6 ms·

I believe this is exactly why pjreddie quit computer vision research. It must kill him to see such projects based off of his work.

jonex 6y ago
Could you elaborate? What is the problem with the linked project? Training a slightly faster, smaller and less accurate version of an existing model?
- chvid 6y ago
  https://pjreddie.com/darknet/yolo/ https://pjreddie.com/darknet/yolo/ Is that pjreddie used horses, dogs, and bicycles as training data? Not realising that his technology could also be used on human faces?
  - viraptor 6y ago
    > Not realising that his technology could also be used on human faces? I'm not sure how you got to this idea, but it's just not plausible.
    - mlyle 6y ago
      He said: "I stopped doing CV research because I saw the impact my work was having. I loved the work but the military applications and privacy concerns eventually became impossible to ignore." Initial good results on CV doesn't mean that you realize all the ways it'll start to be used and the implications thereof.
      - viraptor 6y ago
        This is about implications - that's not the same as not realising that face is an object.
      - atoav 6y ago
        IMO this is ethically more simple than many like to believe. There are existing power structures (planned ones and emerged ones) in this world and the technology we create can either be used to reinforce them or to question them. Sometimes it is both and things cancel each other out and move on a sideways trajectory – but in the case of CV, it is quite clear who will benefit: those in power, those who need to quantify, control and punish the human element, but don't have the manpower (=legitimacy?) or funds (=priority?) to do so manually. I get that working in CV is interesting and cool stuff, but the collective suffering it might help creating and keeping is something one should seriously think about as well.
        mardifoufs 6y ago
        Exactly. CV is interesting and can be completely harmless. But the benefits of the technology for the average person are extremely small relatively to the benefits it brings to any potential oppressive power. Mass surveillance tech can be convenient but it's a deal with the devil and I think we sometimes willfully ignore that under the guise of a perceived amorality of progress. "it's just science, it's neutral and you can also use it for good" can sound like a good argument that I usually even agree with. But in this case it's very simple: "Good guys" using of CV gets them things like good auto sorting in Google photos "Bad guys" using CV can reduce the complexity of creating a fully Orwellian, big brother like surveillance state from "absurdly complex to implement and impossible to maintain" to "we can already put in place a solid implementation today and it will get better by the day". Now I used to work in CV and as you said,I get how great and exciting the underlying tech is. But I definitely lean more towards fear than excitement these days. I also realize that it's already everywhere, with heavy research efforts and that you can't ever stop it at this point. But that really goes to show that the Yolo creator was right. Think about it, what does the chinese people gain from CV or face recognitio right now? Maybe cool filters. The chinese government? Unimaginable levels of surveillance and control over it's entire population and it's just getting started.
        CamperBob2 6y ago
        But the benefits of the technology for the average person are extremely small relatively to the benefits it brings to any potential oppressive power. CV is a vitally-necessary component of self-driving car technology. Self-driving cars could save more than 30,000 lives each year in the US alone. Even the very wise cannot see all ends, so why try? Work on what interests you.
    - chvid 6y ago
      Just trying to provoke an answer with a little humour ... It is obvious to anyone that one of the primary uses of computer vision is to watch other humans at scale. This cannot be surprising to anyone in the field yet now there are ethical concerns mixed with politics through the roof. Maybe we can be more precise about this? The work here is a technical achievement but there are some weird comments here which I think has something to do with the author being Chinese.
tda 6y ago
Maybe someone else is also interested in some backgrounds on this https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22390093 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22390093
- Abishek_Muthian 6y ago
  Thank you.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
woah 6y ago
This detects any face, it does not identify people. It’s for stuff like autofocus, etc.
- vtange 6y ago
  Autofocus can be for anything - Phone cameras, Surveillance cameras, Drone missile targeting systems, etc.
  - oh_sigh 6y ago
    Cars can be used for anything - moving people from home to work, robbing banks, running people over, etc.
    - black_puppydog 6y ago
      Yes, and pjreddie seems to have concluded computer vision is mostly (or too often for their liking) used for the digital equivalent of those bad things.
      - kebman 6y ago
        I think prjeddie's concerns are extremely relevant. However he's not the only one working on things like this, thus it's unlikely that research and development will stop, although I certainly think such development is ethically questionable. In some ways this thing seems similar to the ethical problems facing the scientists working on the nuclear bomb. I just hope to God that this tech will be used for good rather than bad, but the way things are going with political censorship (government sponsored or otherwise) and people of opposing camps doing their best to dox political opponents–let's just say I'm not too optimistic...
        black_puppydog 6y ago
        > it's unlikely that research and development will stop I know you didn't make this argument here, but I still want to point out that that's ethically irrelevant for his decision. Or the other way around: "Someone else would have done it" is not a defense when you've built something that was clearly gonna be used for Bad Things(TM).
vffhfhf 6y ago
I also believe it was idiotic. Focusing too much on negative aspect of thing will lead you nowhere. Manhattan project gave >500 research papers. Gave us Iodine 131 and other radio nucleotide which we use in medicine. And gave us lasting peace. So was it bad or not? Is gene editing bad? was the internet bad? Was the dude who invented round wheel bad?
- pugworthy 6y ago
  | And gave us lasting peace I think the jury is still out on that. Or rather the trial is still underway.
  - pmontra 6y ago
    I believe that the USA and USSR/Russia have been at war with some other country directly or by proxy more or less always since the end of WW2. Yet we had no other major world war because of the mutual assured destruction. That kind of peace might not last forever but it was an unusually long period. A wonderful change for the best if you lived in Europe, no change at all if you lived in one of the countries that took the turn to be the target of one or both the powers. Add regional powers operating on their own will now.
- aiilns 6y ago
  Yes, using atomic bombs was bad. As others say it is debatable if it helped end the (already won?) war. And in any case, _lasting_ _piece_ where? Are middle east and Africa not part of this world? I find your comment is entirely missing the point and low effort. Asking whether random techniques, inventions, inventors were "bad" or not makes us much sense as asking: Is the sun bad? Were dinosaurs bad? Are the aliens bad? Is life bad?
oh_sigh 6y ago
Because small models of face detection software would be released on github?
cheesecracker 6y ago
You know who else can recognize faces? Humans! I guess we should cancel humans because of ethical concerns.
- chii 6y ago
  one human brain can only perform some 10-12 hrs of facial recognition work before needing to take a break, and also do so relatively low speeds. One computer brain can be copied for free, and deployed to thousands of computer clusters and work 24/7 on facial recognition, at a fraction of the cost.
  - cheesecracker 6y ago
    So it is about job loss?
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
naasking 6y ago
I think that's the wrong approach. You don't stop the arms race by not investing in arms, you invest in countermeasures instead.

