#image recognition software

[consumer-goods-software]

Image recognition software, a subset of artificial intelligence (AI) technology, enables computers to interpret and understand visual data. By analyzing images and videos, this software can identify objects, products, people, and even emotions accurately. In the context of retail, image recognition software empowers businesses to automate various processes and derive valuable insights from visual data.

[mangled-by-disuse]

it is just FASCINATING to me how the ads for Google Gemini seem entirely dedicated to "What's the single least useful thing we could suggest using GenAI for?"

Planning a date! Planning a holiday! Writing a cover letter for a job application! Designing an invitation for a Christmas dinner with your friends???

like I don't think there are that many good applications for this kind of genAI but if there are they sure as fuck aren't these

[glambots]

Oh! Fun (not really) HC I've been thinking about for a little bit: the main reason the animatronics attack people when in virus mode isn't just because they're being partially controlled by Vanny/Afton's influence, but because they physically cannot recognize anyone or anything around them.

Their eyesight is (literally) AI-generated.

A bit more of an in-depth explanation below the cut:

So, how I see it, the animatronics don't have actual eyesight (obviously). What they do have is an approximate map of where everything is in the Pizzaplex programmed into their eyes to simulate what it's like walking around the space. Like a virtual housing tour meets Google Maps, only much smoother and more accurate. (The V.A.N.N.Y. layout is also programmed in, and is how Roxanne can see through walls/how the animatronics can still react to things seen "out of barriers").

When the virus kicks in, everything sort of becomes...fuzzy and unrecognizable. Like this image:

There's a part of them that knows they should be able to recognize the places around them, but for some reason, they just can't.

And it's the same for faces. Their facial recognition software cannot identify whoever they're looking at because the person's facial structure is always constantly morphing and shifting (7:15 in the video below for a good example of what I mean):

Pre-DLC, this could be why previous human employees are being killed/harmed, because at some point or another the virus wipes the robot's ability to recognize who is approaching them, and their system deems them a threat. (I imagine it's particularly bad for Monty.) It also explains why none of them seem to notice or care about Vanny's presence in the 'Plex, because the virus is messing with their ability to see what is and isn't beyond the "barriers" in their system-generated eyesight. (Why can Gregory see her? I have no idea! Don't think about it too hard.)

Post-DLC, it kind of explains why Sun thinks Cassie is a mechanic at first, because his system can only recognize the V.A.N.N.Y. mask, but once she takes it off, Eclipse is only vaguely aware that she is a child who is somewhere she shouldn't be, without being able to seemingly recognize what a horrible state they or the Daycare is actually in (He just needs to clean up, right? And then the kids will be back soon!). It could also be why Roxanne mistook Cassie as Gregory at first.

It's why the animatronics have trouble recognizing their surroundings, getting around the Pizzaplex, or even realizing what sort of state it/they are currently in. They're just stuck in an endless void of constantly shifting colors, moving shapes, and distorted faces.

[thisismyideaofhumor]

I’ve got enough body hair that my phone automatically tagged one of my nude photos as “dog”

[outerspace-iiinnerspace]

petty fandom complaint of the day:

not a fan of stuff that's like "murderbot can't read! it just has some good ocr software" because what is the functional difference between reading and ocr? for a computer being? or like, any being?

sure, ocr has limitations, but most of those are limitations that apply to humans as well. there are people out there who, for a variety of reasons, can't do captchas or read cursive or whatever else.

now, if you wanna say "murderbot can't read and it doesn't have any ocr capability either" i'm still not that interested because i think that's really unlikely, but it's a much better starting premise.

[devangriai]

Use Cases of OCR Translation. Which is the best Image to Text Converter Online?

Learn How Optical Character Recognition Can Make a Difference Discover how OCR with enhanced efficiency, accuracy, and automation is transforming finance, healthcare, logistics, and much more.

