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Captcha pictures force you to look at the world the way an AI does

clivethompson.medium.com

331–340 of 375 posts

Re: Captcha pictures force you to look at the world the way an AI does

#331
post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you can "JUST don't" (a privilege), it doesn't mean someone else can "JUST don't". You're being an asshole, not "honest". also you probably meant tumblr, not twitter.

Go back to the root cause here: boring images cause someone to become depressed. My advice is to refrain from looking at the things, your approach is to pat the person on the head. You can try to spin it into a long meandering rant about the vicariousness of life and the eternity of suffering which makes it all so much richer but when all that seems to do is cause depression it is clearly not the right path unless yo…

edit: ok.

Re: Captcha pictures force you to look at the world the way an AI does

#332
post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> there is no virtue in negativity or pessimism if we're oblivous to even the smallest things (boring pictures) that negatively impact us, we hinder ourselves to making the world better. And that's not something we want, everything is shit already. Oh and this whole "Just don't" dissmissal... Check your privilege, man, and develop some damn empathy.

Privilege is having exposure to so few and so mild negative experiences that the way a CAPTCHA makes you feel seems important.

edit: nevermind

Re: Captcha pictures force you to look at the world the way an AI does

#333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m confused about your reasoning. Translating scanned printed material into a searchable text is a social good, but providing safer transportation…that additionally may one day free drivers of the menial work of driving…that is not a social good?

A better way to make safer transportation that may free drivers of the menial work of driving is to design cities that don't require people to drive.

I agree with you on this, and I'm glad you mention it. I think it might be a tangential topic to the relative positive impact to text-recognition / road-condition-recognition, though.

Re: Captcha pictures force you to look at the world the way an AI does

#334
post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like your comment was expressed in sort of a dick way, but I also think it strikes at a truth that’s so deep and needed in our society. So thanks for the comment.

Not sure what's dickish about it to be honest.

> but nothing's "wrong" with yours either, you just haven't had the practice/opportunity to develop this side of things.

Condescension, with no concrete feedback to improve.

Re: Captcha pictures force you to look at the world the way an AI does

#335
post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you just haven't had the practice/opportunity to develop this side of things That is one way of saying that he simply has not allowed trivial concepts like a bunch of boring pictures to affect his mood. Another way of saying this would be "that sounds good, I wish I were not so affected by these things but alas, I am" or "lucky you, maybe I can find a way to avoid these mind traps". There is no strength in weakness…

You missed the point of the comment. It was saying it does affect his mood, he just doesn’t have the EQ to realize it consciously. And to be honest, and someone who finally started getting in touch with his emotions by branching out my hobbies and interests… I see exactly where both comments are coming from. Saying it doesn’t affect his mood is like a kid who claims they don’t suffer from sugar crashes, or people who…

> It was saying it does affect his mood, he just doesn’t have the EQ to realize it consciously.

Consider the possibility that someone might indeed not get depressed from looking at a couple of street photographs for a minute. That having to fill a CAPTCHA can in itself be so annoying that the content of the images becomes irrelevant. Or that someone who (in their words) lives “in a third world country” might have bigger concerns which render banal pictures as truly innocuous in their mind.

Use your emotional awareness. Empathy is about opening yourself to the feelings and reality of another, not about extrapolating your own emotions into them.

Re: Captcha pictures force you to look at the world the way an AI does

#336
post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's also the indignity of doing unpaid work for Google. We're not their fucking slaves.

It’s ok. I get my money back by watching hundreds of hours of YouTube while blocking every single ad.

So do I. That doesn't excuse Google's other forms of exploitation though. Like ads and private information collection, they're just yet another thing we should be working to block.

Re: Captcha pictures force you to look at the world the way an AI does

#337
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a thing. Turn up privacy features in your browser (including the undocumented ones you need to go to about:config to adjust) and stay logged out of google and you'll get them. Or just fire off a lot of searches pretty fast e.g. by launching a bunch of tabs to search for variations of a term.

If privacy was that important to me, I'd be using DuckDuckGo instead of Google.

In my experience, I find DDG results less relevant.

I settled on Yandex. The only problem sometimes is that results from "internationalized" sites are in Russian.

Re: Captcha pictures force you to look at the world the way an AI does

#338
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a thing. Turn up privacy features in your browser (including the undocumented ones you need to go to about:config to adjust) and stay logged out of google and you'll get them. Or just fire off a lot of searches pretty fast e.g. by launching a bunch of tabs to search for variations of a term.

> including the undocumented ones you need to go to about:config to adjust about:config isn't a thing in my browser.

you're using the wrong browser

Re: Captcha pictures force you to look at the world the way an AI does

#339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's for this very reason I'm so happy to see something like this article on HN, and I'm so happy to see your comment too. I think I know exactly where you're coming from -- I was exactly the same way when I was younger. I was 100% extremely logical, and my emotional awareness was... exceedingly underdeveloped. Long story short, I got into different artistic pursuits where I was forced to develop my emotional awarene…

I'm trying to understand this comment. But it seems to me it boils down to "spend time to learn how to be depressed by the world around you." That doesn't seem like a skill the average person should want or need. There is something with with society if you have to spend time of hours of practice to get "emotional intelligence" from common place items that have no inherent meaning.

I think the point is that stimuli and physical conditions still create certain emotional responses in you. You may or not be aware of these responses or contributing factors, but most everyone is effected by them. Stick someone in a dark room for weeks and they're not going to be very happy no matter how aware or unaware they are of their surroundings.

If it's a specific case of ignorance is bliss then I agree, remain ignorant. Otherwise, it's good to know things that cause problems so you can fix them.

Re: Captcha pictures force you to look at the world the way an AI does

#340
post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really don't know how you can fake webcam device input or mic device input on browsers. If you know how to do it please explain me. And speaking of recordings you can always check metadata and see if it is genuine or fake(edited).

OBS can present its output as a virtual webcam, so can Logitech's webcam software, so can driver-level code, so can lots of other things ( https://duckduckgo.com/?q=%22virtual+webcam%22 , or just search for your own phrase [fake webcam device]). Virtual microphones are similar, and there are lots of options, e.g. Equalizer APO does audio processing in the Windows kernel before applications get it, and supports VST pl…

Thanks for extensive explanation, but idk how feasible and cost effective would be to do this "en masse". It seems like a lot of work and effort for small gain of cracking a captcha task/s. And yes I agree privacy would be a problem because people don't want some random and untrusted site to access their webcam and/or mic. But I still thinks my idea has some potential. Maybe someone else will come up with better captcha idea.
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