jonex 6y ago

Could you elaborate? What is the problem with the linked project? Training a slightly faster, smaller and less accurate version of an existing model?

chvid 6y ago
https://pjreddie.com/darknet/yolo/ https://pjreddie.com/darknet/yolo/ Is that pjreddie used horses, dogs, and bicycles as training data? Not realising that his technology could also be used on human faces?
- viraptor 6y ago
  > Not realising that his technology could also be used on human faces? I'm not sure how you got to this idea, but it's just not plausible.
  - mlyle 6y ago
    He said: "I stopped doing CV research because I saw the impact my work was having. I loved the work but the military applications and privacy concerns eventually became impossible to ignore." Initial good results on CV doesn't mean that you realize all the ways it'll start to be used and the implications thereof.
    - viraptor 6y ago
      This is about implications - that's not the same as not realising that face is an object.
    - atoav 6y ago
      IMO this is ethically more simple than many like to believe. There are existing power structures (planned ones and emerged ones) in this world and the technology we create can either be used to reinforce them or to question them. Sometimes it is both and things cancel each other out and move on a sideways trajectory – but in the case of CV, it is quite clear who will benefit: those in power, those who need to quantify, control and punish the human element, but don't have the manpower (=legitimacy?) or funds (=priority?) to do so manually. I get that working in CV is interesting and cool stuff, but the collective suffering it might help creating and keeping is something one should seriously think about as well.
      - mardifoufs 6y ago
        Exactly. CV is interesting and can be completely harmless. But the benefits of the technology for the average person are extremely small relatively to the benefits it brings to any potential oppressive power. Mass surveillance tech can be convenient but it's a deal with the devil and I think we sometimes willfully ignore that under the guise of a perceived amorality of progress. "it's just science, it's neutral and you can also use it for good" can sound like a good argument that I usually even agree with. But in this case it's very simple: "Good guys" using of CV gets them things like good auto sorting in Google photos "Bad guys" using CV can reduce the complexity of creating a fully Orwellian, big brother like surveillance state from "absurdly complex to implement and impossible to maintain" to "we can already put in place a solid implementation today and it will get better by the day". Now I used to work in CV and as you said,I get how great and exciting the underlying tech is. But I definitely lean more towards fear than excitement these days. I also realize that it's already everywhere, with heavy research efforts and that you can't ever stop it at this point. But that really goes to show that the Yolo creator was right. Think about it, what does the chinese people gain from CV or face recognitio right now? Maybe cool filters. The chinese government? Unimaginable levels of surveillance and control over it's entire population and it's just getting started.
        CamperBob2 6y ago
        But the benefits of the technology for the average person are extremely small relatively to the benefits it brings to any potential oppressive power. CV is a vitally-necessary component of self-driving car technology. Self-driving cars could save more than 30,000 lives each year in the US alone. Even the very wise cannot see all ends, so why try? Work on what interests you.
  - chvid 6y ago
    Just trying to provoke an answer with a little humour ... It is obvious to anyone that one of the primary uses of computer vision is to watch other humans at scale. This cannot be surprising to anyone in the field yet now there are ethical concerns mixed with politics through the roof. Maybe we can be more precise about this? The work here is a technical achievement but there are some weird comments here which I think has something to do with the author being Chinese.

