March 15, 2022

Surveillance paranoia.

I was just looking at this (at Yelp) (and moving it into a text and writing a little about it):

 

And then, reading the NYT — "There Are Almost Too Many Things to Worry About" — I got this ad served up:

That's just the photo. There was also text. I've stripped that out. An ad for some fish delivery company.

But, so, first, I'm paranoid. Did they have me pegged as a person who likes food on a metal tray with a layer of brown parchment? Second, I'm amused, because the food is so absurdly different. Third, I'll be okay, because if there is surveillance, it's so misguided, so dumb. And yet, maybe that's exactly what's scary. The AI thinks it knows, but it's so wrong.

By the way, the second photo — the one that seems to want to model the orderly, well-run life — is the one with the paper on the tray at an angle, and the fish overlapping fish. I think that is disorderly. It's an insane amount of disorder within that effortful order. I feel much more at ease with the mild disorder of the overflowing baked beans in Photo #1.

Anyway... as they say in the NYT... there are almost too many things to worry about.

43 comments:

TheOne Who Is Not Obeyed said...

Disorder? The first thing I noticed was the sloppy dishing out of the beans in the first pic. That's some serious disorder, with the beans slopping over the side.

Compared to that, the intentional alignment of the parchment for the fish in the second photo is understandable as a deliberate choice.

I have no thoughts on the overlapping fish. Other than causing a slight difference in doneness between the two fillets, I can't get worked up about sloppy placement.

But those beans.

TheOne Who Is Not Obeyed said...

And who the heck would cook the tomatoes with the stems attached? C'mon food stylist! Be better!

Jamie said...

I'm curious about the barbecue... Is that burnt ends on the front tray? It's a lot of bark, if not.

We have Amazon Echo devices all over our house because we're down to one kid, the house is enormous, and I don't feel like courting laryngitis every time I want to call him for dinner. It weirds me out when the Echo Show in the kitchen, which is the model with a screen rather than just microphone and speaker, serves up a "suggestion" (song, recipe, movie to watch) directly relevant to something we were talking about recently.

I know they're by nature always listening. But I want them to be like a good butler: never acknowledging what they hear unless it's aimed at them.

Actually I'd just love a good butler... whom, I admit, I would then embarrass and distress by calling him "Mister Whatever" and trying to get him to call us by our first names. American egalitarian meets 19th-century-novel-reading anglophile...

Ann Althouse said...

It's *raw* fish. It's a set-up for baking the fish. You absolutely do not want to overlap the fish in the cooking process. It won't come out right. That's just a flat-out cooking mistake.

Temujin said...

"The AI thinks it knows, but it's so wrong."

That's exactly why you should be scared. With the advent of Sovereign Digital Currency + ESG programs for corporations, banks, and our caring Government, they will- in our lifetime- be creating a digital currency (no...not crypto, but a Statist version of crypto). It's not decentralized finance, it's the opposite. Very centralized, controlled finance. Using their AI to discern who behaves, speaks, and acts in approved ways, they'll be able to allow you to use your money, get paid, or...not. When you consider how incapable AI is in reading actual human thought, and interpreting actions and things like sarcasm, you might just get 'accidentally' shut down.

In a country that has seemingly accepted censorship for unapproved thinkers in our newspapers of record, our TV news, our social media, our universities, publishers, and more- this is a marriage of tech + government that we do not want.

But as you say, we do have too much to worry about. So...back to the show...

gilbar said...

number one looks GOOD! yummm
number two .. I am not into raw fish, certainly not plain old raw fix
bbq for me! please!

Howard said...

It might be a cooking mistake but the overlap serves the esthetics of the picture. My art teacher would complain about nerds showing off their supreme superciliousness by picking fly shit out of pepper like that.

Enigma said...

@Althouse: "But, so, first, I'm paranoid. Did they have me pegged as a person who likes food on a metal tray with a layer of brown parchment? Second, I'm amused, because the food is so absurdly different. Third, I'll be okay, because if there is surveillance, it's so misguided, so dumb. And yet, maybe that's exactly what's scary. The AI thinks it knows, but it's so wrong."

