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Incredible concept and execution! Long, axe-grindy aside: I wish people had collectively decided on some other mostly-black-and-white video to use for this kin

Incredible concept and execution! Long, axe-grindy aside: I wish people had collectively decided on some other mostly-black-and-white video to use for this kind of thing than Bad Apple. As a stereotypically nerdy-looking socially awkward male in a world where that is often enough all by itself to be viewed as "a creep", I feel pressured to distance myself from anything that others might interpret as confirmation of that -- like, for example, watching anime featuring young girls dancing in an ambiguously sexual way on a computer screen. (To avoid pointless angry replies: the clip plainly can be interpreted in this way, and that suffices.) Should I have to do this? Of course not, but others' perceptions of me are what they are, and they have serious implications for my quality of life, and I don't see that changing anytime soon. All that, and I don't even like anime! And so I long for the day when BA just... goes away. Maybe some black people feel the same way about ordering fried chicken at a restaurant, etc.

neuroticnews25 3mo ago
As a fellow creep - just don't watch it while riding a bus or working in an open space. It's ok to exercise your privacy.
XYen0n 3mo ago
We should eliminate prejudice and discrimination, rather than comply with them.
sublinear 3mo ago
You're not wrong. Until the 2010s, a Playboy centerfold[1] was the most popular test image. Around the same time that got canceled, Bad Apple was popularized for video tests. > And so I long for the day when BA just... goes away. I honestly thought it had gone away. Every time I see Bad Apple, I assume a millennial weeb from the past is behind the demo and I check if the upload date is from before 2020. It usually is, and the project is now unmaintained. Anyway, unlike Lenna, I don't think I've ever seen Bad Apple used for anything important. It's much easier to ignore. Your annoyance is valid, but only in the same sense as thinking graffiti is tacky. People don't look at it and think "Oh shit! JJ wuz here?! Watch out!". [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenna https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenna
- tialaramex 3mo ago
  I don't think this is in the same category as Lenna. Lenna is more like the situation with Henrietta Lacks and the HeLa cell line. HeLa is a cell line which is "immortalized" as a result of a cancer mutation. If you try to keep normal healthy human cells alive they'll just die eventually, it is what they're programmed to do. But Henrietta Lacks had cancer and one of the ways cancers survive and grow is with a mutation which eliminates that "always die" rule. Henrietta died in 1951, but this cell line lives on, used in countless experiments. Lena Forsén sold her image rights - she's a Playboy model, but not to be used in decades of image research - whereas Henrietta was never even told her cells were being collected for science experiments at all. This isn't Tuskegee - she was given reasonable medical care for her cancer given it was 1951, but she didn't sign a waiver saying "I'm fine with you using my cell line to do whatever you want" in perpetuity. For "Bad Apple" it's just embarrassing for some people, which doesn't even seem like a big deal. The other thing which distinguishes Lenna is that it's obsolete. It's a scan of a Playboy magazine, not even a scan of the photo itself, let alone a direct capture of the scene - and it is by modern standards low resolution. Even if you (like modern AI companies) don't care about rights or people the Lenna image is a poor choice on technical grounds. Bad Apple isn't like that, a substitute would just be some other black-and-white video, probably similar length and resolution.
  - neuroticnews25 3mo ago
    Both cases sound to me like there is absolutely no moral right being violated. Maybe there's a line somewhere, like you shouldn't copy someone's brain and torture it in a simulation, but this is nowhere near it.
    - tialaramex 3mo ago
      Then you'd certainly be surprised that today making HeLa without Lacks' prior authorisation would be illegal. You'd need consent from the patient before taking these samples for any purpose other than directly treating them, if you've got samples you took for treatment and now you wish you could use them for another purpose either you need to go back and ask for that or too bad. I've signed off on paperwork for this numerous times this century because they have samples from my cancer which are doubtless much less useful than HeLa but might be valuable to someone so why not ask. Lacks' estate have obtained settlements (with undisclosed terms) from several companies which profit off HeLa. We could choose to imagine the terms were just enough to pay lawyer fees, but equally they could be substantial. So apparently the lawyers for major pharma firms either don't believe you that no moral rights were violated or they believe jurors wouldn't believe you on this. Now, as I said, for Lenna she was compensated by Playboy, the rights rest with the magazine publisher, and they've apparently felt that suing scientists for popularizing an image of one of their models wasn't commercially sensible. But morally it does still seem like a problem, that's not what she was consenting to.
applfanboysbgon 3mo ago
> the clip plainly can be interpreted in this way, and that suffices. I have literally never seen someone interpret it this way in the 17 years the video has been making the rounds to tens of millions of people on the internet. There is nothing in the video that could possibly be construed as sexual by any human being with even the most tenuous grip on reality. It would take some insanely misogynistic mental gymnastics like "girl + dancing = sexual" to reach that conclusion. If someone did interpret it this way and raise a fuss, the correct response would be to ignore them for being a completely unhinged Twitter weirdo. Pre-emptively avoiding things you enjoy because of how they might be interpreted by unhinged Twitter weirdos is itself unhinged.
- neuroticnews25 3mo ago
  Girl (woman) is primarily a sexual category in itself, no dancing needed.
  - nyoronic 3mo ago
    What.
    - neuroticnews25 3mo ago
      What do you think is the main reason to have a label discriminating men from women?
      - nyoronic 3mo ago
        Sorry, I get what you were saying now. I responded like that because in this thread "sexual" was being used in the suggestive way, in that context your comment was rather strange to me.
        neuroticnews25 3mo ago
        TBH I feel weirdly compelled to object every time someone raises a possibility of thinking about women without sexual undertones.
kogasa240p 3mo ago
What? How is Bad Apple sexual, all of the characters are doing something instead of just dancing around.
phyzome 3mo ago
This is a bizarre take.
BoingBoomTschak 3mo ago
Grow a pair and start living your own life.

neuroticnews25 3mo ago

As a fellow creep - just don't watch it while riding a bus or working in an open space. It's ok to exercise your privacy.

