I wonder what's hilarious in those 6 photos: the algorithm correctly interprets 5 out of 6 lo-res photos. For anyone involved in artificial vision research, that's an amazing achievement.
As to the 6th photo, seriously, political-correctness aside, it doesn't seem far-fetched that a computer would interpret a close-up photo of black people as gorillas goofing around in front of a camera. Hell, I bet a human being with bad eyesight could've made that mistake too. There's nothing racist about it: human beings do look like apes sometimes because, well, that's what they are, And black people can look like gorillas to a computer, because gorillas usually sport a dark skin tone. Me, I'm amazed that the computer recognized an ape at all - be it a real ape or an evolved ape.
All this tells me is that Facebook is actively developing new, innovative ways to invade your privacy, and this particular bit of data mining technology has become reliable enough that they felt it would be good PR to create a feel-good, help-the-disabled feature out of it.
Somehow Facebook being able to interpret the contents of photos doesn't make me warm and fuzzy...
The other part is corporate data retention and data mining.
Years ago, when young Google was still seen as a genuinely benevolent company and "social media" didn't exist, I was interviewed by a newspaper regarding a hot and highly publicized issue involving hacking and the newly-voted DMCA that I got involved in. I wasn't careful about what I said to that newspaper, and it got republished on the internet.
Soon after, I realized Google never forgot anything: for the following 10 years, each time I'd go to a job interview, that episode of my life - and the unfortunate statements I gave to the newspaper - would come up in the conversation. For a good 10 years, I had to explain myself, and explain that no, I wasn't a dangerous hacker, what really happened, and that, yes, I can be trusted with company secrets.
I quickly realized I had to shut my trap and hide my identity as much as I could online, if didn't want whatever I did or said to bite my ass in the future ever again.
Now, years later, Google has finally forgotten about me. If you know my name and you look it up, you can still find references to what happened 16 years ago. But thankfully, with the advent of social media and people who bear the same name as mine, it's buried in pages after pages of mindless drivel. So you have to know what you look for to find out what I said back then.
The lesson here is: Google turned me into a very paranoid person online, not government surveillance. In fact, I would go so far as to say that the government isn't the real threat here: it's rogue corporations who operate in the data mining sphere. At least the government is openly nefarious, and somewhat accountable. Google & Co aren't: they pose as friendly innovators, when in fact they're just out to make a buck on your back, regardless of how much they can ruin your life.
Apple is green-minded my ass. More like they've realized there's money to be made in the recycling business as long as robots costs less than African or Chinese children's labor. Now it's happened and they want a share of the pie.
They've had decades to think about their responsibility towards the environment, and they haven't done jack squat about it up to now...
What's your solution? I know it's not revolt since most people that complain about corporate bias generally support an unarmed civilian population.
It's just a statement of fact. I have no solution, I'm not offering one, and quite frankly, I don't believe there is one.
Besides, the American republic has always been that way. It's never been founded as a true democracy. So I'm not sure there's anything to fix in the first place. I just find it ironic that the only thing people seem to complain about is fairness in reporting - a fairly peripheric issue - when the entire system is unfair to the core.
Hint: the candidates themselves are bought and sold on the marketplace. They're rich fucks trying to get elected to better serve their corporate masters, who bankrolled their campaigns. What does it matter if their lies and their antics are broadcast on Fox or PBS?
You miss to point: Apple - and Google, and Microsoft - would much rather do the big-brothering themselves for their own profit, and don't want to give that power to the government.
1984 is already happening, but Orwell got one thing wrong: the tyranny is coming from the private sector, not the government.
...the company offered paid users who don't want their personal details exploited in a way that they didn't initially sign for the option of closing their accounts before the change of business plan. Otherwise, it's a crass bait-and-switch.
Their business model is so screwed up. I mean, no other industry responds to potential customers abroad willing to buy their stuff by making it extra hard for them to do so.
