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I once heard a disturbing ghost story: Certain tech company was building a training set of faces. Hired a contractor in $poor_region. Contractor asks if eyes

by nr2x 5y ago

I once heard a disturbing ghost story: Certain tech company was building a training set of faces. Hired a contractor in $poor_region. Contractor asks if eyes need to be open in photos. Doesn't sound right to $tech_employee. Asks why exactly the eyes in photos aren't open to start with? They were taking pictures of corpses. Contract ended.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
rosndo 5y ago
This sounds so unlikely, unless they already had a huge set of corpse photos for another purpose. It’s easier to find live people that’ll let you photograph them than corpses.
- mike_d 5y ago
  Lots of places will collect biometric data from the dead. If your cousin works at a funeral home taking these photos, or in the city government collecting the photos, you can basically make money for no work.
- nr2x 5y ago
  I assure you this is real.
  - strangattractor 5y ago
btheshoe 5y ago
Good data is worth it's weight in gold. I've heard stories of startups paying journalists 40/hr to write samples for nlp datasets. Imo this is not a good place to cut costs
anyfactor 5y ago
Trying to break into AI training business for a while. I have access to tech enabled semi-skilled workers who are willing and can be fairly compensated however launching this business isn't going to happen anytime soon. Medium and bigger companies need to work with bigger firms and require audits and certification and LLC registration in NA or Europe. And smaller companies can or willing to pay less than 5 bucks per workhour. At any scale the break even is 4 bucks because you can get the job done by semiskilled people but you need skilled people to revise and supervise. Even though the story is highly unlikely when it comes to AI training with data you have to balance scale, legitimacy and budget. Nobody has figured that out.
- nr2x 5y ago
  It’s the same type of supply chain issues faced in minerals extraction.

by nr2x 5y ago

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

rosndo 5y ago

This sounds so unlikely, unless they already had a huge set of corpse photos for another purpose. It’s easier to find live people that’ll let you photograph them than corpses.

mike_d 5y ago
Lots of places will collect biometric data from the dead. If your cousin works at a funeral home taking these photos, or in the city government collecting the photos, you can basically make money for no work.
nr2x 5y ago
I assure you this is real.
- strangattractor 5y ago

btheshoe 5y ago

Good data is worth it's weight in gold. I've heard stories of startups paying journalists 40/hr to write samples for nlp datasets. Imo this is not a good place to cut costs

anyfactor 5y ago

Trying to break into AI training business for a while. I have access to tech enabled semi-skilled workers who are willing and can be fairly compensated however launching this business isn't going to happen anytime soon. Medium and bigger companies need to work with bigger firms and require audits and certification and LLC registration in NA or Europe. And smaller companies can or willing to pay less than 5 bucks per workhour. At any scale the break even is 4 bucks because you can get the job done by semiskilled people but you need skilled people to revise and supervise. Even though the story is highly unlikely when it comes to AI training with data you have to balance scale, legitimacy and budget. Nobody has figured that out.

nr2x 5y ago
It’s the same type of supply chain issues faced in minerals extraction.