
But which one? Even poop is diverse: https://aboveaverage.com/final...
Constantly derailing comment sections into a whinefest about SJWs isn't what most would consider a productive use of time. YMMV.
"What is this, an interstellar restroom stall?"
How about something basic, like Adam and Eve holding hands?
"Hi, my name is Chris Hansen and you're on "To Catch An Alien...""
Second, the Pioneer plaque is very simplified line art. Except for being able to say that neither being represented has an afro as is common among African and African descended peoples, claiming a specific ethnicity for either one is an exercise in projection by the viewer. To me, the couple looks like the main might be Hindi or Pakistani, the woman could be anything from Mongolian to Hawaiian. (I am small-m metis but can easily pass as white because "white" covers so many ethnic backgrounds) Being mere scratches on a gold plated piece of aluminium, there is no skin/eye colour information AT ALL. Nor is there enough detail to clearly say if an epicanthic fold is present on either person. (BTW: epicanthic folds are not uniquely Asian) While I'm at it, let me mention the fact that ethnic groups as we recognize them, are not hard and clear distinctions. Humanity is more like a spectrum, with ethnicities occupying overlapping areas of that spectrum.
Third; overall, this article and the questions it raises feel like a subtle attempt to politicize a subject that should be considered above politics. Who should represent Humanity for machine learning? The answer is "Use ALL of us!" There is no need to force a selection of some sub-set of humanity when doing this. Use as many images as you can to teach the machines. Any time and place we need to use a single example, like men's rooms, space probes etc, just use simplified line art like the Pioneer plaque does. (the team behind that plaques design knew the political ramifications of choosing a specific and identifiable ethnicity, so did their best to come up with the most general, simplified example they could.)
I need a wheelchair van for my son. Help me get the word out. https://www.gofundme.com/wheelchair-van-for-jj
That's Asian hair. You were just thrown off by the boobs.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
That's what they all want after all.
My old company was in the running to do some ads for a chicken company back in the late '90s. I pushed hard that they should go with, "Chicken, the original white meat." Nobody else bought it, though.
The Quirkz Handbook of Self-Improvement for People Who Are Already Pretty Okay
- An imprint of hand into concrete.
Because what can represent us - as a modern humanity better? Many animals have bigger brains, legs, hair... but human hands?
And yes, to avoid all those left/right/gender/gay/lesbian/age/color/hue/IQ/size/DNA/wealth/... controversies, to appease all people of all the colors of the rainbow and invisible light spectrum and... The hand must be an imprint of a hand into something characteristic of our civilization - concrete - that way nobody will be able to say who's hand was it.
So I therefore propose THE IMPRINT OF HAND IN CONCRETE because it characterizes us the most and it has a clear upgrade path to robotic Hand 2.0 imprint in Mars' dust. Who can beat my proposal? Ha! :-D
Well, I've got to get back to work. When I stop rowing, the slave ship just goes in circles.
This
https://questforparadise.files...
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
My choice is the Japanese comedy DVD cover: Haaaan! - Maiko haaaan (great cover)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
https://i.imgur.com/XFKP6.jpg
Obviously. Go Human Beings!
Why would aliens be unaware of the idea of genetic and cultural differences? If an ET probe crashed on Earth and there was a plaque showing a couple of the typical Grey aliens with specific features ,I wouldn't assume they were all identical. I'd go "okay that's generally morphology", I wouldn't go "oh this one's eyes are a bit narrower here so it can't be a Grey."
If Wikipedia folks want to be anal retentive, they can create a composite human form from their picture database.
your thin skin doesn't make me a troll
What about the underwater mines, you insensitive clod?!
We should include picture of Jimmy Wales. He founded Wikipedia, he may as well be the face of humanity on his own site. Preferably not naked, but if he insists...
What is best in life? Hot water, good dentishtry and shoft lavatory paper.
Lately; diarrhea.
I tend to rant.
Don't tell me what I can or cannot be! You trying to humansplain here?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I mean, c'mon, easy. It's where we all come from, no matter what race color or creed!
If a train station is a place where a train stops, what's a workstation?
I'm confused. The sketch of the humans is an outline etched onto a gold foil, right? Where does anybody get "white" from that?
So you'd be seeing drowning polar bears, ice sheets on land reflecting the sunlight and wide stretches of dark seawater soaking up the sunlight and warming. Maybe someone replacing the drive belt on their snowmobile on a sunny afternoon.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
A human body with one testicle. The average.
...like yo momma.
Some settling may occur during posting.
Why would you want them to?
Do you WANT them concentrating on other things?
Da vinci's drawing. Man in a circle.
https://goo.gl/images/39tcws
Can't beat perfection.
Here's 2 possibilities - in hopes of thwarting any malevolent beings:
http://media.wizards.com/image...
http://www.donaldmeme.com/temp...
Self-importance and self-indulgence is the root of ALL evil.
By the time the next probe is sent out, the world's majority will be muslims. So the symbol voted to be sent will likely be the flag of islam.