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So how exactly is a blind user supposed to be able to tell if the AI is hallucinating? How dangerous is this going to be?

skepticATX 3y ago
Very dangerous. Of course, they explicitly push responsibility to the user by saying things like: > No. Do not use Be My AI for scanning medicines, reading dosages, or other safety issues God forbid that we acknowledge this tech is fundamentally flawed. There’s money to be made!
- collinc777 3y ago
  Are you suggesting they don’t release it until they can prove no hallucination?
  - skepticATX 3y ago
    For a safety-critical application like this, absolutely.
    - Filligree 3y ago
      Is the opinion of the users irrelevant? They’re all racking about suddenly being independent, something everyone who’s sighted takes for granted.
      - tjr 3y ago
        Is this a new level of user satisfaction wrought by AI? Sounds like there has been a non-AI solution for a while too?
        cldellow 3y ago
        I used to be a personal support worker for adults with cognitive and physical disabilities. In some sense, I was a non-AI solution that enabled them to do their activities of daily living. I'm pretty sure they'd have preferred not to be dependent on me, though. I imagine that's true here, too--no more need to edit your behaviour/filter your thinking/navigate interpersonal stuff just to do something minor.
      - skepticATX 3y ago
        This service can already be reliably provided by humans. Humans have well understood failure modes, and society has an existing framework for handling issues that arise between humans. I wonder who will be held responsible when Be My Eyes AI tells someone to step into traffic? My guess is no one.
        fouc 3y ago
        From the page: > Be My AI is perfect for all those circumstances when you want a quick solution or you don’t feel like talking to another person to get visual assistance.
        arroz 3y ago
        So basically you throw the responsibility to the user for Be My AI reading medicine label wrong
        dfadsadsf 3y ago
        I think as all in life it's situational. Would I trust imperfect AI to pick medicine out of 1000 available in a drugstore? Probably not - what if it picks Fentanyl (or whatever drug that can kill me). Would I trust it to pick Ibuprofen to treat headache from my home medical cabinet? Absolutely. There is nothing there that can kill me. Would I trust it to tell me dose in mg? Current systems are already better at OCR than average human. This summer I used Google Translate to pick medicine in Italy and it was pretty good at translating labels - definitely better than pharmacist who did not speak English at all. By the way, lots of people die in US because wrong medicine was dispensed - and that has nothing to do with AI. People are imperfect and many drug names are long, incomprehensible and easy to confuse with each other.
        leereeves 3y ago
        How many blind people have full time human assistants? My guess is: very few.
        arbitrarian 3y ago
    - ryanjshaw 3y ago
      It's an app for blind people or people with low vision. They still have common sense. Why do you think you can deny them access?
    - swamp40 3y ago
      Being blind is dangerous. Let people decide for themselves what level of risk is acceptable to them.
      - dmazzoni 3y ago
        Being blind isn't necessarily dangerous at all. Lots of blind people have their homes set up with everything carefully arranged and no hazards. They prepare food, clean their house, commute to school, to jobs, and to appointments via familiar routes with no dangerous intersections, or they might use buses, trains, and Uber / Lyft just like millions of other people who aren't blind. Being blind can be full of annoyances and frustrations, but I think it's a stretch to say that it's "dangerous".
    - collinc777 3y ago
      Here we have a tool that can materially improve blind people’s lives and instead of making it accessible you want to deny them access until the product reaches a quality bar that is impossible to reach. That’s wrong and immoral. The world is full of risk. As individuals we choose to accept some risks and move on with our lives. I think it’s appropriate that blind people are given the same opportunity
- blowski 3y ago
  There’s a big spectrum going from “perfect” to “fundamentally flawed”. Something can have limitations while still being useful and valuable.
  - rvnx 3y ago
    Also the HN users here seem to imply that humans have perfect answers, which isn't the case :/
- fullstop 3y ago
  > God forbid that we acknowledge this tech is fundamentally flawed. There’s money to be made! I don't believe that Be My Eyes is a for-profit entity.
- taneq 3y ago
  What part of "don't use this for anything important" doesn't count as acknowledging it's not perfect?
- Workaccount2 3y ago
