So I was given a new company vehicle. It comes with all the bells and whistles, all the "safety features" one could ever need. One of these safety features is a warning when you supposedly fall asleep (it monitors for your eyes being open.) I'm Asian, let's just say I have small eyes. The "open your eyes" alarm is perpetually going off even though I'm wide awake and staring intently at the road.
I was thinking something more like this
"Look at that man, Smithers. A smile on his face and a song in his heart. Promote him."
I love this sight gag so much.
Just the absurdity of ... carting fake homer and his chair up to the 9th floor?
Turn tape over!
Homer can be smart when he is motivated.
User deleted comment
1mo
The fingers you have used to dial are too fat. To obtain a special dialing wand, please mash the keypad with your palm now
Said this in a meeting on Wednesday and then had to explain why it's supposed to be funny.
I was on the phone with my bank’s fraud protection division and the recording said “press any key”…of course I instantly quoted Homer without even thinking about it
All this computer hacking is making me thirsty. I think i'll order a Tab.
I like the cut of his jib
I work hard for the money So hard for the money Oh something something money Come on give me lots of honey
User deleted comment
1mo
That zoo that handed out funky glasses with eyes looking away so the ape wouldn't attack people staring at it
Check the manual. You may be able to turn it off. Otherwise it would have to go to the dealership to be turned off.
Apparently it needs an "Asian Mode"
Don't we all.
What.
*Thanks for the award, but please donate to GVH instead.
Before you laugh too hard, in voice recognition software there are different modes for different languages and dialects. Having a mode for different faces wouldn’t be too hard to conceptualize.
Considering current biometric/facial recognition software has difficulty recognizing darker skinned faces and is skewed toward white, male faces… it might break devs’ brains to do so. ;) /s
I was reading random things like a week ago, and apparently the sensor on some automated soap dispensers have problems picking up darker skin tones.
basically anything that bounces a light, infrared or otherwise, off skin has the same problem. Smartwatches and fitness trackers have the same issue. Any skin colour that absorbs more light is less effective.
This is basically the plot line to my favorite episode of Better Off Ted. While the show was hilarious it’s really sad that it’s still a problem 15 years later
So if this person just gets their own white person everything will work great!
That show was amazing and really should've had more seasons. The "commercials" get referenced between my wife and I weekly.
"Teamwork. It keeps our employees gruntled."
I wish it had run longer, too, but on the other hand, it's quick to binge and it didn't stick around long enough to start to suck. It went out still being awesome.
Also: Food. Yum.
I was stuck in Asian mode for most of my college years.
Can you turn these things off? My car only recognizes me when I have sunglasses on. It thinks I'm like an intruder without them lol.
How does sleep detection work with sunglasses?
Brother I do not know
Tbh this made my night
I assume just like cell phones do—they use a spectrum of light that can pass through them
It doesn’t.
I drive a Tesla and, even though I’m white, am a fairly squinty guy I guess because it CONSTANTLY yells at me to look at the road even though I am.
It completely stops when I wear my sunglasses. I even decided to test it while in <5 mph stop and go traffic and just looked to my left out the window for a solid minute and nothing. Obviously had my eyes forward but the visual detector wouldn’t know that since I was turned away from it.
So yeah, just a feel good thing.
This is just like that one show where the motion lights didn't register black people, so they had to have a white person follow them around to keep the lights from turning off.
Better off Ted!
They had to stop the program because of parking, that was such a classic! I wish it had more episodes.
That show ended too soon.
It really did. The fake meat and the guy tastetesting it says, "this tastes familiar - oh it's despair".
Great show and Portia de Rossi was wonderful in it
This one exchange has stuck in hy head forever.
"What is this, I feel bad like I've done something wrong. What is this feeling."
"I think it's called guilt."
"I don't like this emotion. I prefer other emotions, like hungry or drunk."
The casual references to The Octochicken's increasingly strange features were my favorites. It apparently has a web?
I forgot all about that. I really need to try and find a way to watch that again.
Don't leave out the connecting bits for people who haven't seen it.
They hired a white person to follow every black employee, but then to avoid racism allegations, began hiring black employees to be the white guy following around the black employees so the sensors would work.
Each black employee hired needed their own white employee, but each white employee they hired needed an equal number of black employees hired.
