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What Image Should Represent All of Humanity On Wikipedia? (wired.com)

Posted by msmash on from the interesting-question dept.

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."

7 of 349 comments (clear)

  1. Boot on a face by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    a 'Boot on a face'. It sums up most of history marvelously.

    1. Re:Boot on a face by BlueStrat · · Score: 5, Funny

      Or a picture of a steaming pile of fresh human feces.

      It's the one thing we all have in common and, adjusting for local diet, it all looks pretty much the same no matter the race, ethnicity, religion, ideology, or wealth.

      Shit is the one thing and the one symbol that binds the human race together and describes with one image the results of our existence thus far and likely the legacy we leave behind, and the universe could not have chosen more appropriately. It's so uncanny, in fact, that it might even be an argument for intelligent design! :D

      Strat

      --
      Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
  2. goatse by Black+Parrot · · Score: 5, Funny

    .cx

    --
    Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
  3. I think the plaque works by Kokuyo · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  4. Meanwhile, a message arrives from the stars. . . by Salgak1 · · Score: 5, Funny

    . . . .that reads:

    "Stop sending us naked pictures of yourselves and directions to your home planet. It's ***CREEPY***. . . . ."

    (evil grin)

  5. Worth a thousand words... by magusxxx · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Norman Rockwell's The Golden Rule

    https://i.pinimg.com/originals...

    --
    Care killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back.
  6. We Are All Fucked by sycodon · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...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.