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How Facebook could solve "Missed Connections" right now, if they wanted to

10 points by dgurney 15y ago

kevs 15y ago
Is this really a problem? I can't imagine taking a clear picture of a stranger's face rather than exchanging a few words and introducing myself.
- bermanoid 15y ago
  Yes, that would seem to be the obvious reaction. But that's just because you're a "normal", someone that has, on occasion, interacted romantically in a fairly standard and direct manner with members of the opposite sex. Now, imagine that you're a forever-alone that spends most of his free time (well, that minuscule portion of free time that's not consumed by LoL, SWTOR, Skyrim, Minecraft, etc. [1]) on Reddit complaining about being "friend-zoned" and fantasizing about that magical girl that looks like a fashion model but "gets you", who likes you just for being a "nice guy" that's "smart", breaking from her natural tendency to go for "bad-boys" because your awesomeness was so obvious to her despite your awkward creepiness and social ineptitude. It's a very different world, one where the idea of semi-passively stalking randoms on the subway without any fear of direct rejection seems a lot more appealing... [1] I say this as someone that wastes an awful lot of free time on Reddit, as well as playing LoL, SWTOR, Skyrim, Minecraft, and many more, including some Facebook games that I'm far too embarrassed about to cop to on HN (even if I do work in the field and have the ostensible excuse of "market research")...
fl3tch 15y ago
Worst idea ever. Worst privacy violation ever. This would would be a boon to stalkers, perverts, creeps, serial killers, and I imagine 99% of people would never opt into it.
- Hemospectrum 15y ago
  You would opt into it implicitly just by having your pictures on Facebook. Not necessarily just by having an account, mind you; your friends might upload and tag pictures of you. Yes, it would be a huge privacy violation. Facebook just likely wouldn't care.
- Locke1689 15y ago
  Probably doesn't matter. It'll be done by someone, somewhere (most likely a government). Technology stops for no man and no laws. It may be time to start rethinking what we mean by privacy.
daegloe 15y ago
Instead of revealing the individual's identity, FB could send them an automated msg pointing back to your profile with the option to connect (or at least chat). This would leave the decision (privacy protection) in the hands of the recipient.
siavosh 15y ago
Does anyone know if fb face recognition can actually work for all 800 million users or does its tagging do something like nearest neighbor to your friends which I imagine is a simpler problem.
- Locke1689 15y ago
  I would bet this is true. That kind of processing is not insignificant but Facebook seems rather casual about it.
  - apu 15y ago
    I'm not quite sure by what you mean by "this is true," but computation is not the bottleneck here. It's an unsolved research problem.
    - bermanoid 15y ago
      I'd probably argue that this is not only an unsolved research problem, but an unsolvable one. I mean, do we have any evidence whatsoever that given a corpus of photos of almost a billion people, there's any way to pick out photos of a given person without a very high probability of (many) false positives? I've seen probably five or six people over the years that in certain photos I wouldn't be able to distinguish from myself, especially in real world situations with crappy lighting, poor focus, etc. It's rare, sure, but with a billion people, "rare" means you'll "only" see, what, a thousand cases? I think there's just too much ambiguity in photos (and looks in general), not that we necessarily lack the right algorithms or anything like that. However, I do believe that the meta-data that Facebook has on all of us is probably enough to get damn close in most cases, even if people don't have friend connections. Especially if they've got some location data... Besides, for the purposes of what this article is talking about, I'd guess that if someone looks similar enough to the person you saw on the subway to falsely trigger a face match, you'd still probably be interested in following up on that "missed connection".
      - usaar333 15y ago
usaar333 15y ago
Site is down. and seemingly no google cache. Someone have text saved?
- dgurney 15y ago
  yeah, server just melted. Up now. Here's text in case it goes down again: - - - You know those Craigslist missed connections posts? The ones where you’re looking across the subway platform at someone, and you wish you could get their number, but you can’t really shout across the tracks? Well, I was in New York City this weekend and I had a sudden inspiration. There’s a (hypothetical) solution to the “missed connections” problem. And it’s sitting around in plain sight. Here’s how it works. Many of you are probably aware that Facebook has been steadily developing its facial recognition algorithm. It’s quite good at this point. It can scan any of your photos and tag you automatically, if you’ve enabled the feature. That means Facebook’s algorithm can recognize your unique face. It stands to reason, therefore, that Facebook’s algorithm could scan any photo from any of its 800 million members, and recognize you if you’re in it. So, let’s take that one logical step further. Imagine you take a photo of someone and upload it to Facebook’s servers. Facebook can analyze the photo and tag that person’s face. I bet you see where I’m going with this. You’re back on the subway platform — you see someone across the way. You raise your phone and snap a quick picture via the Facebook app. The train comes. While you’re pulling away, the app has displayed that person’s profile. You click “friend.” And just like that, missed connections are a thing of the past. Interesting, eh? Also, creepy. Obviously, if Facebook enabled this feature it would cause a firestorm of privacy concerns. But Facebook hasn’t exactly shown much concern for privacy in the past. And everyone does have a public profile, anyway… and subways are public areas. Given that the tech exists right now, I bet we’ll see this within a couple years. The implications are rather large. Dan
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
usaar333 15y ago
"It stands to reason, therefore, that Facebook’s algorithm could scan any photo from any of its 800 million members, and recognize you if you’re in it. So, let’s take that one logical step further. Imagine you take a photo of someone and upload it to Facebook’s servers. Facebook can analyze the photo and tag that person’s face." This could work for a mutual friend at a party. But if the face recognizer is given a low-quality subway photo and has 7 million people to choose from (NYC residents) of equal probability, the chance of current technology getting an accurate match is nil. The author may be a bit confused how Facebook's technology works. Yes, it recognizes faces, but it also eliminates ~99.9999% of members as possibilties by leveraging the social graph.
- FelixP 15y ago
  It might still work if it could narrow down the possibilities to, say, a hundred photos or less. The user should be able to go the "last mile" and pick out the one they're looking for. I'd be curious to see if Facebook's facial recognition technology is this good. Also, lots of people out in public (especially in NYC) aren't necessarily residents of the given area, which potentially makes this much harder.