THAT'S why they ran out of parking.
If you haven’t watched it, Andy Richter Controls The Universe was made by the same guy and has similar vibes.
Show was way ahead of its time
There's a blast from the past. Sometimes I think I dreamed that show because I didn't know anyone else who watched it.
I think maybe it was ahead of it's time? I loved it but it didn't seem overly popular at the time. Still hold up, though.
I had this happen with a sink and being too pale white. The people with a tan or darker skin could wash their hands though... I had to ask someone to wave their hand for me.
Oh...oooooh
I didn't realize this is probably what's happening to me. Sinks and sometimes towel dispensers when the countertops are light
Yep, they calibrate, or something, to the reflectivity of what is under them and suddenly have a "tolerance" for certain skin tones.
So that’s why I have to wave my hands like 3 times just to get the sink to work…
Seriously though can they please change them back to the original design I just find it much easier to turn the knob than sticking my hands under the faucet and waiting for it to turn on and off.
Oh wow. Ok, that makes sense. I always wondered why those things never work for me. Clearly my blinding pastiness curses me again!
I think they might just suck. I'm black and they never work for me either.
I’m not sure I’ve ever used a public restroom equipped with automatic sinks, soap dispensers, and paper towel dispensers where all three worked. Usually it’s soap from one thing, then walk to the other sink, then back to the paper towels by the soap dispenser. I fucking hate those things. Just put in a fucking soap bottle and a goddamn handle on the faucet.
Huh, think that’s me too.
Though it is weirdly nice to know us white folk can get hit with this sort of oversight too.
OK but why do automatic toilets flush while I'm sitting on them and do nothing when I stand up?
God hates you specifically, I am so sorry.
Are you a ghost maybe?
Well, sometimes being seated on a toilet triggers, um, 'phantom hot air'......but, no, not aware of being an actual ghost.
It depends. What skin tone is your poop? Maybe the calibration is off on the toilet.
they suck so much... they always wait until I have manufactured the ass gasket from toilet paper and JUST as I'm about to sit on it, it flushes and sucks away the ass gasket. Then it all starts again
This is just made me wonder how many sinks actually weren't broken and I was just blending in.
My wife works in accessibility and this is extremely common for pale and dark skinned people.
That explains why I always have trouble with sinks and my sister doesn't, she's pretty tan and I'm SUPER pale
What if you’re translucent?
You're gonna have to wear gloves or something lmao
The company's position is that it's actually the opposite of racist, because it's not targeting black people. It's just ignoring them. They insist the worst people can call it is "indifferent."
Better Off Ted
Water faucets with a sensor. Similar issue.
I believe the Xbox Connect had the same problem. If you were black it didn't register your movements, and was eventually fixed.
Could… could you fool it by gluing googily eyes to your forehead?
I think this might be the solution!
I'm cracking up at the idea of looking over while stopped at a light and seeing someone with googly eyes stuck to their forehead. Please try this and update if it works.
And rolling down the window and shouting, "It's ok, I'm just asian." Then calmly driving away.
This mental image has me cracking up. I love it.
I needed that laugh, too. 🤣
Same. I just peed my pants a little!
Really glad I was on the porcelain thrown scrolling Reddit or I would've too
I have tears.
That'd have me fucked up the whole day. I'd just be asking "Why?" over and over.
It’s ok they’re Asian.
☠️
hahahahaha this is the one
😂
Is this a new A24 movie??
Every time every commute all at once
I'm thinking of the pre drive and post drive process. Having to allocate like 5 mins to put the googly eyes on and line them up is funny to think about.
Forgetting to take them off when you've got an 8am meeting...
With the only reason being "cars racist"
Coworker: "Hey you're back early."
OP: "Car's racist."
Coworker: "Wait what?!?"
OP: grabs googly eyes "Car's Racist."
"Carl's racist? I'll get with HR and talk to Carl."
At least the moons not haunted.
I understood that reference
Just put them on one of those sweatband headbands, ezpz
They could just get a forehead headband with the googly eyes permaglued on. Just pull it on and you’re good to go.
Or sunglasses that look like eyes maybe?
I just googled sunglasses that look like eyes. Highly recommend, 10/10 results.
!remindme 2 months
So does it go off if you wear sunglasses when driving?