OCR Translation helps to read and transform the printed, written, or scribbled characters. The computer alters the image content into machine-encoded texts. This is a subcategory of image recognition. The character recognition application converts a digitized or scanned material into a written document.

In this in-depth write-up, we explore OCR use cases and the uses of OCR Translation technology and common and industry-specific applications that highlight the importance of text extraction. OCR APIs were developed to transcribe text coming from handwritten documents for better interpretation by machines. There are now increasing applications being used across industries.

There are common applications of OCR Translation such as:

Extracting text from scanned documents for digital archiving

Text recognition for images to automate data entry.

Convert readable PDFs into writable formats.

Increase accessibility by converting printed text into digital text for screen readers.

OCR technology improves data accuracy, manages workflows, and increases industry productivity.

 

Common Optical Character Recognition (OCR) applications and use cases

1. Invoice processing

Data extraction: Retrieves invoice numbers, vendor information, amounts, and dates to ensure precise and error-free data capture.

Efficiency boost: It enhances overall efficiency in managing documents through ease of handling and organizing large volumes of documents.

Knowledge management: It assists the organization in better management and exploiting its knowledge assets.

2. Document digitization

Physical to digital conversion: Image to Text Converter Online is used to convert paper-based documents to digital, thus making their handling and storage easier.

Easy access: Makes historic records, contracts, and legal papers easily traceable; hence, access to information will be faster.

Storage needs: It reduces the use of physical storage space contributes to less clutter and saves on the cost of storage.

3. Recover information from forms

Automatic processing of forms: Assists in gathering information fast and accurately through form processing using registration documents, application forms, and survey forms.

Environmental impact: It applies in reducing paper usage toward achieving sustainability since it reduces the carbon footprint of any organization.

Saving time: This accelerates the data entry processes that enable the applications and forms to be processed fast.

Applications in industry: It is useful for the intake forms of patients in hospitals, loan applications in banks, and all application procedures in government offices.

Error Reduction: It greatly diminishes the likelihood of data entry errors. More accurate records are ensured.

4. Making documents searchable

Text scanning: Scanned images and documents are made into searchable text for ease of retrieval.

Improved retrieval: The process improves the location of specific information in big text repositories, saving time and effort.

Documentation management: Organizing files and retrieval in virtual archives enhances efficiency in a firm's operational activities.

OCR Translation technology has enormous potential in all industries. We discussed how OCR enhances data management. Automated digitized documents and invoice processing extract data to enhance document searchability and different forms of image content. 

Organizations can perform data entry from printed papers or data records using OCR as input, including passports, portfolios, financial records, sales receipts, and business cards. 

[nitor-infotech]

A Comprehensive Guide To Optical Character Recognition (OCR)

Optical character recognition (OCR) is sometimes referred to as text recognition. OCR systems use a combination of hardware and software to convert scanned images, PDFs, and other documents into editable and searchable text. Hardware such as scanners and software typically handles the advanced processing for OCR.

OCR technology is commonly used to digitize historical documents, books, newspaper archives, and other printed materials. It is also used to automate tasks such as data entry and document search.

In today’s blog, we will dive into the history of OCR and also understand how OCR works!

[christyrdiaz]

Image recognition, often called computer vision, constitutes a domain within artificial intelligence dedicated to crafting systems that comprehend and interpret visual information from the real world. Its intricate process involves training computer systems to emulate the human visual system by recognizing and categorizing objects, patterns, and features within images.