Yes, I agree the government - at least if it's not nefariously self-serving, which I doubt, but let's assume... - WOULD have an easier time finding bad guys by violating fundamental rights. But they should NEVER have the right to do so, because fundamental rights are the last line of defense against tyranny and dictatorship,
If the government has a hard time fighting crime and terrorism because they have to preserve individual rights, well, tough titties. That's their problem. People should never accept any debasing of their rights for the promise that their government will have an easier time keeping them safe. Those who think it's an acceptable tradeoff deserve to be carted off to the sheep pen.
People rarely realize how much stuff they put on the internet about themselves, willingly or not. Since the internet never forgets, it's usually quite easy to dig up a lot of information about almost everybody. All it takes is a lot of time and knowing how to look.
Do the exercize: try to unearth bits of information about yourself: it's scary how much you can find out (or rediscover) about yourself in a mere couple hours...
What surprises me here is that government agencies who should know better dismiss plain old search engine stalking as a valid method for finding out what someone is up to, or has done.
Speak for yourself. Ads are the reason why a lot of good content can stay afloat on the web without asking for money directly, I get that.
I get it too, when I think about it rationally. The trouble is, I've been so bombarded with ads since I was born (and I'm not that young), be it on newspapers, roadside signs, television, the internet when it started to become commercially attractive... that I have a visceral hate of it, whatever product it plugs and whomever forces it onto me. I find any and all adverts vulgar, disgusting and a gross intrusion on my right to choose what I want to stuff my brain with.
As a result, I too block all ads on the internet. Yes, I know many sites couldn't live without it, but... well, if they can't, I'd rather they disappeared than have to look at ads.
Also, when I can't block, skip or hide ads, I *remember* what product was advertised, and by whom, and I make a mental note never to buy that product, and if possible, any other product from that company. That's what decades of wanton advertising has done to me. Talk about well poisoning...
Keep zero bank account and invest in a good safe. "Cyber attacks" might be among the biggest threats to the banking system, but the banking system is the biggest threat to people's worth.
I suspect their "smidgen of ethics" is a convenient excuse to pull out of a market in which they don't make money. Where there's money to be made, ethics usually go out the window.
is that reading and exploiting data that's a mere 25 years old requires almost archeological-like recovery and reconstruction techniques. Compare that to a thousand year old book that's usually pretty much readily readable today.
I think modern society is on a scary path towards massive amnesia in the not-so-long term...
The issue is, human drivers have a strong instinct of self-preservation. Someone who has to decide between the parade and the tree in a split second will probably avoid the tree out of sheer instinct.
Now then, you might think the cool-headed computerized car will make the right decision and kill its occupant. But I can just imagine the following court case: "Your honor, my father's car killed him wilfully. I therefore sue Toyota/BMW/Honda/Google for murder, and for 100 kajillion dollars in damage".
One such court case - especially in the US - will do enormous damage to the entire industry, and might kill it off entirely. And no, the argument that autonomous car create fewer accidents overall won't fly, because somebody's property isn't supposed to kill its owner on purpose. You can bet emotions will run high, and emotions aren't good for rational debates.
Not to mention of course, people will have second thoughts about buying a vehicle that they know can decide to put them in danger for the greater good.
As long as the car can drive me home after the last bar in the line, I'm happy.
That's called a taxi, and it's cheaper than an autonomous car. The only downside is, if you barf on the back seat, the cab driver might smash your teeth in - something the autonomous car won't do.
The real test of artificial intelligence will come when the self-driving vehicle will have to decide between plowing into a crowd of people to protect the driver, and smashing into a tree to protect the crowd of people - but killing the driver, when the accident is inevitable.
Computers just aren't good at all at that sort of thing. You can make them drive any car in any environment quite reliably eventually, I suppose, but deciding who gets to die? Hmm...
This day will happen. I can't wait to see the legal and moral discussions that will ensue after the first such accident occur.
I have a server at home. It's totally disconnected from the Internet. I mean, like, TOTALLY. Well, everybody in my household can get emails from everybody else in my household, no problems. And fast too! How about that huh? How about a little of that?
Slashdot Mirror
But it probably is a cover-up: this blob looks very much like some kind of flying grassy knoll.
In other news, NK' chief engineer Wernher Jeong -Ban will be visiting Hoeryong concentration camp very soon.
No, it's worse that that: what they learn is that it's bad publicity.