Yes, you've been image tracked. You should actually be paranoid of surveillance, as Google is indeed tracking your every move. Facebook/Meta's stock has suffered because Apple turned off ad tracking in its software. Even Facebook was freaked out by their face recognition technology (e.g., you with random strangers at Disneyland) and didn't make it .

You can currently opt out of [hundreds] of trackers one by one, or switch to privacy oriented software. Use the Brave browser. Use DuckDuckGo or other search engines. Etc. Etc. Etc. However, your data is now stored in 100+ databases and these are routinely hacked or leaked. Credit records, political support, hobbies, random food searches. All known to HAL/Big Brother. We've all dived into a global and public petri dish.

Regarding the first BBQ photo, that's typical service for most restaurants. They also use concrete floors, have paper towels on the table, and other easily cleaned stuff too. Many BBQ places insist on wrapping meats in huge pieces of paper (aka "meat market style), even though it'll be tossed into a few seconds. It visually resembles the wrapping required for cooking.

retail lawyer said...

How about those toenail fungus advertisements?

SteveWe said...

Artificial Intelligence is neither artificial nor intelligent. AI saw "food on a tray" and served up a picture/advert of food on a tray. That "solution" lacked granularity. Food is a broad category. And a picture of a dropped scoop of ice cream on a three of hearts playing card would also fit the specification if the AI were intelligently humorous or self-destructive.

Lurker21 said...

When the topic on a discussion board was the names of sports teams, I did a google search to find out when Syracuse stopped being the Orangemen. Now everywhere I go I see ads for Syracuse University, a school I didn't go to in a town I have never been to. It makes me think Duck Duck Go is better way to go.

rcocean said...

I like my fish unlapped.

Linda said...

Had the fish been cooked - that would be a way to present them - but they are raw pieces and I totally agree that you would never bake them that way.

gilbar said...

When you consider how incapable AI is in reading actual human thought, and interpreting actions and things like sarcasm, you might just get 'accidentally' shut down.

Yes! you might have a blog, and one of your commenters might INSIST on Always saying;
"What word is that? IF you don't print the word, How can we know what word it is?"

And..
after printing his line on your blog enough times; the AI might decide that IT doesn't like YOU

Eric said...

Ann, A lot of thought went into the arrangement of food on the ad you were served. They may even have had a discussion, or perhaps a meeting, to choose the precise angles and overlap. The AI wasn't the only mistake.

Ann Althouse said...

"I am not into raw fish..."

It's set up like that for cooking.

Surely, it will be *served* on a plate.

rhhardin said...

I could use one of those old Eastern Airlines first class dinners.

rhhardin said...

With digital money you can have any portrait you want on yours.

Joe Smith said...

'The AI thinks it knows, but it's so wrong.'

But SkyNet® will learn.

As for the disorder, that is how an art director would arrange the shot.

You have to have some angles going on. Putting the fish chunks side-by-side is logical and orderly, but it makes for a really boring photo.

Joe Smith said...

I saw Overlapping Fish open for Steely Dan at The Fillmore in '82.

boatbuilder said...

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

Ann Althouse said...

"Ann, A lot of thought went into the arrangement of food on the ad you were served. They may even have had a discussion, or perhaps a meeting, to choose the precise angles and overlap. The AI wasn't the only mistake."

I know. It's hard to take good photographs of food. They had rectangles and to keep it all squared up would present a very difficult challenge. So they did the most obvious thing and created some diagonals. That was at a graphic design level, but it offended the sensibility of any viewer who thinks about cooking.

The Yelp photograph isn't a professional photograph, and it reflects little concern about principles of design.

Ann Althouse said...

"the arrangement of food on the ad you were served"

It's funny to think of that as being "served" "food."

madAsHell said...

How about those toenail fungus advertisements?

....and when did Apple Cider Vinegar become. a cure-all for EVERYTHING!!

Jupiter said...

An ad for some fish delivery company.

NYT has a long tradition of partnering with people who deliver fish.

Narr said...

That greyish mush at 5oclock in the first photo is supposed to be BBQ?