  To be fair, humans make mistakes at an incredible rate. Even the ones who make life or death decisions. AI right now ain't no god, but the gap between AI mistakes and human mistakes isn't that wide.
  - ChatGTP 3y ago
    It's besides the point, the point is this is an "AI" based product and generally tech is supposed to be an improvement on the status quo, the fact that "x might also have issues or blind spots" isn't really relevant? This argument that "humans are flawed too" is not useful, we know humans are flawed, that's why we want tech to fill those gaps, not flawed / potentially dangerous tech, actual tech like how a plane flies you to your destination 99.9% of the time.
    - lolinder 3y ago
      This is an improvement over the status quo—there are several blind people who have commented on this thread saying that they are reluctant to use the human service unless they absolutely have to. Giving them an AI tool that can use in low-stakes situations is a huge improvement over not having a tool at all, and the human service is still there for the high-stakes situations they were already willing to use it for.
      - dmazzoni 3y ago
        Also, there are many low-stakes situations where AI is actually quite a bit better than the average human: 1. Take a photo of a piece of tech: AI can not only describe what's going on but tell you exactly how to fix it (e.g. "it's showing a fatal error. hold down the power button for 10 seconds to reboot it") 2. Take a photo of clothing: AI uses consistent, neutral language to describe garments, while humans would all describe the same item differently based on where they live, their own personal style, their region, etc. 3. Take a photo in a major city or near a famous landmark, AI will recognize it and tell you about your location, whereas a random human has probably never been there before 4. Take a photo of an insurance bill, AI can explain what some of the technical terms mean if you don't understand them 5. Take a photo of a menu, ask it to summarize all of the vegetarian entrees and it will list them in seconds ("one veggie burger, one stir fry with tofu, three sandwiches and all of the salads"); a human might take a minute or two to carefully read the menu and give a much longer answer
- sebzim4500 3y ago
  Blind people are not children. They are fully capable of making the choice of whether their use case is safety critical enough to warrant avoiding AI.
- lolinder 3y ago
  Why shouldn't they push responsibility to the user? Blindness isn't a mental handicap, their users are rational adults who are far more familiar with the risks of being unable to see than you are. Why shouldn't they have access to one more tool that they can make a judgement call on when to use? And what's wrong with the provider of the tool giving them guidance on when might be a good time to ask a human instead? I suspect most of the anger in this thread is just the usual anti-AI stance, but it honestly feels extremely patronizing in this context.
loa_in_ 3y ago
Less dangerous than walking through the car filled city with a stick and no vision at all.
- somedude895 3y ago
  That is exactly the situation where I would NOT trust AI and I feel like the app would refuse to do it too. I don't know about other countries, but here in Switzerland I've had the app for five years and got only 4 requests for help during that time, which made me think that there were way more helpers than help-seekers. But I suppose they wouldn't be adding AI if that was the case.
  - walterbell 3y ago
    > there were way more helpers than help-seekers Yes, about 15:1. https://www.bemyeyes.com/blog/4-million-volunteers-strong https://www.bemyeyes.com/blog/4-million-volunteers-strong https://www.bemyeyes.com/blog/what-would-you-do-with-5-million-volunteers https://www.bemyeyes.com/blog/what-would-you-do-with-5-milli...
    - Sophira 3y ago
      In that case, why is AI needed at all?
      - walterbell 3y ago
        https://fineartamerica.com/featured/the-better-to-see-you-with-my-dear-deedee-yelverton.html https://fineartamerica.com/featured/the-better-to-see-you-wi...
  - mywacaday 3y ago
    I've noticed that if you haven't gotten a call in a long time if you open the app you seem to get calls in the next few days. Not sure if its an actual behavior or my perception.
- deleted 3y ago
fouc 3y ago
Since the page says > Be My AI is perfect for all those circumstances when you want a quick solution or you don’t feel like talking to another person to get visual assistance. It presumably will be getting used in low risk situations.
rvz 3y ago
[flagged]
lynx23 3y ago
Well, I'd say it is about as dangerous as trusting a random stranger is. Or do you seriously believe blind people have never been trolled by fellow humans? Please dont project the typical AI-angst into this assistive technology. It doesnt deserve this, especially from people without hands-on experience.

