5 ms·

I'm not sure i understand the ethical argument. The subject of the photo consented to it. As far as i know she was not mislead or coerced. Like if this was a n

I'm not sure i understand the ethical argument. The subject of the photo consented to it. As far as i know she was not mislead or coerced. Like if this was a normal modelling shot, that got sold to an advertizing company to sell some product the model didn't personally approve of, i doubt anyone would consider that unethical. Generally the assumption is that if you sell your likness (assuming no coercion or other factors that would invalidate a contract), you don't get to control the image after that. That is kind of the whole principle the modelling industry is built around. The reason why i think this point is important, is that our entire industry is built on the notion that licenses are forever and there are no take backs. Like Linus can't go, oh i changed my mind, this GPL thing is overrated, i revoke the license so i can become filthy rich. I do not think we should normalize the notion that renegging on intellectual property licenses just because you changed your mind is ethical.

jvanderbot 3y ago
It seems to match her wishes. You don't need an ethical argument to make a kind gesture to an icon, just make a statement and let everyone move on. There's effectively zero cost.
- bawolff 3y ago
  Their statement is that it is required by their code of ethics. So they made an ethical statement whether they needed to or not.
  - jvanderbot 3y ago
    It feels like a flimsy justification but I'm not sure what kind of person would push back and insist on using that image against both her wishes and the wishes of the leadership of IEEE.
    - bawolff 3y ago
      Flimsy justifications become precedent and eventually become norms. I don't have any actual objection to no longer using it. I just don't like the justification.
      - jvanderbot 3y ago
        Well the explicit justification is not the real justification. That's all. I find once I realize that I'm content, but perhaps I'm just making up stories.
- jsheard 3y ago
  The rationale for continuing to use it is pretty flimsy as well, so it's not like we lose much by doing away with it. It's poorly sourced, being a low resolution 1970s vintage scan of a magazine print rather than the original film negatives, and the rights holders never really gave permission to redistribute it. Surely there are better test images to use even on purely technical and legal grounds.
- _3u10 3y ago
  There’s nothing unethical about her photo. Lena’s career choice is hers alone and it should not be considered unethical.
shlubbert 3y ago
> We believe that the history of the Lena image clashes with the extensive efforts to promote women undertaking higher education in science and engineering This sounds pretty easy to understand to me, and like the main reason for the decision.
- fvdessen 3y ago
  One has to wonder how effective is that strategy given that the adult industry seems to have a much easier time recruiting women than tech
  - mort96 3y ago
    Rather effective? There are still issues to work out but the gender balance is much better these days than back when, say, it was considered cool to use porn as the standard test image in the whole field of digital images
    - fvdessen 3y ago
      Data shows the exact opposite is true. https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/chart-of-the-day-the-declining-female-share-of-computer-science-degrees-from-28-to-18/ https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/chart-of-the-day-the-declinin...
      - mort96 3y ago
        The first thing when I open that link is a report on "Why Socialism Fails". I'm not gonna trust that as a non-biased source. Show me a peer-reviewed study rather than a blog post please.
  - _urvc 3y ago
    That's an interesting thought. In high school I met many girls that were actually interested in informatics but had a hard time keeping up and thus did not pursue a career in tech. The women who did end up studying with me were either: * extreme gamers * close to parent with interest in tech (me) * mocked by males as too stupid to learn informatics * generally adventurous and did not care about appearance * highly ambitious/great work ethics In general, all did have a good amount of self confidence. Maybe it is just easier to end up in the adult industry if you are taught from an early age you are an sex object rather a human being with interests. This might sound extreme but I met males that pretended to treat me as a friend but never thought of me as a human. It is then freaking scary to be all alone in a course with them and without backup like other women.
roughly 3y ago
The issue is the image is a crop from a picture in a Playboy shoot. The issue is not a licensing problem, it’s not a technical problem, it’s that the field for 50 years has used as a reference image a crop of a Playboy centerfold. We have to keep justifying changing it based on licensing and on the technical merits because fundamentally as a field computer science is still about 12 years old and can’t seem to understand why using a crop of a Playboy centerfold is both unprofessional and exclusionary, but the actual problem is the image is a crop of a Playboy centerfold that we’re continuing to use despite it being obvious even back then that it was probably a bad idea.
