5 ms·
Wow, this works pretty well. Makes me think of that chapter in Infinite Jest where videoconferencing gets popular, until people start using "optimized" compute
by krylon 5y ago
Wow, this works pretty well.
Makes me think of that chapter in Infinite Jest where videoconferencing gets popular, until people start using "optimized" computer-rendered images instead of showing their actual faces, at which point everyone goes back to audio-only.
- wongarsu 5y agoI wouldn't mind video conferencing with computer generated avatars. I don't video conference to know what the other person looks like, and in fact knowing what they look like just creates lots of unnecessary bias. I do it for the cues from their gestures, facial expressions, the direction they are looking, etc. With a good tracking setup that works perfectly well today with digital avatars.
- lwhi 5y agoI like faces. Why deny a key part of being human?
- dheera 5y agoIf you don't know why one might want this, you might be a white male, or at least white, or at least male, or at least a member of the majority race in your locality. I've definitely wanted this on a few occasions, to avoid being discriminated.
- batch12 5y agoSo following this logic train, the only actual faces one may see would be white males. Everyone else gets a mask?
- dheera 5y agoMaybe? But I'm going to get what I wanted.
- batch12 5y agoWould that then just be a proxy for not being a white male and present the same problems? I am not sure what this solves to prevent discrimination.
- dheera 5y agoIt doesn't prevent discrimination, it just allows me to do what I want to do in the short term, e.g. raise funding for startups or get dream jobs or whatever. I mean if a VC hands me a term sheet or a hiring manager hands me a job and the ONLY thing I misrepresented is my face, I don't think they have any ethical grounds to retract their offer. Solving the discrimination problem is another matter, and will take years if not decades, my dreams cannot wait for that.
- batch12 5y agoGood luck to you. I am not convinced people would be more likely to give money or a job to someone when they have only seen an avatar, but what do I know.
- dheera 5y agoThey don't have to know it's an avatar. For most jobs if they make any decision based on how the candidate looks they are in the wrong. It's not any different from make-up, really, which is also hiding your real face, in a different way.
- batch12 5y agoIf you deceive someone by wearing a different face during an interview, I expect that you would not be hired. How do you prove you were the person interviewed?
- dheera 5y agoThere are plenty of ways to prove that, including stating a public key during the interview, interviewer signs it with their key, vice versa is done with the interviewer's key, and then the same is demonstrated in person with the same keys. Hell, how to do that can even be an interview question.
- pezezin 5y agoWhy is everything about race nowadays? Anyway, your comment is bullshit. I'm a white guy (actually from Spain, so I don't know if I qualify as "white" from the USA point of view) living in Japan, so I am the discriminated minority here (and yes, I have been a victim of minor racism), and I agree with GP. We humans evolved for face to face conversation, if racism is the problem, hiding behind a mask is not the solution.
- thaumasiotes 5y ago> I'm a white guy (actually from Spain, so I don't know if I qualify as "white" from the USA point of view) No, Spanish-speaking countries are considered nonwhite.[1] Portugal and France are both white; Spain not so much. Brazil is a hazier issue. (The reason is that Spanish speakers in the US don't tend to be Spaniards, and the laws were written in a sloppy way.) [1] Technically, the "Hispanic" category is not supposed to be exclusive with the various race categories. But that is how it is treated.
- user-the-name 5y ago> Why is everything about race nowadays? Because racism exists and is a real problem for lots of people. You don't fix that by pretending race doesn't matter, because in the lived experience of all of those people, it matters, a lot. They would love it if it didn't matter, but that is not what happens in reality.
- lwhi 5y agoThis is no solution. What happens when you need to meet face to face?
- vortico 5y agoAh yes, the solution to bias: Hide everyone's faces. That'll teach everyone to celebrate our differences.
- tyingq 5y agoThere is a crappy movie called "Surrogates" that goes down this path.
- godelski 5y agoPermutation City has another take, where people virtually meet one another but use masks to hide their emotions.
- crazygringo 5y ago> at which point everyone goes back to audio-only That defeats the entire purpose of using facial and body expressions that only video provides. We already have video filters that remove wrinkles and blemishes in videoconferencing to make you look better. Even if we replace ourselves entirely with computer-rendered images, they're still going to be reproducing our expressions, movements and gestures, which is what matters.
- XorNot 5y agoMy phone already has a video call beautification setting built into the OS at the camera level. We've been skirting the line for a while. If I could, right now I absolutely would prefer to be sending a synthesized avatar then the real me - my desktop setup doesn't allow very optimal camera placement with large monitors, but for maximum impact I ideally want to send my face making direct eye contact with the camera.
- kbelder 5y agoIs there a filter available that just fixes the apparent direction of the pupil, so the image is looking at the camera, without doing any other edits? That would be really useful.