i fucking hate this story bc this would literally only work if the occupants were awake i.e. they were being burgled in DAYLIGHT. like it took however many hundreds of years for people to figure out “maybe we should just burgle the place while they’re asleep” and in the meantime they were like “how about we kidnap a tortoise”
Now, the alarming aspect of this story is that the very same technology is probably what tumblr is using to identify porn. Now, if it can’t tell that an empty field is not, in fact, full of sheep, what hope do we have that it can’t tell an empty room isn’t full of writing human forms engaged in passionate coitus?
this really does sound like an episode of black mirror
This is gonna produce some absolutely baffling pornography.
…. oh my fucking god they actually are using open source software. They’re using a fucking one-layer unidirectional bicategory tag-trained neural network. This will never work. Literally, it will never work. There’s just not enough algorithmic complexity to do what they’re asking of it. I bet you I could prove on a mathematical level that this joke of a neural net fundamentally lacks the abstraction necessary to do its job.
This will never get better. Their algorithm will never stop fucking up, it will never actually flag porn reliably and it will always require a massive quantity of human hours to deal with the deluge of mistagged pictures. This isn’t just a case of an insufficiently trained algorithm, it’s just … this is the most basic neural network you can make. It probably hasa a lot of neurons and has loads of training data but like … you can’t just brute force this kind of stuff. One layer of neurons is just Not Enough.
Also, just to make this clear, Tumblr lied. I mean, we already know this, but I mean they liiiieeeeed. All that stuff they promised about what would or would not be censored? That cannot be delivered on with a system this simple. Nude classical sculptures, political protests, male-presenting nipples (really Tumblr?), nude art outside the context of sex, all that? You cannot train a bicategory one-layer neural network to exclude those things. It cannot be done. Tumblr never intended for those things to actually be permitted, they were just lying. Because the system they have cannot actually do what they said it would and never will be able to.
Also, this kind of system is super vulnerable to counter-neural strategies. I bet you before the end of the month someone hooks up their own open source one layer bicategory neural network which puts an imperceptible (to humans) layer of patterned static over arbitrary images, and trains it by having it bot-post static-ed images to Tumblr and reinforcing based on whether the images are labeled nsfw or sfw. Seriously, within a month someone will have an input-output machine which can turn any image ‘sfw’ in Tumblr’s eyes.
This is genuinely pathetic. Like, I have real pity for whoever implemented this, because it’s clear Tumblr doesn’t actually have any engineers with any expertise with machine learning left at all and they foisted the job off on some poor bastard who has no idea what they’re doing and is going to get all kinds of flak for their (perfectly reasonable and predetermined) failure from management.
So, from this, what I’m getting is the bot just has a “this is sex” and “this is not sex” AI, which were scotch-taped together, and then chucked like a rock into Tumblr’s code.
Note to vacationing non-Americans: while it’s true that America doesn’t always have the best food culture, the food in our restaurants is really not representative of what most of us eat at home. The portions at Cheesecake Factory or IHOP are meant to be indulgent, not just “what Americans are used to.”
If you eat at a regular American household, during a regular meal where they’re not going out of their way to impress guests, you probably will not be served twelve pounds of chocolate-covered cream cheese. Please bear this in mind before writing yet another “omg I can’t believe American food” post.
Also, most American restaurant portions are 100% intended as two meals’ worth of food. Some of my older Irish relatives still struggle with the idea that it’s not just not rude to eat half your meal and take the rest home, it’s expected. (Apparently this is somewhat of an American custom.)
Until you’re hitting the “fancy restaurant” tier (the kind of place you go for a celebration or an anniversary date), a dinner out should generally also be lunch for the next day. Leftovers are very much the norm.
From the little time I’ve spent in Canada, this seems to be the case up there as well.
the portions in family restaurants (as opposed to haute cuisine types) are designed so that no one goes away hungry.
volume IS very much a part of the american hospitality tradition, and Nobody Leaves Hungry is important. but you have to recognize that it’s not how we cook for ourselves, it’s how we welcome guests and strengthen community ties.
so in order to give you a celebratory experience and make you feel welcomed, family restaurants make the portions big enough that even if you’re a teenage boy celebrating a hard win on the basketball court, you’re still going to be comfortably full when you leave.
of course, that means that for your average person with a sit-down job, who ate a decent lunch that day, it’s twice as much as they want or more. that’s ok. as mentioned above, taking home leftovers is absolutely encouraged. that, too, is part of american hospitality tradition; it’s meant to invoke fond memories of grandma loading you down with covered dishes so you can have hearty celebration food all week. pot luck church basement get-togethers where the whole town makes sure everybody has enough. that sort of thing. it’s about sharing. it’s about celebrating Plenty.
it’s not about pigging out until you get huge. treating it that way is pretty disrespectful of our culture. and you know, contrary to what the world thinks, we do have one.
Oh my god yes!
That’s why waiters always ask if you want a to-go box. Wanting to take home leftovers means the food was good.
Hell, one of the best things about Thanksgiving is divvying up the leftovers. Loading up plates with extra turkey and stuffing and slices of pie. Sending extra home with every member of the family and knowing they’ll be able to take it easy that night or the next day with a meal ready and waiting for them.
We share food. We share our time. We share memories.
Aye to that
For ourselves and casual meals, you’ve got a 50/50 chance that the meal will be designed to have left overs. Most families I know have 1 or 2 days of the week that are ‘leftovers’ days. Days that you eat what was left from meals of the proceeding week. It’s to make things easier for the cook(s) in the house and also it saves money in the long run.
Then when guests are over or it’s a celebration, you always cook extra to show off and make them feel welcome AND so that they can take a meal (or two) home with them.
It’s actually tied to the Great Depression to a greater or lesser degree.
Also, it’s actually a slight (or an insult to a degree) to say you don’t want a to-go box at a restaurant if you’ve still food left, as that tellst he staff that you did not enjoy the meal and only ate to be polite
Basically Americans are an example of ‘the way to a heart is through the stomach’, although it’s oft kindly meant. It’s also how to spend time and conversation with those you know and care for, to strengthen bonds and memories.
The way a lot of our food, like a casserole for example, is prepared is also done with the idea of leftovers. Knowing that it’ll be even better tasting the next day after all the flavors have had a chance to sit and really mingle with each other
Monsters and Stuff 