- _3u10 3y ago
  What is unprofessional about a playboy shoot? Who are you to tell a woman what she can or can’t wear in a profesional environment? Obviously whoever picked it was a forward thinking person who wanted women to know they would be able to work in the nascent field of digital imaging. Would you have an issue if it was a picture of Michaelangelos David?
  - mort96 3y ago
    Pornographic images are generally considered unprofessional in settings outside of the sex work industry. It's wild that this even has to be spelled out but here we are.
    - _3u10 3y ago
      It’s not pornographic. There’s not even nudity in it. Is David a pornographic statue too?
      - shlubbert 3y ago
        It's referencing an image created with pornographic intent. This is not that difficult, come on.
        3y ago
mrkeen 3y ago
> I'm not sure i understand the ethical argument. The subject of the photo consented to it. That's all you need. IEEE no longer consents to it.
jrm4 3y ago
Not to pick on op personally, but this is sort of a perfect example of the stereotypical techy type just not getting it. Yes, in the legal framework, everyone would probably be well within their rights to keep using it. But this stuff is made of people. No one is harmed, mostly everyone sort of feels better in this collective recognition of "this isn't the sort of thing we're into, in this kind of way, let's do it differently." Now if we could just rename a certain vaguely ableist photo manipulation program...
- bawolff 3y ago
  > Not to pick on op personally, but this is sort of a perfect example of the stereotypical techy type just not getting it. No worries I appreciate your comment. After reading some of the pro-lena image replies that were kind of icky, i can see why you have this view. > But this stuff is made of people. No one is harmed, mostly everyone sort of feels better in this collective recognition of "this isn't the sort of thing we're into, in this kind of way, let's do it differently." To be clear, i understand there are other reasons to object to this image (many have been mentioned in sibling comments), and if those were the only reasons i wouldn't object. However I respectfully disagree that there is no harm here. The entire free software/free culture movement is built around the idea of someone releases something then someone else builds on it. This can only happen because you can be sure that the thing you are building on won't go away. The foundation has to be solid for such a system to work. Any normalization of the idea that people can retract work that others have built on way after the fact, is a harm. Its a threat to the whole ecosystem. I have no problem with ceasing to use the image for other reasons, but i do believe allowing any normalization of the idea that authors can retract work way after the fact, is a real and significant harm. Edit: that said, my argument is probably stronger through the lens of the categorical imperative than a harms framework.
  - nielsbot 3y ago
    Is this really authors retracting work though? That seems orthogonal to this. This is saying “times have changed, let’s stop using this image.”
constantcrying 3y ago
Maybe we should just not use pornographic images for testing purposes. There surely exist tens of thousands of viable test images, which work just as well, but just aren't pornographic.
- candiodari 3y ago
  That choice was made by the inventor of that technology. He actually deserved to make that choice. Morality police don't.
  - GaryNumanVevo 3y ago
    The IEEE is the morality police now? That's a bit of stretch.
    - candiodari 3y ago
      By their own choice, yes.
IshKebab 3y ago
Yeah I think the ethical arguments are nonsense. Seems to be men creating offence on women's behalf, similar to when white people were offended on black people's behalf about the word `master`. But it's also a seriously over-used photo with weird colours. It would be a bad idea to use it for a paper anyway for the same reason that you shouldn't benchmark AI on MNIST.
- GaryNumanVevo 3y ago
  It's not. The article mentioned that she wants her likeness retired.
  - IshKebab 3y ago
    That quote is from a documentary called "Losing Lenna". Pretty clear that they asked for it and she agreed. It wasn't unprompted. In any case, she's clearly not offended by it. Can we hear from any actual women who were offended by this image and decided not to go into the computer vision/graphics field because of it? IMO it's quite patronising of men to think that women are so fragile they can't handle a photo of an attractive women being used for benchmarking. Same as how it's insulting of white people to think that the racism that black people care about is innocent use of the word "master". I don't know why people can't concentrate on actual issues. I guess this change is easy to do and makes people think they've achieved something.
    - GaryNumanVevo 3y ago
      As someone who used to work in an imaging research group, we quit using Lena years ago specifically because the women researchers in our group brought it up. We came to the decision to retire it and move on. It's a small change, but it's important to promote an environment where everyone feels comfortable and is able to do their best work. I can't quite understand why people waste their time debating a technically inferior test image.
      - IshKebab 3y ago