Mine turns off completely if it spots sunglasses
So it's not racist if you're cool?
What kind of car is this?
Shit. Do this. Film it doing the warning while you're driving. Then stick the googly eyes on your forehead, and then film as you drive with the warning not going off. This shit would go viral.
Google eye headband! No need to glue them on your face
Might have an option to turn it off.
You could get a pair of glasses with googly eyes, and just wear them when you drive instead of gluing to your head.
Googily eye driving glasses to the rescue
I’d also consider taping a small picture of a someone on coke to the face of the camera.
Fucking awesome this is why I love Reddit.
They could paint giant clown eyes on their face too, your idea sounds quicker though
Well, this confirms I’ve never had an original thought…
The most racist anti racist answer ever. Who can argue with that. Straight out cancellation
I had a Sony camera with a similar feature. Everytime I tried to take a pic of my ex it would ask "did somebody blink" it took us a few tries before we realized it was because she was Asian lol.
The thing I find most amusing about that is the fact that Sony is a Japanese company, and I'm sure a lot of the tech behind their devices is designed in Japan. Did no one at Sony's Japan HQ try out their blink detection before it was released? lol.
On a more serious note, something that I find ridiculous about this is that close to 60% of the world's population is in Asia and half of that, so around 30%, is East Asian. I think that a technology that fails to function reliably for 1 in 4 people worldwide shouldn't be marketed as a legitimate feature by the manufacturer, and should have been labeled experimental while receiving frequent software updates to increase reliability. They need to get that >30% failure rate to ~5% for it to be considered a feature, imo.
The reason is that most training data sets for ML/AI (and blink detection is ML) is massively biased towards Caucasian demographics.
Most companies don’t do their own data set building and don’t adequately verify in the field.
and I'm sure a lot of the tech behind their devices is designed in Japan.
Yet training datasets are a completely different thing.
As in, market-wide countries usually have device revisions specifically tailored for them(mainly because of radiosignal frequency), which often includes altered software. An iPhone bought in China won't function as well for Caucasian race, as well as the other way round. Having both filters on at the same time would probably increase required time-to-process while recognizing faces, so having just one is usually enough.
I mean, you can't really get mad at the nature for making some people have black skin, some - narrow eyes or anything else. And because corporations have access to statistics, they most likely see demography data and how viable is it to alter their software/firmware.
It’s pretty funny being that it was made by a Japanese company. Makes me wonder the make of OPs car.
Edit: fix typo
I have a feeling he drives a subaru because my subaru did the same shit to my mom, we're both Asian for reference
The Outback is made in Australia so makes sense. /s
I watched a lot of Tom and jerry growing up and must say tooth picks and tape will help you
Order on roadrunner.acme.com
I'd use Coyote's account, personally. He's spent a lot more and has better member perks.
Especially since his movie got shelved. Gotta get his membership points up.
Is this worse or better than the iPhone facial recognition software that unlocked the phone for multiple Asian people
Definitely worse. Face unlock was optional.
But also more critical as a breach of safety
I'd argue driving a car is more safety critical. But there's different types of danger I suppose.
In reality the beeping doesn't cause a huge risk, and the phone being face unlocked by someone who happens to look like your identical twin is also a relatively niche scenario.
In the case of that Chinese woman, they really did look almost identical, and I say that as a Chinese person myself.
Edit: not saying it wasn't a huge security issue, it obviously was. Just... You still had to find someone who looked almost the same as you. The fact that iPhones were not as effective at applying face recognition for Asian people was not that big of a deal to most of us, who are pretty used to that kind of discrimination. At least it was unintentional. I'd be happy just living in a world where the only discrimination is accidental.
That sucks! My wife works in accessibility and I remember having a good laugh at a "racist sink" at a convention we went to that didn't work for the pale white people there.
Commercial Electrician here, just installed several hand dryers that will not work if you are anyone other than light skinned or white. We spent hours trying to troubleshoot these things. We all had PPE on (gloves) that were dark colored (light grey/black) and couldn’t trigger these fucking things! I wound up taking my gloves off to clean my glasses and swiped my hand really close to the dryer and that triggered the dryer. We all looked at each other in disbelief, WTF? So I put my gloves back on and tried it, FAIL! Took my gloves off and swiped and it worked perfectly!