tda 6y ago

Maybe someone else is also interested in some backgrounds on this https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22390093 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22390093

Abishek_Muthian 6y ago
Thank you.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

woah 6y ago

This detects any face, it does not identify people. It’s for stuff like autofocus, etc.

vtange 6y ago
Autofocus can be for anything - Phone cameras, Surveillance cameras, Drone missile targeting systems, etc.
- oh_sigh 6y ago
  Cars can be used for anything - moving people from home to work, robbing banks, running people over, etc.
  - black_puppydog 6y ago
    Yes, and pjreddie seems to have concluded computer vision is mostly (or too often for their liking) used for the digital equivalent of those bad things.
    - kebman 6y ago
      I think prjeddie's concerns are extremely relevant. However he's not the only one working on things like this, thus it's unlikely that research and development will stop, although I certainly think such development is ethically questionable. In some ways this thing seems similar to the ethical problems facing the scientists working on the nuclear bomb. I just hope to God that this tech will be used for good rather than bad, but the way things are going with political censorship (government sponsored or otherwise) and people of opposing camps doing their best to dox political opponents–let's just say I'm not too optimistic...
      - black_puppydog 6y ago
        > it's unlikely that research and development will stop I know you didn't make this argument here, but I still want to point out that that's ethically irrelevant for his decision. Or the other way around: "Someone else would have done it" is not a defense when you've built something that was clearly gonna be used for Bad Things(TM).

vffhfhf 6y ago

I also believe it was idiotic. Focusing too much on negative aspect of thing will lead you nowhere. Manhattan project gave >500 research papers. Gave us Iodine 131 and other radio nucleotide which we use in medicine. And gave us lasting peace. So was it bad or not? Is gene editing bad? was the internet bad? Was the dude who invented round wheel bad?

pugworthy 6y ago
| And gave us lasting peace I think the jury is still out on that. Or rather the trial is still underway.
- pmontra 6y ago
  I believe that the USA and USSR/Russia have been at war with some other country directly or by proxy more or less always since the end of WW2. Yet we had no other major world war because of the mutual assured destruction. That kind of peace might not last forever but it was an unusually long period. A wonderful change for the best if you lived in Europe, no change at all if you lived in one of the countries that took the turn to be the target of one or both the powers. Add regional powers operating on their own will now.
aiilns 6y ago
Yes, using atomic bombs was bad. As others say it is debatable if it helped end the (already won?) war. And in any case, _lasting_ _piece_ where? Are middle east and Africa not part of this world? I find your comment is entirely missing the point and low effort. Asking whether random techniques, inventions, inventors were "bad" or not makes us much sense as asking: Is the sun bad? Were dinosaurs bad? Are the aliens bad? Is life bad?

oh_sigh 6y ago

Because small models of face detection software would be released on github?

cheesecracker 6y ago

You know who else can recognize faces? Humans! I guess we should cancel humans because of ethical concerns.

chii 6y ago
one human brain can only perform some 10-12 hrs of facial recognition work before needing to take a break, and also do so relatively low speeds. One computer brain can be copied for free, and deployed to thousands of computer clusters and work 24/7 on facial recognition, at a fraction of the cost.
- cheesecracker 6y ago
  So it is about job loss?

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

naasking 6y ago

I think that's the wrong approach. You don't stop the arms race by not investing in arms, you invest in countermeasures instead.