XYen0n 3mo ago

We should eliminate prejudice and discrimination, rather than comply with them.

sublinear 3mo ago

You're not wrong. Until the 2010s, a Playboy centerfold[1] was the most popular test image. Around the same time that got canceled, Bad Apple was popularized for video tests. > And so I long for the day when BA just... goes away. I honestly thought it had gone away. Every time I see Bad Apple, I assume a millennial weeb from the past is behind the demo and I check if the upload date is from before 2020. It usually is, and the project is now unmaintained. Anyway, unlike Lenna, I don't think I've ever seen Bad Apple used for anything important. It's much easier to ignore. Your annoyance is valid, but only in the same sense as thinking graffiti is tacky. People don't look at it and think "Oh shit! JJ wuz here?! Watch out!". [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenna https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenna

tialaramex 3mo ago
I don't think this is in the same category as Lenna. Lenna is more like the situation with Henrietta Lacks and the HeLa cell line. HeLa is a cell line which is "immortalized" as a result of a cancer mutation. If you try to keep normal healthy human cells alive they'll just die eventually, it is what they're programmed to do. But Henrietta Lacks had cancer and one of the ways cancers survive and grow is with a mutation which eliminates that "always die" rule. Henrietta died in 1951, but this cell line lives on, used in countless experiments. Lena Forsén sold her image rights - she's a Playboy model, but not to be used in decades of image research - whereas Henrietta was never even told her cells were being collected for science experiments at all. This isn't Tuskegee - she was given reasonable medical care for her cancer given it was 1951, but she didn't sign a waiver saying "I'm fine with you using my cell line to do whatever you want" in perpetuity. For "Bad Apple" it's just embarrassing for some people, which doesn't even seem like a big deal. The other thing which distinguishes Lenna is that it's obsolete. It's a scan of a Playboy magazine, not even a scan of the photo itself, let alone a direct capture of the scene - and it is by modern standards low resolution. Even if you (like modern AI companies) don't care about rights or people the Lenna image is a poor choice on technical grounds. Bad Apple isn't like that, a substitute would just be some other black-and-white video, probably similar length and resolution.
- neuroticnews25 3mo ago
  Both cases sound to me like there is absolutely no moral right being violated. Maybe there's a line somewhere, like you shouldn't copy someone's brain and torture it in a simulation, but this is nowhere near it.
  - tialaramex 3mo ago
    Then you'd certainly be surprised that today making HeLa without Lacks' prior authorisation would be illegal. You'd need consent from the patient before taking these samples for any purpose other than directly treating them, if you've got samples you took for treatment and now you wish you could use them for another purpose either you need to go back and ask for that or too bad. I've signed off on paperwork for this numerous times this century because they have samples from my cancer which are doubtless much less useful than HeLa but might be valuable to someone so why not ask. Lacks' estate have obtained settlements (with undisclosed terms) from several companies which profit off HeLa. We could choose to imagine the terms were just enough to pay lawyer fees, but equally they could be substantial. So apparently the lawyers for major pharma firms either don't believe you that no moral rights were violated or they believe jurors wouldn't believe you on this. Now, as I said, for Lenna she was compensated by Playboy, the rights rest with the magazine publisher, and they've apparently felt that suing scientists for popularizing an image of one of their models wasn't commercially sensible. But morally it does still seem like a problem, that's not what she was consenting to.

applfanboysbgon 3mo ago

> the clip plainly can be interpreted in this way, and that suffices. I have literally never seen someone interpret it this way in the 17 years the video has been making the rounds to tens of millions of people on the internet. There is nothing in the video that could possibly be construed as sexual by any human being with even the most tenuous grip on reality. It would take some insanely misogynistic mental gymnastics like "girl + dancing = sexual" to reach that conclusion. If someone did interpret it this way and raise a fuss, the correct response would be to ignore them for being a completely unhinged Twitter weirdo. Pre-emptively avoiding things you enjoy because of how they might be interpreted by unhinged Twitter weirdos is itself unhinged.

neuroticnews25 3mo ago
Girl (woman) is primarily a sexual category in itself, no dancing needed.
- nyoronic 3mo ago
  What.
  - neuroticnews25 3mo ago
    What do you think is the main reason to have a label discriminating men from women?
    - nyoronic 3mo ago
      Sorry, I get what you were saying now. I responded like that because in this thread "sexual" was being used in the suggestive way, in that context your comment was rather strange to me.
      - neuroticnews25 3mo ago
        TBH I feel weirdly compelled to object every time someone raises a possibility of thinking about women without sexual undertones.

kogasa240p 3mo ago

What? How is Bad Apple sexual, all of the characters are doing something instead of just dancing around.

phyzome 3mo ago

This is a bizarre take.

BoingBoomTschak 3mo ago

Grow a pair and start living your own life.