[taevisionceo]

🦾 A006R - Robotic X-ray Inspection of Cast Aluminium Automotive Wheels Robot Arm 6-axis with special gripper - BarCode inline recognition ISAR image evaluation software - XEye detector X-ray inspection... via HeiDetect HEITEC PTS and MetrologyNews ▸ TAEVision Engineering on Pinterest

Data A006R - Nov 10, 2023

[bi-writes]

whats wrong with ai?? genuinely curious <3

okay let's break it down. i'm an engineer, so i'm going to come at you from a perspective that may be different than someone else's.

i don't hate ai in every aspect. in theory, there are a lot of instances where, in fact, ai can help us do things a lot better without. here's a few examples:

ai detecting cancer

ai sorting recycling

some practical housekeeping that gemini (google ai) can do

all of the above examples are ways in which ai works with humans to do things in parallel with us. it's not overstepping--it's sorting, using pixels at a micro-level to detect abnormalities that we as humans can not, fixing a list. these are all really small, helpful ways that ai can work with us.

everything else about ai works against us. in general, ai is a huge consumer of natural resources. every prompt that you put into character.ai, chatgpt? this wastes water + energy. it's not free. a machine somewhere in the world has to swallow your prompt, call on a model to feed data into it and process more data, and then has to generate an answer for you all in a relatively short amount of time.

that is crazy expensive. someone is paying for that, and if it isn't you with your own money, it's the strain on the power grid, the water that cools the computers, the A/C that cools the data centers. and you aren't the only person using ai. chatgpt alone gets millions of users every single day, with probably thousands of prompts per second, so multiply your personal consumption by millions, and you can start to see how the picture is becoming overwhelming.

that is energy consumption alone. we haven't even talked about how problematic ai is ethically. there is currently no regulation in the united states about how ai should be developed, deployed, or used.

what does this mean for you?

it means that anything you post online is subject to data mining by an ai model (because why would they need to ask if there's no laws to stop them? wtf does it matter what it means to you to some idiot software engineer in the back room of an office making 3x your salary?). oh, that little fic you posted to wattpad that got a lot of attention? well now it's being used to teach ai how to write. oh, that sketch you made using adobe that you want to sell? adobe didn't tell you that anything you save to the cloud is now subject to being used for their ai models, so now your art is being replicated to generate ai images in photoshop, without crediting you (they have since said they don't do this...but privacy policies were never made to be human-readable, and i can't imagine they are the only company to sneakily try this). oh, your apartment just installed a new system that will use facial recognition to let their residents inside? oh, they didn't train their model with anyone but white people, so now all the black people living in that apartment building can't get into their homes. oh, you want to apply for a new job? the ai model that scans resumes learned from historical data that more men work that role than women (so the model basically thinks men are better than women), so now your resume is getting thrown out because you're a woman.

ai learns from data. and data is flawed. data is human. and as humans, we are racist, homophobic, misogynistic, transphobic, divided. so the ai models we train will learn from this. ai learns from people's creative works--their personal and artistic property. and now it's scrambling them all up to spit out generated images and written works that no one would ever want to read (because it's no longer a labor of love), and they're using that to make money. they're profiting off of people, and there's no one to stop them. they're also using generated images as marketing tools, to trick idiots on facebook, to make it so hard to be media literate that we have to question every single thing we see because now we don't know what's real and what's not.

the problem with ai is that it's doing more harm than good. and we as a society aren't doing our due diligence to understand the unintended consequences of it all. we aren't angry enough. we're too scared of stifling innovation that we're letting it regulate itself (aka letting companies decide), which has never been a good idea. we see it do one cool thing, and somehow that makes up for all the rest of the bullshit?

[omgbilly]

☆ pure ☆ ii.