Oh no.

Everything else looks yummers. Call me when the fish is done, Alexa.

tcrosse said...

These look like new entries to James Lilek's Gallery of Regrettable Food

Beasts of England said...

Looks like yuppie barbecue in the top photo. Sauce in a tiny sealed cup? Blasphemy!!

Christopher B said...

What SteveWe said. If anything, this should be a big flashing warning that AI-algorithms-image processing are not all they're cracked up to be. Assuming there is some behind-the-scenes connection between the photos showing up for you, aside from the very grossest similarities (metal pans and brown paper) nothing in the two photos is remotely related.

Facebook routinely flags pictures of my brother posted on his wife's page as me. He has no FB account that I know of, only his wife. We have a family resemblance but I'm fairly certain that FB is flagging me because I've also appeared in pictures and postings with them. No amount of telling Facebook that's not me seems to correct the misidentification.

It makes the story of the Alaskan woman falsely identified as being in the Capitol on J6 based (IIRC) on a photo that showed an otherwise unidentifiable woman in similar jacket a lot more believable.

rehajm said...

The AI thinks it knows, but it's so wrong.

Maybe it knows more than you think, like your obsession with fishwrap...

rehajm said...

(I see someone beat me to it...)

Ignorance is Bliss said...

Third, I'll be okay, because if there is surveillance, it's so misguided, so dumb. And yet, maybe that's exactly what's scary. The AI thinks it knows, but it's so wrong.

Clearly you're not paranoid enough. The AI does know, it only provides an answer that is misguided and dumb so that you don't know how much it knows.

To quote someone (I don't know who): Don't fear the computer that passes the Turing test. Fear the computer that fails it on purpose

Jupiter said...

Artificial intelligence is the kind of intelligence that notes you recently bought a house, and thinks, "He buys houses! Time to sell him another one!".

I guess it would work on Barkie Obama. But he's a successful author, with money to burn.

Jefferson's Revenge said...

Has there ever been any actual research on digital, targeted marketing to determine if it effective or not? For me personally, I get a lot of irrelevant ads that are clearly based on a Google search but in a very random way. I tend to ignore most of the quasi-relevant ads. On the off chance I am interested in the product, it's so easy to compare prices on that or competitor products, the urge to buy just leads me to the cheaper competitor product sometimes. My suspicion is that one day we will find out that the only people making money out of digital ads are Google or SEO/Marketing consultants.

BUMBLE BEE said...

Ann, Paranoia is currently defined as total awareness.
https://www.theepochtimes.com/dhs-collected-americans-financial-records-in-bulk-sen-wyden_4335871.html?utm_source=News&utm_campaign=breaking-2022-03-15-2&utm_medium=email&est=wGVXKuAiNxabfarhtQwBU4HJLAGyX7Ocuahm6EV9MYIffzhJYH%2Bpnm2iPlXY71I%3D

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_M6lccMzek

Leland said...

The AI thinks it knows, but it's so wrong.

That's been my opinion for a long time, but people keep saying the AI is getting better and better. I can see its pattern recognition, but the tree it finds in the forest is not even in the forest I was hoping to find.

Rabel said...

Will no one ask why Althouse is looking at reviews for a BBQ joint in Fayetteville?

Sooooo Pig!

effinayright said...

In my case, YouTube knows through AI that I like to see short vids of the delectable Claire Gerhardstein modeling bikinis over the past seven years.

So they send them every time I open up YouTube.

To me, that's a very good thing.

Narayanan said...

NYT has a long tradition of partnering with people who deliver fish.
=========
asking for NYT >>> hope they read before wrapping

Narayanan said...

NYT has a long tradition of partnering with people who deliver fish.
=========
asking for NYT >>> do hope they read before wrapping

Narayanan said...

does it matter for en papillote fish

mikee said...

Forget the beans. The servings of brisket - one sliced , one burnt ends - are pitifully small.

mikee said...

I correct myself: pork belly and pulled pork on one plate, badly sliced brisket on the other. This is indeed a pork BBQ joint, Rabel.