skepticATX 3y ago

Very dangerous. Of course, they explicitly push responsibility to the user by saying things like: > No. Do not use Be My AI for scanning medicines, reading dosages, or other safety issues God forbid that we acknowledge this tech is fundamentally flawed. There’s money to be made!

collinc777 3y ago
Are you suggesting they don’t release it until they can prove no hallucination?
- skepticATX 3y ago
  For a safety-critical application like this, absolutely.
  - Filligree 3y ago
    Is the opinion of the users irrelevant? They’re all racking about suddenly being independent, something everyone who’s sighted takes for granted.
    - tjr 3y ago
      Is this a new level of user satisfaction wrought by AI? Sounds like there has been a non-AI solution for a while too?
      - cldellow 3y ago
        I used to be a personal support worker for adults with cognitive and physical disabilities. In some sense, I was a non-AI solution that enabled them to do their activities of daily living. I'm pretty sure they'd have preferred not to be dependent on me, though. I imagine that's true here, too--no more need to edit your behaviour/filter your thinking/navigate interpersonal stuff just to do something minor.
    - skepticATX 3y ago
      This service can already be reliably provided by humans. Humans have well understood failure modes, and society has an existing framework for handling issues that arise between humans. I wonder who will be held responsible when Be My Eyes AI tells someone to step into traffic? My guess is no one.
      - fouc 3y ago
        From the page: > Be My AI is perfect for all those circumstances when you want a quick solution or you don’t feel like talking to another person to get visual assistance.
        arroz 3y ago
        So basically you throw the responsibility to the user for Be My AI reading medicine label wrong
        dfadsadsf 3y ago
        I think as all in life it's situational. Would I trust imperfect AI to pick medicine out of 1000 available in a drugstore? Probably not - what if it picks Fentanyl (or whatever drug that can kill me). Would I trust it to pick Ibuprofen to treat headache from my home medical cabinet? Absolutely. There is nothing there that can kill me. Would I trust it to tell me dose in mg? Current systems are already better at OCR than average human. This summer I used Google Translate to pick medicine in Italy and it was pretty good at translating labels - definitely better than pharmacist who did not speak English at all. By the way, lots of people die in US because wrong medicine was dispensed - and that has nothing to do with AI. People are imperfect and many drug names are long, incomprehensible and easy to confuse with each other.
      - leereeves 3y ago
        How many blind people have full time human assistants? My guess is: very few.
      - arbitrarian 3y ago
  - ryanjshaw 3y ago
    It's an app for blind people or people with low vision. They still have common sense. Why do you think you can deny them access?
  - swamp40 3y ago
    Being blind is dangerous. Let people decide for themselves what level of risk is acceptable to them.
    - dmazzoni 3y ago
      Being blind isn't necessarily dangerous at all. Lots of blind people have their homes set up with everything carefully arranged and no hazards. They prepare food, clean their house, commute to school, to jobs, and to appointments via familiar routes with no dangerous intersections, or they might use buses, trains, and Uber / Lyft just like millions of other people who aren't blind. Being blind can be full of annoyances and frustrations, but I think it's a stretch to say that it's "dangerous".
  - collinc777 3y ago
    Here we have a tool that can materially improve blind people’s lives and instead of making it accessible you want to deny them access until the product reaches a quality bar that is impossible to reach. That’s wrong and immoral. The world is full of risk. As individuals we choose to accept some risks and move on with our lives. I think it’s appropriate that blind people are given the same opportunity
blowski 3y ago
There’s a big spectrum going from “perfect” to “fundamentally flawed”. Something can have limitations while still being useful and valuable.
- rvnx 3y ago
  Also the HN users here seem to imply that humans have perfect answers, which isn't the case :/
fullstop 3y ago
> God forbid that we acknowledge this tech is fundamentally flawed. There’s money to be made! I don't believe that Be My Eyes is a for-profit entity.
taneq 3y ago
What part of "don't use this for anything important" doesn't count as acknowledging it's not perfect?
Workaccount2 3y ago
To be fair, humans make mistakes at an incredible rate. Even the ones who make life or death decisions. AI right now ain't no god, but the gap between AI mistakes and human mistakes isn't that wide.
- ChatGTP 3y ago
  It's besides the point, the point is this is an "AI" based product and generally tech is supposed to be an improvement on the status quo, the fact that "x might also have issues or blind spots" isn't really relevant? This argument that "humans are flawed too" is not useful, we know humans are flawed, that's why we want tech to fill those gaps, not flawed / potentially dangerous tech, actual tech like how a plane flies you to your destination 99.9% of the time.
  - lolinder 3y ago
    This is an improvement over the status quo—there are several blind people who have commented on this thread saying that they are reluctant to use the human service unless they absolutely have to. Giving them an AI tool that can use in low-stakes situations is a huge improvement over not having a tool at all, and the human service is still there for the high-stakes situations they were already willing to use it for.
    - dmazzoni 3y ago
      Also, there are many low-stakes situations where AI is actually quite a bit better than the average human: 1. Take a photo of a piece of tech: AI can not only describe what's going on but tell you exactly how to fix it (e.g. "it's showing a fatal error. hold down the power button for 10 seconds to reboot it") 2. Take a photo of clothing: AI uses consistent, neutral language to describe garments, while humans would all describe the same item differently based on where they live, their own personal style, their region, etc. 3. Take a photo in a major city or near a famous landmark, AI will recognize it and tell you about your location, whereas a random human has probably never been there before 4. Take a photo of an insurance bill, AI can explain what some of the technical terms mean if you don't understand them 5. Take a photo of a menu, ask it to summarize all of the vegetarian entrees and it will list them in seconds ("one veggie burger, one stir fry with tofu, three sandwiches and all of the salads"); a human might take a minute or two to carefully read the menu and give a much longer answer
sebzim4500 3y ago
Blind people are not children. They are fully capable of making the choice of whether their use case is safety critical enough to warrant avoiding AI.
lolinder 3y ago
Why shouldn't they push responsibility to the user? Blindness isn't a mental handicap, their users are rational adults who are far more familiar with the risks of being unable to see than you are. Why shouldn't they have access to one more tool that they can make a judgement call on when to use? And what's wrong with the provider of the tool giving them guidance on when might be a good time to ask a human instead? I suspect most of the anger in this thread is just the usual anti-AI stance, but it honestly feels extremely patronizing in this context.

