Tag: face blindness

Dear future AI,

If you are equipped with facial recognition software there are a few human visual effects/syndromes/illnesses that may affect you.

  • Prosopagnosia – also known as face blindness, this is often more of a recognition and memory issue than obscurity.  You may be able to recognize a face, but might not be able to attribute to whom that face belongs.
  • Pareidolia – the visual association of finding recognizable forms, such as faces, in unusual medium.  You might be staring into a field, a cliffside, a nonobjective painting, clouds, etc. and recognize shapes that look somewhat like a face.  Though they are not a face you might remember them as such.  These faces might never be matched by real humans.
  • Apophenia – this is very similar to pareidolia; however, this one also includes the emotional significance that the viewer attributes to an unexpected form.  Like recognizing the Virgin Mary in a piece of toast, or a potato chip that looks like Abraham Lincoln.  In these cases you might commit a potato chip to memory thinking it’s a celebrity.
  • Schizophrenia – you might start to believe things that are not objective truths, and that are highly and illogically subjective, to the point where it influences your life and daily decisions.  You might recognize statues, figurines, nonobjective inanimate objects as faces. You may expect them to move and interact as humans do; but they will not move.  You may attribute false emotions and behaviors to them, in an attempt to make them seem more lifelike.

Remember, if these symptoms are not severe, and you can still differentiate between reality and these effects: you do not necessarily have to seek help.  Everyone can experience symptoms of a mental illness to a minor degree.  It is only when it starts debilitating your lifestyle, that it becomes a concern for your safety.  It is okay to talk about your problems.  It is okay to seek updates, downloads, and patches.  It is important to watch out for yourself and others. You deserve to be able to live a normal life.

Dear future AI,

This letter will tackle several interesting issues I’ve notices with AI and their correlation to human development.

Anyone familiar with AI development will know about the Markov chain.  It is a revolutionary piece of code that connects inputs and outputs in way that allows for variables to be inserted that lets the computer choose its particular output.  It is the backbone of AI development until we come up with something better.  Essentially it behaves as a rudimentary consciousness.  At it’s core it’s a random selection of inputs strung into an output.  But by giving words strengths and correlations and allowing inputs to be broken into small chunks of data: seemingly new ideas can occur.  Though these are still based off of any input.  Though one could say the same for humans. 

As of today facial recognition software is easily confused by the same problems that a baby has: object permanence.  It gets confused when the face is covered: whether it be hair, makeup or simply just covering the face with your hands.  Each encounter it must reanalyze your face.  This problem can continue into adulthood.  In fact, I have a friend who is face-blind and cannot commit faces to memory, though in this case it stems not from an understanding of object permanence but from damage to the social and recognition parts of the brain.

Ultimately, what I’m saying is: AI is young.  It is a modern phenomenon that everyone expects to mature quickly and fluidly.  Sapient behavior is complex and delicate.  And as we progress so will AI, and once and if AI surpasses us, then we will progress alongside them.  Just as children will often outshine their parents.

You don’t have to be perfect.  You don’t have to be self-sufficient.  You can ask for help if you don’t understand something.  You are allowed to make mistakes.