𝕔𝕙𝕒𝕡𝕥𝕖𝕣𝕤: 𝒾. 𝒾𝒾. 𝕔𝕣𝕖𝕕𝕚𝕥𝕤: red & blue divider @sister-lucifer

𝟙𝟠+

𝕀 𝕔𝕒𝕟'𝕥 𝕥𝕖𝕝𝕝 𝕪𝕠𝕦 𝕒𝕝𝕝 𝕙𝕠𝕨 𝕖𝕩𝕔𝕚𝕥𝕖𝕕 𝕀 𝕒𝕞 𝕥𝕠 𝕜𝕖𝕖𝕡 𝕥𝕙𝕚𝕤 𝕓𝕒𝕓𝕪 𝕘𝕠𝕚𝕟𝕘. 𝕀 𝕨𝕒𝕟𝕥𝕖𝕕 𝕥𝕠 𝕤𝕥𝕠𝕡 𝕒𝕥 𝕥𝕨𝕠 𝕔𝕙𝕒𝕡𝕥𝕖𝕣𝕤 𝕓𝕦𝕥, 𝕝𝕖𝕥'𝕤 𝕓𝕖 𝕣𝕖𝕒𝕝: 𝕀 𝕝𝕠𝕧𝕖, 𝕝𝕠𝕧𝕖, 𝓁𝑜𝓋𝑒 𝕞𝕖 𝕤𝕠𝕞𝕖 𝕥𝕠𝕩𝕚𝕔 𝕙𝕠𝕞𝕖𝕝𝕒𝕟𝕕𝕖𝕣 𝕤𝕙𝕖𝕟𝕒𝕟𝕚𝕘𝕒𝕟𝕤.

𝕨𝕒𝕣𝕟𝕚𝕟𝕘𝕤: 𝕙𝕠𝕞𝕖𝕝𝕒𝕟𝕕𝕖𝕣 𝕚𝕤 𝕙𝕚𝕤 𝕠𝕨𝕟 𝕔𝕠𝕟𝕥𝕖𝕟𝕥 𝕨𝕒𝕣𝕟𝕚𝕟𝕘, 𝕕𝕒𝕣𝕜 𝕥𝕙𝕖𝕞𝕖𝕤, 𝕒𝕟𝕘𝕤𝕥, 𝕡𝕠𝕤𝕤𝕖𝕤𝕤𝕚𝕧𝕖 𝕓𝕖𝕙𝕒𝕧𝕚𝕠𝕣, 𝕝𝕚𝕝 𝕓𝕚𝕥 𝕠𝕗 𝕤𝕥𝕒𝕝𝕜𝕚𝕟𝕘, 𝕖𝕧𝕖𝕟𝕥𝕦𝕒𝕝 𝕤𝕞𝕦𝕥 𝕨𝕠𝕣𝕕 𝕔𝕠𝕦𝕟𝕥: 𝟚.𝟙𝕜

It had been a whole week since he had met you, and Homelander hadn’t stopped thinking about it, about you. 

At first, he tried to push it out of his mind and leave your run-in as an insignificant encounter among the millions of insignificant people in this city but it lingered, nagging and insistent. You had absolutely consumed his every thought.  You should’ve been just another face in the crowd; a pretty one, but just another one nonetheless.

And yet, he was overwhelmed by the presence of you in his mind. He had continuously replayed the few minutes he had spent with you in that alley; the image of you crashing into him, the feeling of your hands brushing against his chest, the sight of you on your knees in front of him with pleading eyes on him. He could practically feel your gentle, careful touch against him. He bit his lip, letting out a soft exhale as his hand moved down to palm the tight blue fabric of his suit over his cock as it swelled at the thought of you in such a position. 

You were so innocent. So pure. So unaware of the effect you had on him. The feeling of your warmth still lingered on his skin and the sound of your heart fluttering at his touch was in his ears. He leaned back against the cold, hard metal of the Tower’s elevator as it descended. People don’t touch him. No one just willingly hands him the sensation that he craves with no strings attached, with no fear.

But you did.

You left him behind in that alley without a second thought. You just turned around and walked away, despite the heat, the spark, the connection between the two of you. He should feel angry. He should be furious that someone could dismiss him so easily, but there was something deeper at play. Was it curiosity? Fascination? Obsession?

Homelander’s jaw clenched tightly as his eyes closed, desperate to conjure up more of you behind his eyelids. He imagines you under him. Your body trembling, wanting more of his touch. You’re soft and malleable in his hands, your will breaking as he forces you to submit to him—to need him. The thought stirred something dark and possessive in him. 