jvanderbot 3y ago

It seems to match her wishes. You don't need an ethical argument to make a kind gesture to an icon, just make a statement and let everyone move on. There's effectively zero cost.

bawolff 3y ago
Their statement is that it is required by their code of ethics. So they made an ethical statement whether they needed to or not.
- jvanderbot 3y ago
  It feels like a flimsy justification but I'm not sure what kind of person would push back and insist on using that image against both her wishes and the wishes of the leadership of IEEE.
  - bawolff 3y ago
    Flimsy justifications become precedent and eventually become norms. I don't have any actual objection to no longer using it. I just don't like the justification.
    - jvanderbot 3y ago
      Well the explicit justification is not the real justification. That's all. I find once I realize that I'm content, but perhaps I'm just making up stories.
jsheard 3y ago
The rationale for continuing to use it is pretty flimsy as well, so it's not like we lose much by doing away with it. It's poorly sourced, being a low resolution 1970s vintage scan of a magazine print rather than the original film negatives, and the rights holders never really gave permission to redistribute it. Surely there are better test images to use even on purely technical and legal grounds.
_3u10 3y ago
There’s nothing unethical about her photo. Lena’s career choice is hers alone and it should not be considered unethical.

shlubbert 3y ago

> We believe that the history of the Lena image clashes with the extensive efforts to promote women undertaking higher education in science and engineering This sounds pretty easy to understand to me, and like the main reason for the decision.

fvdessen 3y ago
One has to wonder how effective is that strategy given that the adult industry seems to have a much easier time recruiting women than tech
- mort96 3y ago
  Rather effective? There are still issues to work out but the gender balance is much better these days than back when, say, it was considered cool to use porn as the standard test image in the whole field of digital images
  - fvdessen 3y ago
    Data shows the exact opposite is true. https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/chart-of-the-day-the-declining-female-share-of-computer-science-degrees-from-28-to-18/ https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/chart-of-the-day-the-declinin...
    - mort96 3y ago
      The first thing when I open that link is a report on "Why Socialism Fails". I'm not gonna trust that as a non-biased source. Show me a peer-reviewed study rather than a blog post please.
- _urvc 3y ago
  That's an interesting thought. In high school I met many girls that were actually interested in informatics but had a hard time keeping up and thus did not pursue a career in tech. The women who did end up studying with me were either: * extreme gamers * close to parent with interest in tech (me) * mocked by males as too stupid to learn informatics * generally adventurous and did not care about appearance * highly ambitious/great work ethics In general, all did have a good amount of self confidence. Maybe it is just easier to end up in the adult industry if you are taught from an early age you are an sex object rather a human being with interests. This might sound extreme but I met males that pretended to treat me as a friend but never thought of me as a human. It is then freaking scary to be all alone in a course with them and without backup like other women.

roughly 3y ago

The issue is the image is a crop from a picture in a Playboy shoot. The issue is not a licensing problem, it’s not a technical problem, it’s that the field for 50 years has used as a reference image a crop of a Playboy centerfold. We have to keep justifying changing it based on licensing and on the technical merits because fundamentally as a field computer science is still about 12 years old and can’t seem to understand why using a crop of a Playboy centerfold is both unprofessional and exclusionary, but the actual problem is the image is a crop of a Playboy centerfold that we’re continuing to use despite it being obvious even back then that it was probably a bad idea.

