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This is the kind of tech that managers might like to install on their employees computers. If you're smart enough to build interesting things, maybe spend that

by mevile 7y ago

This is the kind of tech that managers might like to install on their employees computers. If you're smart enough to build interesting things, maybe spend that talent on something less creepy.

edwintorok 7y ago
Doing this in javascript is creepy, however the technology itself can have other than nefarious uses too. For example in a bandwidth constrained situation you could determine which piece of a video stream to optimize for higher quality based on the general area you are or were looking at, if you look at it long enough it should stop being fuzzy.
- cstrat 7y ago
  That is a pretty cool idea but I can't see it being fast enough to dynamically update the video stream could it? Very cool idea though.
- ASalazarMX 7y ago
  Video streaming is too slow to adapt, but I see a way for advertisers to check if you watched an ad even if you didn't interact. Specially if the site already uses the webcam.
  - userbinator 7y ago
    That was the thought that immediately came to mind when I saw this article --- as if unskippable ads were bad enough, with this they'll be able to make ads that you can't not watch, and the whole thing just disturbs me greatly. No doubt it'll get spun into an ostensibly "user-friendly" "automatically pauses the video if you look away" "feature"... but the motives are clear enough.
    - lbotos 7y ago
      Cue black mirror episode: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifteen_Million_Merits https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifteen_Million_Merits
    - mythrwy 7y ago
      If I close one eye on this it still finds center of the closed eye where pupil should be. Presumably you could close both eyes but I can't test that for obvious reasons. So this specific implementation might not work for that.
draw_down 7y ago
Come on.
saas_sam 7y ago
What about helping disabled people use computers? Or environments that aren't conducive to using your hands like a factory? ...If the only use you can think of for software like this is "creepy," maybe it is not the technology that is creepy.
- PavlovsCat 7y ago
  > If the only use you can think of for software like this is "creepy," maybe it is not the technology that is creepy. Really? I couldn't find what I was actually looking for, where Weizenbaum describes how vision or reasoning experiments might be made with benign or even cute objects, but for rather not so benign ends. I found this instead, which I think is even better put. > Other people say, and I think this is a widely used rationalization, that fundamentally the tools we work on are "mere" tools; This means that whether they get use for good or evil depends on the person who ultimately buys them and so on. > There's nothing bad about working in computer vision, for example. Computer vision may very well some day be used to heal people who would otherwise die. Of course, it could also be used to guide missiles, cruise missiles for example, to their destination, and all that. You see, tthe technology itself is neutral and value-free and it just depends how one uses it. And besides -- consistent with that -- we can't know, we scientists cannot know how it is going to be used. So therefore we have no responsibility. > Well, that is false. It is true that a computer, for example, can be used for good or evil. It is true that a helicopter can be used as a gunship and it can also be used to rescue people from a mountain pass. And if the question arises of how a specific device is going to be used, in what I call an abstract ideal society, then one might very well say one cannot know. > But we live in a concrete society, [and] with concrete social and historical circumstances and political realities in this society, it is perfectly obvious that when something like a computer is invented, then it is going to be adopted will be for military purposes. It follows from the concrete realities in which we live, it does not follow from pure logic. But we're not living in an abstract society, we're living in the society in which we in fact live. > If you look at the enormous fruits of human genius that mankind has developed in the last 50 years, atomic energy and rocketry and flying to the moon and coherent light, and it goes on and on and on -- and then it turns out that every one of these triumphs is used primarily in military terms. So it is not reasonable for a scientist or technologist to insist that he or she does not know -- or cannot know -- how it is going to be used. -- Joseph Weizenbaum, http://tech.mit.edu/V105/N16/weisen.16n.html http://tech.mit.edu/V105/N16/weisen.16n.html
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
dymk 7y ago
Go find me one "tech manager" who wants to install this on their employees laptops.

by mevile 7y ago

This is the kind of tech that managers might like to install on their employees computers. If you're smart enough to build interesting things, maybe spend that talent on something less creepy.

edwintorok 7y ago

Doing this in javascript is creepy, however the technology itself can have other than nefarious uses too. For example in a bandwidth constrained situation you could determine which piece of a video stream to optimize for higher quality based on the general area you are or were looking at, if you look at it long enough it should stop being fuzzy.

cstrat 7y ago
That is a pretty cool idea but I can't see it being fast enough to dynamically update the video stream could it? Very cool idea though.
ASalazarMX 7y ago
Video streaming is too slow to adapt, but I see a way for advertisers to check if you watched an ad even if you didn't interact. Specially if the site already uses the webcam.
- userbinator 7y ago
  That was the thought that immediately came to mind when I saw this article --- as if unskippable ads were bad enough, with this they'll be able to make ads that you can't not watch, and the whole thing just disturbs me greatly. No doubt it'll get spun into an ostensibly "user-friendly" "automatically pauses the video if you look away" "feature"... but the motives are clear enough.
  - lbotos 7y ago
    Cue black mirror episode: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifteen_Million_Merits https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifteen_Million_Merits
  - mythrwy 7y ago
    If I close one eye on this it still finds center of the closed eye where pupil should be. Presumably you could close both eyes but I can't test that for obvious reasons. So this specific implementation might not work for that.

draw_down 7y ago

Come on.

saas_sam 7y ago

What about helping disabled people use computers? Or environments that aren't conducive to using your hands like a factory? ...If the only use you can think of for software like this is "creepy," maybe it is not the technology that is creepy.

PavlovsCat 7y ago
> If the only use you can think of for software like this is "creepy," maybe it is not the technology that is creepy. Really? I couldn't find what I was actually looking for, where Weizenbaum describes how vision or reasoning experiments might be made with benign or even cute objects, but for rather not so benign ends. I found this instead, which I think is even better put. > Other people say, and I think this is a widely used rationalization, that fundamentally the tools we work on are "mere" tools; This means that whether they get use for good or evil depends on the person who ultimately buys them and so on. > There's nothing bad about working in computer vision, for example. Computer vision may very well some day be used to heal people who would otherwise die. Of course, it could also be used to guide missiles, cruise missiles for example, to their destination, and all that. You see, tthe technology itself is neutral and value-free and it just depends how one uses it. And besides -- consistent with that -- we can't know, we scientists cannot know how it is going to be used. So therefore we have no responsibility. > Well, that is false. It is true that a computer, for example, can be used for good or evil. It is true that a helicopter can be used as a gunship and it can also be used to rescue people from a mountain pass. And if the question arises of how a specific device is going to be used, in what I call an abstract ideal society, then one might very well say one cannot know. > But we live in a concrete society, [and] with concrete social and historical circumstances and political realities in this society, it is perfectly obvious that when something like a computer is invented, then it is going to be adopted will be for military purposes. It follows from the concrete realities in which we live, it does not follow from pure logic. But we're not living in an abstract society, we're living in the society in which we in fact live. > If you look at the enormous fruits of human genius that mankind has developed in the last 50 years, atomic energy and rocketry and flying to the moon and coherent light, and it goes on and on and on -- and then it turns out that every one of these triumphs is used primarily in military terms. So it is not reasonable for a scientist or technologist to insist that he or she does not know -- or cannot know -- how it is going to be used. -- Joseph Weizenbaum, http://tech.mit.edu/V105/N16/weisen.16n.html http://tech.mit.edu/V105/N16/weisen.16n.html

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

dymk 7y ago

Go find me one "tech manager" who wants to install this on their employees laptops.