I wonder what's hilarious in those 6 photos: the algorithm correctly interprets 5 out of 6 lo-res photos. For anyone involved in artificial vision research, that's an amazing achievement.
As to the 6th photo, seriously, political-correctness aside, it doesn't seem far-fetched that a computer would interpret a close-up photo of black people as gorillas goofing around in front of a camera. Hell, I bet a human being with bad eyesight could've made that mistake too. There's nothing racist about it: human beings do look like apes sometimes because, well, that's what they are, And black people can look like gorillas to a computer, because gorillas usually sport a dark skin tone. Me, I'm amazed that the computer recognized an ape at all - be it a real ape or an evolved ape.
All this tells me is that Facebook is actively developing new, innovative ways to invade your privacy, and this particular bit of data mining technology has become reliable enough that they felt it would be good PR to create a feel-good, help-the-disabled feature out of it.
Somehow Facebook being able to interpret the contents of photos doesn't make me warm and fuzzy...
The other part is corporate data retention and data mining.
Years ago, when young Google was still seen as a genuinely benevolent company and "social media" didn't exist, I was interviewed by a newspaper regarding a hot and highly publicized issue involving hacking and the newly-voted DMCA that I got involved in. I wasn't careful about what I said to that newspaper, and it got republished on the internet.
Soon after, I realized Google never forgot anything: for the following 10 years, each time I'd go to a job interview, that episode of my life - and the unfortunate statements I gave to the newspaper - would come up in the conversation. For a good 10 years, I had to explain myself, and explain that no, I wasn't a dangerous hacker, what really happened, and that, yes, I can be trusted with company secrets.
I quickly realized I had to shut my trap and hide my identity as much as I could online, if didn't want whatever I did or said to bite my ass in the future ever again.
Now, years later, Google has finally forgotten about me. If you know my name and you look it up, you can still find references to what happened 16 years ago. But thankfully, with the advent of social media and people who bear the same name as mine, it's buried in pages after pages of mindless drivel. So you have to know what you look for to find out what I said back then.
The lesson here is: Google turned me into a very paranoid person online, not government surveillance. In fact, I would go so far as to say that the government isn't the real threat here: it's rogue corporations who operate in the data mining sphere. At least the government is openly nefarious, and somewhat accountable. Google & Co aren't: they pose as friendly innovators, when in fact they're just out to make a buck on your back, regardless of how much they can ruin your life.
Apple is green-minded my ass. More like they've realized there's money to be made in the recycling business as long as robots costs less than African or Chinese children's labor. Now it's happened and they want a share of the pie.
They've had decades to think about their responsibility towards the environment, and they haven't done jack squat about it up to now...
What's your solution? I know it's not revolt since most people that complain about corporate bias generally support an unarmed civilian population.
It's just a statement of fact. I have no solution, I'm not offering one, and quite frankly, I don't believe there is one.
Besides, the American republic has always been that way. It's never been founded as a true democracy. So I'm not sure there's anything to fix in the first place. I just find it ironic that the only thing people seem to complain about is fairness in reporting - a fairly peripheric issue - when the entire system is unfair to the core.
In America?
I'm shocked.
Hint: the candidates themselves are bought and sold on the marketplace. They're rich fucks trying to get elected to better serve their corporate masters, who bankrolled their campaigns. What does it matter if their lies and their antics are broadcast on Fox or PBS?
You miss to point: Apple - and Google, and Microsoft - would much rather do the big-brothering themselves for their own profit, and don't want to give that power to the government.
1984 is already happening, but Orwell got one thing wrong: the tyranny is coming from the private sector, not the government.
A "hardware failure" forced the shutdown of several Vax processing systems
There, fixed that for you...
...the company offered paid users who don't want their personal details exploited in a way that they didn't initially sign for the option of closing their accounts before the change of business plan. Otherwise, it's a crass bait-and-switch.
Their business model is so screwed up. I mean, no other industry responds to potential customers abroad willing to buy their stuff by making it extra hard for them to do so.
Cattle.