_3u10 3y ago
What is unprofessional about a playboy shoot? Who are you to tell a woman what she can or can’t wear in a profesional environment? Obviously whoever picked it was a forward thinking person who wanted women to know they would be able to work in the nascent field of digital imaging. Would you have an issue if it was a picture of Michaelangelos David?
- mort96 3y ago
  Pornographic images are generally considered unprofessional in settings outside of the sex work industry. It's wild that this even has to be spelled out but here we are.
  - _3u10 3y ago
    It’s not pornographic. There’s not even nudity in it. Is David a pornographic statue too?
    - shlubbert 3y ago
      It's referencing an image created with pornographic intent. This is not that difficult, come on.
      - 3y ago

mrkeen 3y ago

> I'm not sure i understand the ethical argument. The subject of the photo consented to it. That's all you need. IEEE no longer consents to it.

jrm4 3y ago

Not to pick on op personally, but this is sort of a perfect example of the stereotypical techy type just not getting it. Yes, in the legal framework, everyone would probably be well within their rights to keep using it. But this stuff is made of people. No one is harmed, mostly everyone sort of feels better in this collective recognition of "this isn't the sort of thing we're into, in this kind of way, let's do it differently." Now if we could just rename a certain vaguely ableist photo manipulation program...

bawolff 3y ago
> Not to pick on op personally, but this is sort of a perfect example of the stereotypical techy type just not getting it. No worries I appreciate your comment. After reading some of the pro-lena image replies that were kind of icky, i can see why you have this view. > But this stuff is made of people. No one is harmed, mostly everyone sort of feels better in this collective recognition of "this isn't the sort of thing we're into, in this kind of way, let's do it differently." To be clear, i understand there are other reasons to object to this image (many have been mentioned in sibling comments), and if those were the only reasons i wouldn't object. However I respectfully disagree that there is no harm here. The entire free software/free culture movement is built around the idea of someone releases something then someone else builds on it. This can only happen because you can be sure that the thing you are building on won't go away. The foundation has to be solid for such a system to work. Any normalization of the idea that people can retract work that others have built on way after the fact, is a harm. Its a threat to the whole ecosystem. I have no problem with ceasing to use the image for other reasons, but i do believe allowing any normalization of the idea that authors can retract work way after the fact, is a real and significant harm. Edit: that said, my argument is probably stronger through the lens of the categorical imperative than a harms framework.
- nielsbot 3y ago
  Is this really authors retracting work though? That seems orthogonal to this. This is saying “times have changed, let’s stop using this image.”

constantcrying 3y ago

Maybe we should just not use pornographic images for testing purposes. There surely exist tens of thousands of viable test images, which work just as well, but just aren't pornographic.

candiodari 3y ago
That choice was made by the inventor of that technology. He actually deserved to make that choice. Morality police don't.
- GaryNumanVevo 3y ago
  The IEEE is the morality police now? That's a bit of stretch.
  - candiodari 3y ago
    By their own choice, yes.

IshKebab 3y ago

Yeah I think the ethical arguments are nonsense. Seems to be men creating offence on women's behalf, similar to when white people were offended on black people's behalf about the word `master`. But it's also a seriously over-used photo with weird colours. It would be a bad idea to use it for a paper anyway for the same reason that you shouldn't benchmark AI on MNIST.

GaryNumanVevo 3y ago
It's not. The article mentioned that she wants her likeness retired.
- IshKebab 3y ago
  That quote is from a documentary called "Losing Lenna". Pretty clear that they asked for it and she agreed. It wasn't unprompted. In any case, she's clearly not offended by it. Can we hear from any actual women who were offended by this image and decided not to go into the computer vision/graphics field because of it? IMO it's quite patronising of men to think that women are so fragile they can't handle a photo of an attractive women being used for benchmarking. Same as how it's insulting of white people to think that the racism that black people care about is innocent use of the word "master". I don't know why people can't concentrate on actual issues. I guess this change is easy to do and makes people think they've achieved something.
  - GaryNumanVevo 3y ago
    As someone who used to work in an imaging research group, we quit using Lena years ago specifically because the women researchers in our group brought it up. We came to the decision to retire it and move on. It's a small change, but it's important to promote an environment where everyone feels comfortable and is able to do their best work. I can't quite understand why people waste their time debating a technically inferior test image.
    - IshKebab 3y ago