10 points by dgurney 15y ago

kevs 15y ago

Is this really a problem? I can't imagine taking a clear picture of a stranger's face rather than exchanging a few words and introducing myself.

bermanoid 15y ago
Yes, that would seem to be the obvious reaction. But that's just because you're a "normal", someone that has, on occasion, interacted romantically in a fairly standard and direct manner with members of the opposite sex. Now, imagine that you're a forever-alone that spends most of his free time (well, that minuscule portion of free time that's not consumed by LoL, SWTOR, Skyrim, Minecraft, etc. [1]) on Reddit complaining about being "friend-zoned" and fantasizing about that magical girl that looks like a fashion model but "gets you", who likes you just for being a "nice guy" that's "smart", breaking from her natural tendency to go for "bad-boys" because your awesomeness was so obvious to her despite your awkward creepiness and social ineptitude. It's a very different world, one where the idea of semi-passively stalking randoms on the subway without any fear of direct rejection seems a lot more appealing... [1] I say this as someone that wastes an awful lot of free time on Reddit, as well as playing LoL, SWTOR, Skyrim, Minecraft, and many more, including some Facebook games that I'm far too embarrassed about to cop to on HN (even if I do work in the field and have the ostensible excuse of "market research")...

fl3tch 15y ago

Worst idea ever. Worst privacy violation ever. This would would be a boon to stalkers, perverts, creeps, serial killers, and I imagine 99% of people would never opt into it.

Hemospectrum 15y ago
You would opt into it implicitly just by having your pictures on Facebook. Not necessarily just by having an account, mind you; your friends might upload and tag pictures of you. Yes, it would be a huge privacy violation. Facebook just likely wouldn't care.
Locke1689 15y ago
Probably doesn't matter. It'll be done by someone, somewhere (most likely a government). Technology stops for no man and no laws. It may be time to start rethinking what we mean by privacy.

daegloe 15y ago

Instead of revealing the individual's identity, FB could send them an automated msg pointing back to your profile with the option to connect (or at least chat). This would leave the decision (privacy protection) in the hands of the recipient.

siavosh 15y ago

Does anyone know if fb face recognition can actually work for all 800 million users or does its tagging do something like nearest neighbor to your friends which I imagine is a simpler problem.