Yes, I agree the government - at least if it's not nefariously self-serving, which I doubt, but let's assume... - WOULD have an easier time finding bad guys by violating fundamental rights. But they should NEVER have the right to do so, because fundamental rights are the last line of defense against tyranny and dictatorship,
If the government has a hard time fighting crime and terrorism because they have to preserve individual rights, well, tough titties. That's their problem. People should never accept any debasing of their rights for the promise that their government will have an easier time keeping them safe. Those who think it's an acceptable tradeoff deserve to be carted off to the sheep pen.
People rarely realize how much stuff they put on the internet about themselves, willingly or not. Since the internet never forgets, it's usually quite easy to dig up a lot of information about almost everybody. All it takes is a lot of time and knowing how to look.
Do the exercize: try to unearth bits of information about yourself: it's scary how much you can find out (or rediscover) about yourself in a mere couple hours...
What surprises me here is that government agencies who should know better dismiss plain old search engine stalking as a valid method for finding out what someone is up to, or has done.
Speak for yourself. Ads are the reason why a lot of good content can stay afloat on the web without asking for money directly, I get that.
I get it too, when I think about it rationally. The trouble is, I've been so bombarded with ads since I was born (and I'm not that young), be it on newspapers, roadside signs, television, the internet when it started to become commercially attractive... that I have a visceral hate of it, whatever product it plugs and whomever forces it onto me. I find any and all adverts vulgar, disgusting and a gross intrusion on my right to choose what I want to stuff my brain with.
As a result, I too block all ads on the internet. Yes, I know many sites couldn't live without it, but... well, if they can't, I'd rather they disappeared than have to look at ads.
Also, when I can't block, skip or hide ads, I *remember* what product was advertised, and by whom, and I make a mental note never to buy that product, and if possible, any other product from that company. That's what decades of wanton advertising has done to me. Talk about well poisoning...
Keep zero bank account and invest in a good safe.
"Cyber attacks" might be among the biggest threats to the banking system, but the banking system is the biggest threat to people's worth.
I suspect their "smidgen of ethics" is a convenient excuse to pull out of a market in which they don't make money. Where there's money to be made, ethics usually go out the window.
is that reading and exploiting data that's a mere 25 years old requires almost archeological-like recovery and reconstruction techniques. Compare that to a thousand year old book that's usually pretty much readily readable today.
I think modern society is on a scary path towards massive amnesia in the not-so-long term...
The issue is, human drivers have a strong instinct of self-preservation. Someone who has to decide between the parade and the tree in a split second will probably avoid the tree out of sheer instinct.
Now then, you might think the cool-headed computerized car will make the right decision and kill its occupant. But I can just imagine the following court case: "Your honor, my father's car killed him wilfully. I therefore sue Toyota/BMW/Honda/Google for murder, and for 100 kajillion dollars in damage".
One such court case - especially in the US - will do enormous damage to the entire industry, and might kill it off entirely. And no, the argument that autonomous car create fewer accidents overall won't fly, because somebody's property isn't supposed to kill its owner on purpose. You can bet emotions will run high, and emotions aren't good for rational debates.
Not to mention of course, people will have second thoughts about buying a vehicle that they know can decide to put them in danger for the greater good.
As long as the car can drive me home after the last bar in the line, I'm happy.
That's called a taxi, and it's cheaper than an autonomous car. The only downside is, if you barf on the back seat, the cab driver might smash your teeth in - something the autonomous car won't do.
The real test of artificial intelligence will come when the self-driving vehicle will have to decide between plowing into a crowd of people to protect the driver, and smashing into a tree to protect the crowd of people - but killing the driver, when the accident is inevitable.
Computers just aren't good at all at that sort of thing. You can make them drive any car in any environment quite reliably eventually, I suppose, but deciding who gets to die? Hmm...
This day will happen. I can't wait to see the legal and moral discussions that will ensue after the first such accident occur.
I have a server at home. It's totally disconnected from the Internet. I mean, like, TOTALLY. Well, everybody in my household can get emails from everybody else in my household, no problems. And fast too! How about that huh? How about a little of that?
By that metric, I'll go you one better: Links. Very, VERY fast, but very shit on standard (by design).
Days? I heard it will take longer than a year to get all the data from the encounter.
Well, ads take more and more bandwidth these days...