Yep! Thanks for backing that up, it's a real thing and a lot of people don't realize it.
Those fucking hand dryers were like “if you ain’t white you ain’t right, so fuck you” it’s so fucked up!
I'm white and they never work for me, nor the paper towel sensors. The soap ones are hit or miss, as well as the occasional faucet sensors. Sensor tech just sucks. Maybe nobody cleans them and they lose sensitivity, idk.
Honestly it blows my mind at the range of technology right now. Send people to space. Make massive processing chip breakthroughs. New medical advancements every day.
Can’t make sensors that work for all humans.
Holy shit I keep saying this.
We could soon live in a world with literal artificial intelligence but the fucking sink won't turn on reliably.
Should’ve just stuck with the old designs…
OMG like I'm so pale that it wouldn't be able to differentiate between my skin and the sink??
Yeah and I guess I just registered as light reflecting back without interruption. So insulting. I got a tan now...
Hilarious!
I’m wondering if that’s what is happening when I use the sink at work. I have had several theories, most being some sort of user error. Idk how I could use a sink wrong.
I just thought the sensors on the sink were shit, I figured they didn’t work for anyone. Now I feel like I have to ask a couple of coworkers if the sinks work consistently for them. For me they are on and off and on and off.
Wait, is this why I can never get automatic sinks, soap, and towel dispensers to fucking work?
When I'm at work I have to slap a post-it over the sensor to be able to wash my hands
Maybe, I'd run some tests with coworkers to see. It's always kinda awkward to bring up to other people though lol.
You need like a range of skin colors to line up and see what level of dark skin works.
This is so real. The sink at work does not recognize me as a human being.
Is this why the auto sinks never turn on for me also????????
I've thought i was a ghost because of this
My dad is white but has heavy lids and suffers from the same problem. Guess everyone with small eyes are just fucked!
Yeah, I’m white and have VERY hooded eyes. I imagine it would do the same to me, haha.
When I smile it’s even worse. ID pictures that require your eyes be visible are a nightmare for me!
Has anyone seen American Auto? They invent a racist self-driving car that doesn't recognize black people.
"The car isn't racist! Racism is about prejudice against different races and cultures. This is just because of darker skin tones! It would run over an Indian person as well!"
"Oh thank God, for a second there I thought we invented a car that wouldn't run over Indian people."
The unintentional racism reminds me of when auto braking cars were first coming out and they often wouldn't brake when they were about to hit a POC because "the vehicle didn't recognise them as people".
So the car decided it was okay to hit...something.
It’s funny what cars are biased against. Women using voice command in cars are less likely to have their voices recognized and understood and have higher rates of accidents caused by issues w having to repeat themselves / the distraction
My dad is on the other end of the spectrum and has issues with voice to text and other voice recognition software because he has a very deep bass voice. (Also my mom has low range hearing loss and can't hear him when he first wakes up in the mornings)
Damn his voice must be deep lol
The alexa hates my bfs voice. She will do anything but what that man wants. I ask her, half mumbled from another room, and she immediately does what I ask 😂
Siri/Alexa/my car can never understand a word I say. I have a very neutral accent and excellent diction. I can’t explain it but it drives me insane so I just disable all of it.
ETA cars are actually quite sexist in plenty of ways that are more dangerous, including the fact that seats and seat belts generally don’t fit women well. I drive a Mercedes EQB (a ladies’ car if ever there was one) and am the average height of 5’5”, and even with the seat raised ridiculously high, the seatbelt constantly rubs the side of my neck. The article I linked points out that men are more likely than women to be in a car accident, but women are 47% more likely to be seriously injured and 17% more likely to die if involved in an accident, because car safety features are designed with men as the default.
If you haven't read Invisible Women/listened to Visible Women by Caroline Criado Perez yet, it's all about this kind of thing!! Really changed the way I think about the world on a fundamental level.
Have your boss ride with you for a bit then take it to the dealer and turn it off when I was working we had a problem with a big truck just shutting off randomly boss man didn't Believe it until he was riding with me once we had just come down a highway off ramp and bam it shut down , my foot was to the floor , trying to keep up with traffic , it turned out to be the computer , that was an expensive fix
Jesus!
That's like... super dangerous? What if the break stopped working, or even worst, the steering?
