andrewrgross

andrewrgross , 27 days ago to Technology in This new dating app will use facial recognition technology to exclude trans women

Yeah, but the training set is nowhere near clean. That's my point. "Close" is no where near good enough within this context,

andrewrgross , 28 days ago to Technology in This new dating app will use facial recognition technology to exclude trans women

Why do you guarantee that? It seems obviously wrong, on a technical level.

The point I'm making is that even if we take it as a given that a shrewd enough AI could correctly distinguish sex at birth -- which I think is obviously impossible based on the appearances of many ciswomen and the nature of statistical prediction -- you'd still need a training data set.

If the dataset has any erroneous input, that corrupts its ability, and the whole point of this exercise is trying to find passing transwomen. Why would anyone expect that training set of hundreds of thousands of supposed cis women wouldn't have a few transwomen in it?

andrewrgross , 28 days ago (edited 28 days ago) to Technology in This new dating app will use facial recognition technology to exclude trans women

This is a great point.

The technology that excludes transwomen from the app is the clear warning that the app is populated exclusively for transphobes. It's obviously wildly dangerous for a transwoman to be on the app.

The notion that AI is going to clock them is absurd AI hype. There's no reason to expect AI to be capable of this kind of discernment, and that assumes you even had a training set. Where in the absolute fuck would someone find a training set like that?

Edit: I didn't read the article. It seems it's a lesbian dating app. Well, probably less dangerous for transwomen, but still not technically sound.

andrewrgross , 1 month ago to Technology in After its reputation went up in flames, Humane warns users its charging case may too

Yeah. And it's so bad that I feel like the functionality barely goes down.

They should release the following:

'Out of an abundance of caution, we advise against any user charging this device and attempting to rely on it for communications or regular assistance. Fortunately, we've found a workaround and suggest customers looking to continue enjoying the benefits of the Humane pin consider wearing it down in an unpowered state. This will provide infinite battery life and a 100% reduction in unwanted heating while enabling users to continue to receive nearly all the same functionality to which they are accustomed.'

andrewrgross , 1 month ago to Technology in The problem with GIMP

To add to this, I've been using GIMP on and off for a decade and I've never given any thought to the name. It's all capitalized. I didn't think it was a backronym, I thought it was just an acronym.

I've used this in professional settings (I used to work in academic molecular bio), and I was very evangelical about it. Especially because we're not doing high-level artistic work, we just sometimes need something for processing microscope images or making graphics for scientific publications.

I'd say to any and everyone, "You know, you don't have to pay an annual subscription fee for Photoshop: there's this free, open-source program called GIMP that does most of what you need and you don't have to pay a thing! Want me to install it for you?"

I didn't even think to be embarrassed about the name, and no one ever seemed to care in conversation. As others have said, the bigger impediments are people's attachment to commercial software and interface challenges. This is just an absolutely silly complaint to make.

andrewrgross , 1 month ago to Technology in The Man Who Killed Google Search

This is a great article.

andrewrgross , 1 month ago to Technology in Jack Dorsey claims Bluesky is 'repeating all the mistakes' he made at Twitter

First, thanks for that explanation. That's interesting.

Is there a good place to learn more? I can see why having custom feeds and 3rd party moderation tools are good, but I still have a lot questions.

First, is there a genuine benefit to dissociating a users identity from their server? I think the connection between users and their home instances are a brilliant innovation. They seem to bring village culture back to the internet. They help people associate within networks below just the global level. I think the atomization of people online has been a part of why there is so little trust.

andrewrgross , 1 month ago to Technology in Jack Dorsey claims Bluesky is 'repeating all the mistakes' he made at Twitter

I don't understand how any of these visions fundamentally differ from Mastodon.

Decentralized? Yep. It's got no center. Open source? Yep, you can fork it and make your own if you want. Unmoderated? Sure, if you want that, you can set up an instance and host whatever illegal content you want. You'll have a lot of legal problems and most people don't want it, but the option exists.

Is there any point besides money and crypto bullshit? If you want to post short comments that your friends can subscribe to that isn't controlled by a big corporation that gives your data to the government... well we have that. It exists. It's pretty okay. Go use it.

andrewrgross , 2 months ago to Technology in Promoted on TikTok, ‘No Thanks’ boycott app targets products tied to Israel

Obviously not. But that's true to some degree for all news sources. I don't blindly trust any newspaper. I read Times of Israel through a lens of context, just like I do for the NY Times, The Guardian, The Intercept, etc.

I think it's incredibly useful to see what a country reads about itself. Not only is that true even for countries engaged atrocities: it's especially true for countries engaged in atrocities.

andrewrgross , 2 months ago to Technology in Promoted on TikTok, ‘No Thanks’ boycott app targets products tied to Israel

I find the Times of Israel to be a decent source. They're obviously biased in favor of Israel, but it's not behind a paywall and they're far more informative than The NY Post, for instance. I think they seem less biased then the WSJ, frankly.

Overall, a useful insight into mainstream discourse in Israel with fairly accurate reporting.

andrewrgross , 2 months ago to Technology in Promoted on TikTok, ‘No Thanks’ boycott app targets products tied to Israel

I don't think they mean that tiktok is being banned over this app specifically: I just interpreted their comment to mean that tiktok has been an ongoing nuisance to the American mainstream political establishment.

andrewrgross , 2 months ago to Technology in Promoted on TikTok, ‘No Thanks’ boycott app targets products tied to Israel

That's cool. Do you have any details?

andrewrgross , 2 months ago to Memes in On a mission to make Deus Ex a popular topic on Lemmy.

Okay, but how does that definition not precisely describe a tool?

It sounds like it very much is a tool, in the exact usual sense of the word.

andrewrgross , 2 months ago to Technology in Tesla is reportedly laying off ‘more than 10 percent’ of its workforce

It's either because of DEI or work from home. It's not clear how, but it's got to be one of those.

andrewrgross , 3 months ago to Fuck Cars in Iowans were fooled by a prank to make a busy area of Des Moines... walkable

That's sad to hear.

I went to De Moines for work once, and to their credit: the place has charm. It's got more going on than I expected.

Coming from the west coast, I'll totally own up to my preconceptions, but a bunch of the businesses and signs made it clear that De Moines has a far more open-minded, fun-loving modern culture than I was expecting.

Still, I can't say I'm surprised at this. Especially on Facebook. I don't think the people who run the hip microbreweries and rad clothing stores I saw are commenting on Historical Society Facebook posts.