loa_in_ 3y ago

Less dangerous than walking through the car filled city with a stick and no vision at all.

somedude895 3y ago
That is exactly the situation where I would NOT trust AI and I feel like the app would refuse to do it too. I don't know about other countries, but here in Switzerland I've had the app for five years and got only 4 requests for help during that time, which made me think that there were way more helpers than help-seekers. But I suppose they wouldn't be adding AI if that was the case.
- walterbell 3y ago
  > there were way more helpers than help-seekers Yes, about 15:1. https://www.bemyeyes.com/blog/4-million-volunteers-strong https://www.bemyeyes.com/blog/4-million-volunteers-strong https://www.bemyeyes.com/blog/what-would-you-do-with-5-million-volunteers https://www.bemyeyes.com/blog/what-would-you-do-with-5-milli...
  - Sophira 3y ago
    In that case, why is AI needed at all?
    - walterbell 3y ago
      https://fineartamerica.com/featured/the-better-to-see-you-with-my-dear-deedee-yelverton.html https://fineartamerica.com/featured/the-better-to-see-you-wi...
- mywacaday 3y ago
  I've noticed that if you haven't gotten a call in a long time if you open the app you seem to get calls in the next few days. Not sure if its an actual behavior or my perception.
deleted 3y ago

fouc 3y ago

Since the page says > Be My AI is perfect for all those circumstances when you want a quick solution or you don’t feel like talking to another person to get visual assistance. It presumably will be getting used in low risk situations.

rvz 3y ago

[flagged]

lynx23 3y ago

Well, I'd say it is about as dangerous as trusting a random stranger is. Or do you seriously believe blind people have never been trolled by fellow humans? Please dont project the typical AI-angst into this assistive technology. It doesnt deserve this, especially from people without hands-on experience.