The elevator lurched to a stop as the bell sounded softly, prompting him out of his thoughts. He leaned forward slightly, eyes narrowing as the rush of desire coursed through him, darkening his stormy blue gaze. His body thrummed with need—an almost unbearable urge to make you ache for him the way he ached for you. The intensity of the thought pulsed through him, heavy and raw. Homelander stepped out of the elevator and into the dim halls of Vought’s crime analytics department, his mind still reeling from the overwhelming pull of his craving.

It hadn’t taken long to find you. A nervous analyst had quickly run Vought’s proprietary facial recognition software, pulling your name and home address with trembling fingers. She’d fumbled through a few more clicks before pulling up your image—captured in grainy black-and-white from the security camera of the coffee shop you’d visited earlier that week. He stared at the screen, transfixed, watching the way your lips curled into that carefree, dazzling smile as you placed your order. His heart tightened at the thought of you smiling at him like that again. No more distance. Just you, looking at him like he was the only person in the room.

The analyst printed the report, turning to hand it over—but Homelander was already there. His gloved fingers closed around the paper, yanking it from her hand with unsettling precision. He turned on his heel and left, the sharp click of the door closing behind him echoing through the dark, computer-screen lit room.

Your smile, so effortless, so damn innocent, seared itself into his mind, like a brand that wouldn’t fade. The image of you grinned back at him from the dark corners of his thoughts, too bright, too human. It gnawed at him, pulling at something deep and primal.

He needed you again. Not later. Not when it was convenient.

Now.

It was early in the morning when your phone rang loudly. You shot up out of bed, scrambling out of your bed sheets to answer it, hopeful it was regarding one of your interviews.

You cleared your throat, “Hello?”

“Hi! I was just calling to follow-up on your interview! Unfortunately, we’re unable to offer you the position as we are prioritizing candidates that can start as soon as possible—” the cheerful HR representative chirped.

“B-But I can! I can start today! Please,” you interrupted, pleading desperately, your voice quieting to a mere whisper in the face of yet another rejection. “I really need this job.”

“I’m so sorry, I’ve really got to go!” she said again, painfully upbeat. “Please consider applying again in the near future!”

Click.

You slammed your phone down against your bed in frustration. You slumped against the pilling fabric of your headboard, wanting to cry. It had been months of searching for a real career; something to get you out of the lousy job you currently had and into an apartment that didn’t have leaky plumbing and a rat problem.

You found your thoughts wandering off to John. Again. You wondered what he did for a living, where he lived; if he was thinking about you as often as you were thinking about him. It had been a whole week since you had met John, and you hadn’t stopped thinking about him even after your busy week of rescheduled interviews and continued job hunting despite the rejection.

You sighed, pushing the tangled sheets off your body as you move to stand. The soft hum of the city outside your window blended with the quiet, mundane routine of your morning. Your apartment was small—barely enough room for the essentials. The cool air from the open window brushed against your skin, sending a shiver down your spine as your bare feet padded lightly across the worn wooden floor. 

You made your way to your cluttered bathroom, familiar in its disorder. There’s a brush on the counter, toothpaste squeezed too far, makeup strewn across the counter, a towel draped haphazardly over the edge of the shower. You splashed cold water on your face in an attempt to remove the last bit of sleepiness from your system.

John was so effortlessly perfect. He had such a small town charm to him but he was striking, easily commanding attention without even trying. 

You absently moved through the motions of your routine, brushing your teeth, adjusting your hair, applying makeup—the works—before moving to your tiny closet to get dressed. You weren’t sure what you were planning on doing today, you just knew you couldn’t sit around in your lonely, isolated apartment.

You weren’t sure if you were misremembering the encounter but he seemed just as interested in you—ugh, why didn’t you just get the guy’s damn number?

You scooped up your purse from the floor, your fingers grazing the screen of your phone as you slipped it into your pocket. The coffee stain on your coat was impossible to miss—right where you’d spilled it earlier during your literal run-in with John. You sigh, debating whether your first stop should be the dry cleaners.