Locke1689 15y ago
I would bet this is true. That kind of processing is not insignificant but Facebook seems rather casual about it.
- apu 15y ago
  I'm not quite sure by what you mean by "this is true," but computation is not the bottleneck here. It's an unsolved research problem.
  - bermanoid 15y ago
    I'd probably argue that this is not only an unsolved research problem, but an unsolvable one. I mean, do we have any evidence whatsoever that given a corpus of photos of almost a billion people, there's any way to pick out photos of a given person without a very high probability of (many) false positives? I've seen probably five or six people over the years that in certain photos I wouldn't be able to distinguish from myself, especially in real world situations with crappy lighting, poor focus, etc. It's rare, sure, but with a billion people, "rare" means you'll "only" see, what, a thousand cases? I think there's just too much ambiguity in photos (and looks in general), not that we necessarily lack the right algorithms or anything like that. However, I do believe that the meta-data that Facebook has on all of us is probably enough to get damn close in most cases, even if people don't have friend connections. Especially if they've got some location data... Besides, for the purposes of what this article is talking about, I'd guess that if someone looks similar enough to the person you saw on the subway to falsely trigger a face match, you'd still probably be interested in following up on that "missed connection".
    - usaar333 15y ago

usaar333 15y ago

Site is down. and seemingly no google cache. Someone have text saved?

dgurney 15y ago
yeah, server just melted. Up now. Here's text in case it goes down again: - - - You know those Craigslist missed connections posts? The ones where you’re looking across the subway platform at someone, and you wish you could get their number, but you can’t really shout across the tracks? Well, I was in New York City this weekend and I had a sudden inspiration. There’s a (hypothetical) solution to the “missed connections” problem. And it’s sitting around in plain sight. Here’s how it works. Many of you are probably aware that Facebook has been steadily developing its facial recognition algorithm. It’s quite good at this point. It can scan any of your photos and tag you automatically, if you’ve enabled the feature. That means Facebook’s algorithm can recognize your unique face. It stands to reason, therefore, that Facebook’s algorithm could scan any photo from any of its 800 million members, and recognize you if you’re in it. So, let’s take that one logical step further. Imagine you take a photo of someone and upload it to Facebook’s servers. Facebook can analyze the photo and tag that person’s face. I bet you see where I’m going with this. You’re back on the subway platform — you see someone across the way. You raise your phone and snap a quick picture via the Facebook app. The train comes. While you’re pulling away, the app has displayed that person’s profile. You click “friend.” And just like that, missed connections are a thing of the past. Interesting, eh? Also, creepy. Obviously, if Facebook enabled this feature it would cause a firestorm of privacy concerns. But Facebook hasn’t exactly shown much concern for privacy in the past. And everyone does have a public profile, anyway… and subways are public areas. Given that the tech exists right now, I bet we’ll see this within a couple years. The implications are rather large. Dan

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

usaar333 15y ago

"It stands to reason, therefore, that Facebook’s algorithm could scan any photo from any of its 800 million members, and recognize you if you’re in it. So, let’s take that one logical step further. Imagine you take a photo of someone and upload it to Facebook’s servers. Facebook can analyze the photo and tag that person’s face." This could work for a mutual friend at a party. But if the face recognizer is given a low-quality subway photo and has 7 million people to choose from (NYC residents) of equal probability, the chance of current technology getting an accurate match is nil. The author may be a bit confused how Facebook's technology works. Yes, it recognizes faces, but it also eliminates ~99.9999% of members as possibilties by leveraging the social graph.

FelixP 15y ago
It might still work if it could narrow down the possibilities to, say, a hundred photos or less. The user should be able to go the "last mile" and pick out the one they're looking for. I'd be curious to see if Facebook's facial recognition technology is this good. Also, lots of people out in public (especially in NYC) aren't necessarily residents of the given area, which potentially makes this much harder.