Brakes and steering continue to work in (almost) all vehicles even without power. The way those systems are designed you still have a mechanical connection to the parts and the power is applied to amplify your strength. Part of our driver’s education course was the instructor turning off the vehicle on a deserted country road so that we could experience what it takes to control and stop the vehicle.
I say almost all because I believe there might be some “fly by wire” style vehicles out there now where you don’t actually have a mechanical connection and really would be screwed if you lost power.
excep in stupid cybertrucks, they have drive by wire, in both brakes and steering wheel.... yes, its as dumb as it sounds
the brakes on semi trucks require air to be disengaged. so when you lose air, the brakes lock up
steering is a mechanical connection that just works, except for the stupid cybertruck. I'm counting down until that shit glitches out
iTs TrIplE rEDunDaNt
no it's not
Is it a subaru? Because you can turn it off
Isn't it a bit ironic that it could be a Subaru?
That’s what makes a Subaru a Subaru.
Company vehicle. 100% Merc Sprinter.
I'm white and it still told me to stay awake and take coffee breaks anytime I checked my mirrors.
I'm glad I saw this. I thought it was just me but I had to borrow a newer Subaru and it yelled at me the whole trip. I didn't know the infotainment well enough to find it out once I was in motion.
No thanks.
I almost bought an Outback but ended up not, simply because of this feature.
It would alarm at me whenever I checked my blind spot, or if I went to sneeze. "KEEP EYES ON ROAD"
Listen, what is more likely to cause a crash? Me checking my blindspot (not trusting the BSD), or you alarming at me the same tone as if there's something in the road, as I'm trying to do so?
Reminds me of the episode in the highly underrated/underappreciated show "Better Off Ted" where the automated building systems didn't recognize black people. I'm my real life, automatic paper towel dispensers don't recognize black nitrile gloves (laboratory research, we've heard all the serial killer jokes).
My car gave me that warning once while I was wide awake. But the one time I nearly fell asleep at the wheel (evacuating for the last hurricane) it did not give me the warning…. It also likes to warn me about incoming head on collisions when I’m stopping at red lights and at curved roads when it can see the car I’m going towards but am about to turn… I did have a person slam on their breaks in front of me and nearly hit them, the alarm did not go off….
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1mo
Reminds me logitech web cameras with follow face feature, completely ignorant to black people
This is what you need
I got fired from FedEx because we had one of those systems….if I took my eyes off the road to check my side view mirrors, it would scream “distracted”…if I glanced at my GPS, it would scream “distracted” I’ve been driving trucks for 30 years with an impeccable record and my clueless boss fired me because she said I was a horrible driver. Fuck FedEx.
If it makes you feel any better, cars can be sexist too. My last car couldn’t understand my lady voice, so when I needed to instruct the nav, I had to do this real low impression of a man voice and it would understand me.
Turn that shit off.
I say you make an HR complaint against the car for "continued harassment due to assumptions based on race."
That feature is insane! I like the googly eyes solution. But I would definitely take it up with whoever assigns the cars.
I work in a company that develops that kind of cameras. Asian people, white people and black people are a completely different set of data. You need to train on all three of them, plus glasses, plus girls with long eye lashes, plus people with one eye ...
There was an episode of Better Off Ted where their new lighting system in the office wouldn't detect a black person. Instead of fixing it, they assigned a white person to follow him around to trigger the lights. So the obvious solution is you simply need a white person to drive you around.
I could see certain news outlets turning this into a huge story. The company would probably end up compensating you 😂 To be honest though it is pretty fucked up.
Sunglasses, whenever possible!
Commercial Electrician here, just installed several hand dryers that will not work if you are anyone other than light skinned or white. We spent hours trying to troubleshoot these things. We all had PPE on (gloves) that were dark colored (light grey/black) and couldn’t trigger these fucking things! I wound up taking my gloves off to clean my glasses and swiped my hand really close to the dryer and that triggered the dryer. We all looked at each other in disbelief, WTF? So I put my gloves back on and tried it, FAIL! Took my gloves off and swiped and it worked perfectly!
Look, this might be the funniest thing I’ve read in 2 years.
Sorry it happened to you.
You must be able to turn it off, otherwise blind people wouldn't be able to drive the car.
[Image]
something like this