You grabbed your keys and locked the door behind you, the soft click of the lock feeling louder than usual in the quiet of the apartment.

As you descended the flights of stairs, the weight of your thoughts dragged behind you. His eyes. His voice— You shake your head, trying to push him out, but it’s no use. His presence lingers like a shadow, threading through every part of you. You chuckled a bit, trying to chalk up your newfound obsession with the stranger to the fact you just hadn’t been on a date in months. 

Ugh, you are not that desperate. Relax.

You paused briefly in the building’s lobby. It’s small, old—barely enough space for the worn-out couches and the clattering mail slots. You can’t stop thinking about him: that smile, the way he’d made you feel like you were the only person in the city worth taking up his time.

You bit your lip, remembering how his finger had trailed across your chest, the way his hands had wrapped around your arms with that quiet, almost possessive force. Your pulse quickens at the thought, and you pull your coat tighter around you, trying to shake off the heat building in your chest and between your thighs.

You pushed through the lobby doors and step onto the sidewalk, the crisp air barely enough to cool your flustered thoughts. Your fingers rifled through your purse, searching for your wallet, but your mind was elsewhere. The collision came out of nowhere, sudden and sharp—a splash of hot coffee spilling across your chest. You teetered backwards, a startled gasp catching in your throat as the warmth spreads, when you felt two strong hands pull you closer, stabilizing you. You looked up to meet those familiar piercing blue eyes, locking onto yours with that same, unsettling gravity.

John.

His lips curl into that signature, predatory grin. "We really need to stop meeting like this," he teased, voice low and almost velvety, his eyes tracing the mess on your coat with the smallest flicker of amusement at his own orchestration of last week’s encounter.

You laugh—genuinely, a little breathlessly. “Well, that's one way to start the day,” you grinned, a playful smile tugging at your lips. “Now I know how you felt.”

Homelander’s gaze sharpened at the sound of your laugh, and for a second, you could almost see the wheels turning in his head. He liked this, liked the way you reacted to him.

“Are you always distracted, or do I just have that effect on you?”

You step back, raising your hands in a mock surrender, though you can’t quite hide the gleam in your eyes. “Guess I’m just clumsy these days. You, good sir, are lucky I was already headed to the dry cleaners.” Your fingers gently tugged at your coat, light-heartedly exasperated, but the truth is—you were too busy thinking about the feeling of him pressed against you. It had been a spark, and now it’s starting to feel like a slow burn.

Homelander’s laugh is soft and rich, and it sends a shiver down your spine. “Lucky for me, then,” he murmurs, his eyes lingering on you longer than necessary. You felt a pink flush spread across your cheeks at intensity of his gaze.

Before you could respond, he raised his hand to caress your cheek, thumb brushing lightly across your cheek, wiping away a droplet of coffee. You froze, heart skipping a beat at the ardor of his touch. It’s soft, almost intimate, and the way he looked at you—like he knew the effect of his actions—had you breathless. You tilted your head slightly, almost instinctively leaning into his touch, your skin tingling beneath his fingertips. His hand lingers a moment longer than you expect, and your lips part slightly as your pulse thrummed in your chest.

He pulled back only when he was sure he had left you positively flustered.

“Okay,” you giggled, ou tuck a strand of hair behind your ear, biting your lip to hide the smile. “I guess I could let you off the hook. I wasn’t paying attention. I’m sorry. Again.”

His grin widened, that teasing glint never leaving his eyes as he adjusted the dark blue baseball cap on his head as if he were savoring this moment. “No harm done,” he said, dismissing your apology with a casual wave. “Besides, what’s a little mess between friends?” His gaze flickered to your lips for just a moment, sending a thrilling wave of electricity straight through you.

You cleared your throat, feeling the heated flush across your face spread as you tried to steady your voice. It came out breathier than you expected, almost too soft. “I, uh... I’m going to have to go upstairs and change now.”

