Show HN: Spot the Drowning Child • Hacker News Board

Re: Show HN: Spot the Drowning Child

#391

Post by yellowapple » Wed, Jul 29, 2015, 5:46 PM UTC

chucksmash wrote: post #369

yellowapple wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, but my point is that we're not quite at the point where a computer can reasonably process that much visual input, determine whether or not something is exhibiting the signs of drowning, and alert a lifeguard with a minimum of errors. False positives will lead to personnel confusion, and false negatives will lead to dead swimmers. This isn't to mention that automation does encourage complacency. One of the prim…

> False positives will lead to personnel confusion False positives can lead to death too. This article talks about alert fatigue that contributed to a fatal medication error at UCSF: https://medium.com/backchannel/beware-of-the-robot-pharmacis... I'd be wary of giving a lifeguard who might be straining to pay attention to n things an n+1th thing to pay attention to.

That's what I meant by "personnel confusion", yes. A.k.a. the "cried 'wolf'" effect; how can a lifeguard be expected to treat this alarm seriously when all the other ones have been false positives?

Re: Show HN: Spot the Drowning Child

#392

Post by Fraztastic » Thu, Jul 30, 2015, 3:59 PM UTC

"Just splashing around. Keep looking"

"Seems ok. Keep looking"

Lifeguard grabs him 1 second later...

Re: Show HN: Spot the Drowning Child

#393

Post by SZJX » Fri, Jul 31, 2015, 3:28 PM UTC

I actually had a similar experience when I was a child. Fortunately the water wasn't that deep and although I was also having the same "response" I managed to get out of there in time by treading the bottom of the pool. It was indeed quite traumatic in the sense that nobody nearby seemed to be noticing it occuring, including my parents. Maybe communication in my family had always been a difficult matter so I didn't even really mention that to my parents afterwards I guess. Safety measures should definitely be paid more rigorous attention to.

Re: Show HN: Spot the Drowning Child

#394

Post by myth_buster » Fri, Jul 31, 2015, 9:25 PM UTC

reagency wrote: post #332

myth_buster wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The tool is not interactive. It's purpose is to see whether you can spot the kid. If not, then you can re-run the video and look at the symptoms and familiarize with it. You can play other videos and try at spotting. The primary takeaway is that it's incredibly difficult to know when someone is drowning and this helps you understand that and be attentive next time you are near a water body.

If the site is working on your browser, you can click on an invisible div over the video, and get text feedback about the location of the drowned.

Thanks for pointing me to that. I didn't see that feature before.