3 ms·

If I want to copy text from an app (often not allowed) I now take a screenshot and copy the ocr text from there. Same with badly coded websites etc. It saves a

If I want to copy text from an app (often not allowed) I now take a screenshot and copy the ocr text from there. Same with badly coded websites etc. It saves a lot of time, and is always the same workflow.

FirmwareBurner 3y ago
Do you see what's wrong with this picture? That we're accepting apps so bad that we normalized the workflow of the only way to extract text from them is screenshots and OCR. Can you imagine having to deal with this shit on PCs as well?
- mejutoco 3y ago
  I agree, but it solves the problem. You are talking about how it should be. I am talking about why these local AI features are useful to me. On PCs we have Windows with candy crush ads, so I can indeed imagine.
  - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
    Sure, but OCR doesn't need ML and high-end SoCs to work well. We had great OCR in $50 printer-scanner combo devices for home users and those didn't have M1 chips but some dirt cheap HW and Windows software to do the OCR(most likely using the Tesseract library which runs on a toaster). So the everyday need for ML in everything in our lives is greatly exaggerated.
    - mejutoco 3y ago
      I am answering to this quote of yours > All ML gimmicks are nice to show off at events, pub gatherings and in reviews videos with a specific example of how it is useful to me outside of the cases you mention. I am merely sharing my experience. P.S. I wish Tesseract worked as well as you mention today on my >50$ pc. I am not an Apple fanboy but OCR for images is flawless.
      - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
        It doesn't have to be Tesseract specifically, there are other OCR libraries that work better and are licensed by several products(I think Abby licenses theirs). But that wasn't my main point. Similar to Tesla popularizing ML-driven self parking, which doesn't work any better than the PID/Kalman filter methods already in use by others for the past 10+ years, my point was that today we're seemingly shoehorning ML into solving problems that have already been solved by "boring" traditional engineering solutions for over 10 years now, just to feed the AI product hype, similar to the digital camera megapixel race, or other such nonsense that offered no measurable upgrade in quality but looked good on product stickers to move merchandise at higher prices.

FirmwareBurner 3y ago

Do you see what's wrong with this picture? That we're accepting apps so bad that we normalized the workflow of the only way to extract text from them is screenshots and OCR. Can you imagine having to deal with this shit on PCs as well?

mejutoco 3y ago
I agree, but it solves the problem. You are talking about how it should be. I am talking about why these local AI features are useful to me. On PCs we have Windows with candy crush ads, so I can indeed imagine.
- FirmwareBurner 3y ago
  Sure, but OCR doesn't need ML and high-end SoCs to work well. We had great OCR in $50 printer-scanner combo devices for home users and those didn't have M1 chips but some dirt cheap HW and Windows software to do the OCR(most likely using the Tesseract library which runs on a toaster). So the everyday need for ML in everything in our lives is greatly exaggerated.
  - mejutoco 3y ago
    I am answering to this quote of yours > All ML gimmicks are nice to show off at events, pub gatherings and in reviews videos with a specific example of how it is useful to me outside of the cases you mention. I am merely sharing my experience. P.S. I wish Tesseract worked as well as you mention today on my >50$ pc. I am not an Apple fanboy but OCR for images is flawless.
    - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
      It doesn't have to be Tesseract specifically, there are other OCR libraries that work better and are licensed by several products(I think Abby licenses theirs). But that wasn't my main point. Similar to Tesla popularizing ML-driven self parking, which doesn't work any better than the PID/Kalman filter methods already in use by others for the past 10+ years, my point was that today we're seemingly shoehorning ML into solving problems that have already been solved by "boring" traditional engineering solutions for over 10 years now, just to feed the AI product hype, similar to the digital camera megapixel race, or other such nonsense that offered no measurable upgrade in quality but looked good on product stickers to move merchandise at higher prices.