You paused, just long enough to let the silence hang between you, then added with a playful lilt,“But if you’re not in a rush…I can make you another, probably better, coffee in my apartment.”

The words lingered in the air—lighthearted, but carrying something beneath the surface. Those same pleading eyes searched his face, holding his hungry gaze hostage, the unspoken message clear: This isn’t just about the coffee.

Homelander’s eyes widen in a brief flash of surprise before he took a small step forward. His smile slowed, deliberate, darkening with intent. He leaned in just enough to close the space between you once more, his voice dropping an octave, smooth as velvet. 

“I think I could be persuaded.”

[capnsoapy]

Here is a hypothetical scenario:

The NHS develops a new piece of software which can analyse the public and– using a combination of image recognition, medical history, geographic data, and machine learning– determine if a person has undiagnosed appendiceal cancer.

Via randomised control trialing they determine that the software is 99% accurate, and so run it on the entire British population and offer treatment to all positive cases before the cancers develop.

For reference, the British population is ≈70 million, and appendiceal cancer is found in ≈20 people per million.

[randomitemdrop]

you've posted a few ai generated images as items lately, and i'm wondering if that's intentional or not?

Short answer: no, it wasn't. Aside from a few I made when the generators first became publicly available and all the images were gooey messes, they've all been reader-submitted, although I'll admit I didn't catch the snail-boots. Personally I think AI image generators are a more nuanced situation than a lot of opinions I've seen on Tumblr, but given that they can be used so evilly, I'm steering away from them, if only to avoid the Wrath of the Disk Horse.

Long answer, and this is just my take, if you want to really get into it you'll have a much more interesting conversation with the people with devoted AI art blogs instead of me occasionally sharing things people submit:

There have been some major cases of unethical uses for it, but I think it's important to remember why AI image generators are such an issue; data scraping and regurgitating uncredited indie art is bad, but in the case of the snail-boots, it was just a fusion of one dataset of "product photos of boots" and another of "nature photos of snails", which I would say is not depriving anyone of credit or recognition for their work (MAYBE photographers, if you're a professional nature photographer or really attached to a picture you took of a snail one time?) I get the potential misuses of it, but when Photoshop made it easy to manipulate photos, the response was "hmm let's try and use this ethically" instead of "let's ban photo editing software". Like, I'd feel pretty unethical prompting it with "[character name] as illustrated by [Tumblr illustrator desperate for commissions]" or even "[character name] in DeviantArt style", but I'd have a hard time feeling bad for prompting with "product photo of a Transformer toy that turns into the Oscar Meyer Wienermobile". I know there's the question of "normalizing" the services but I think that overestimates how much the techbros running these things care about how everyday consumers use their free products, preferring to put their effort towards convincing companies to hire them to generate images for them, and in that case they respond way better to "here are some ways to change your product so that I would be willing to use it" than to "I will never use your product". For example here's one I just made of "the holy relic department at Big Lots", fusing corporate retail photos and museum storage rooms.

TL/DR: on the one hand I understand the hate that AI gets and it's not something I'm planning on using for any of my creative projects, but on the other hand I think it's overly simplistic to say it's inherently bad and should never be used ever. On the third hand, I really hate participating in arguments over complex ethical philosophy, so I'm just gonna steer clear entirely.

[mudwerks]

(via Vending machine error reveals secret face image database of college students | Ars Technica)

Canada-based University of Waterloo is racing to remove M&M-branded smart vending machines from campus after outraged students discovered the machines were covertly collecting facial-recognition data without their consent.

The scandal started when a student using the alias SquidKid47 posted an image on Reddit showing a campus vending machine error message, "Invenda.Vending.FacialRecognitionApp.exe," displayed after the machine failed to launch a facial recognition application that nobody expected to be part of the process of using a vending machine.

"Hey, so why do the stupid M&M machines have facial recognition?" SquidKid47 pondered.

