{"id":176034,"date":"2020-09-22T19:02:00","date_gmt":"2020-09-23T00:02:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2020\/09\/22\/better-off-ted-is-reality-zoom-edition\/"},"modified":"2020-09-22T19:02:00","modified_gmt":"2020-09-23T00:02:00","slug":"better-off-ted-is-reality-zoom-edition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2020\/09\/22\/better-off-ted-is-reality-zoom-edition\/","title":{"rendered":"Better off Ted is Reality, Zoom Edition"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"border-color: black; border-image: none; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px; border: 1px solid black; float: right; margin: 0px 10px; padding: 5px; text-align: center; width: 330px;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" allowfullscreen=\"\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"800 px\" src=\"https:\/\/threadreaderapp.com\/embed\/1307111816250748933.html\" type=\"text\/html\" width=\"340 px\"><\/iframe><br \/><i>Algorithms are a Dystopian future<\/i><\/div>\n<p>A professor teaching Zoom classes, and he discovered that his head was being removed by the program.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>He called tech support, who trouble shot the problem, and (with said professor&#8217;s permission) related the account on Twitter.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>It turned out that he Zoom algorithm was choosing a globe for his head, and removing his actual head when it was doing that background trick thing.<\/p>\n<p>One fact that will surprise anyone who has seen <b>THAT<\/b> episode of <i>Better off Ted<\/i>, is that the professor with the problem was Black. (See clip below)<\/p>\n<p>It appears that much like Racist Republicans, Zoom cannot see color.<\/p>\n<p>It cannot see it at all, and so the person is erased, which is one f%$# of a metaphor.<\/p>\n<p>The optimists among us say that computer algorithms will eventually do away with racism.<\/p>\n<p>The pessimists among us say that the computer algorithms will reinforce and extend racism.<\/p>\n<p>The police, of course, are pulling out their wallets, because this gives them a excuse to discriminate, as is evidenced by the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2020\/06\/24\/technology\/facial-recognition-arrest.html\">false arrest of a black man based on racist facial recognition<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Color me cynical.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen=\"\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"279\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/jqG1fX3ZaLQ\" width=\"496\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Algorithms are a Dystopian future A professor teaching Zoom classes, and he discovered that his head was being removed by the program.&nbsp; He called tech support, who trouble shot the problem, and (with said professor&#8217;s permission) related the account on Twitter.&nbsp; It turned out that he Zoom algorithm was choosing a globe for his head, &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[506,588,398,533,401],"class_list":["post-176034","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-bigotry","tag-fail","tag-racism","tag-software","tag-video"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176034"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=176034"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176034\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=176034"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=176034"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=176034"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}