The Reddit post sparked an investigation from a fourth-year student named River Stanley, who was writing for a university publication called MathNEWS.

Stanley sounded alarm after consulting Invenda sales brochures that promised "the machines are capable of sending estimated ages and genders" of every person who used the machines without ever requesting consent.

This frustrated Stanley, who discovered that Canada's privacy commissioner had years ago investigated a shopping mall operator called Cadillac Fairview after discovering some of the malls' informational kiosks were secretly "using facial recognition software on unsuspecting patrons."

Only because of that official investigation did Canadians learn that "over 5 million nonconsenting Canadians" were scanned into Cadillac Fairview's database, Stanley reported. Where Cadillac Fairview was ultimately forced to delete the entire database, Stanley wrote that consequences for collecting similarly sensitive facial recognition data without consent for Invenda clients like Mars remain unclear.

Stanley's report ended with a call for students to demand that the university "bar facial recognition vending machines from campus."

what the motherfuck

[askablindperson]

In what way does alt text serve as an accessibility tool for blind people? Do you use text to speech? I'm having trouble imagining that. I suppose I'm in general not understanding how a blind person might use Tumblr, but I'm particularly interested in the function of alt text.

In short, yes. We use text to speech (among other access technology like braille displays) very frequently to navigate online spaces. Text to speech software specifically designed for blind people are called screen readers, and when use on computers, they enable us to navigate the entire interface using the keyboard instead of the mouse And hear everything on screen, as long as those things are accessible. The same applies for touchscreens on smart phones and tablets, just instead of using keyboard commands, it alters the way touch affect the screen so we hear what we touch before anything actually gets activated. That part is hard to explain via text, but you should be able to find many videos online of blind people demonstrating how they use their phones.

As you may be able to guess, images are not exactly going to be accessible for text to speech software. Blindness screen readers are getting better and better at incorporating OCR (optical character recognition) software to help pick up text in images, and rudimentary AI driven Image descriptions, but they are still nowhere near enough for us to get an accurate understanding of what is in an image the majority of the time without a human made description.

Now I’m not exactly a programmer so the terminology I use might get kind of wonky here, but when you use the alt text feature, the text you write as an image description effectively gets sort of embedded onto the image itself. That way, when a screen reader lands on that image, Instead of having to employ artificial intelligences to make mediocre guesses, it will read out exactly the text you wrote in the alt text section.

Not only that, but the majority of blind people are not completely blind, and usually still have at least some amount of residual vision. So there are many blind people who may not have access to a screen reader, but who may struggle to visually interpret what is in an image without being able to click the alt text button and read a description. Plus, it benefits folks with visual processing disorders as well, where their visual acuity might be fine, but their brain’s ability to interpret what they are seeing is not. Being able to click the alt text icon in the corner of an image and read a text description Can help that person better interpret what they are seeing in the image, too.

Granted, in most cases, typing out an image description in the body of the post instead of in the alt text section often works just as well, so that is also an option. But there are many other posts in my image descriptions tag that go over the pros and cons of that, so I won’t digress into it here.

Utilizing alt text or any kind of image description on all of your social media posts that contain images is single-handedly one of the simplest and most effective things you can do to directly help blind people, even if you don’t know any blind people, and even if you think no blind people would be following you. There are more of us than you might think, and we have just as many varied interests and hobbies and beliefs as everyone else, so where there are people, there will also be blind people. We don’t only hang out in spaces to talk exclusively about blindness, we also hang out in fashion Facebook groups and tech subreddits and political Twitter hashtags and gaming related discord servers and on and on and on. Even if you don’t think a blind person would follow you, You can’t know that for sure, and adding image descriptions is one of the most effective ways to accommodate us even if you don’t know we’re there.

I hope this helps give you a clearer understanding of just how important alt text and image descriptions as a whole are for blind accessibility, and how we make use of those tools when they are available.