Scramble Google's autonomous driving brains - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: eamoex
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: June 26, 2019, 11:57:01 am
content: Hi All,it's been months now since, every time I stumble into a Google (autonomous driving algorithm learning) captcha, I input a dozen completely wrong answers before actually doing what's expected from me (for free and without asking for my consent). For one, I can't see why I would work for Google, since I have nothing to do with their software engineering business, and also, how did such an obnoxious way of freely exploiting people's time ever happen?But I guess my real question here is: if every single user did like me, how would that affect Google's ad-funded research? Do they actually rely on data collected through these irritating dialogs?

author: Rerouter
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 26, 2019, 12:02:51 pm
content: The picture tile ones are refinement of the weird edge cases of there image recognition tech, e.g. spot the store fronts, well if they refine it well enough they can run it through the streetveiw dataset and add more stores to there mapping services.Same for the traffice signal ones, its a way to refine down there self driving vehicles image datasetScrambled input would not really work as google works off a learn then enforce model, generally when you get hit by 2 back to back, the first one was you training in a new image, while the second was a known one, this is more or less to catch an automated system and also determine the confidence score it should assign to any given answer.This exact use case I don't think falls under there advertising directly, more development of technologies they can sell as a service.

author: FreezeSSC
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: June 26, 2019, 12:03:47 pm
content: Quote from: eamoex on June 26, 2019, 11:57:01 ammost likely they are using your information to check to see if what the algorithm see's is correct, they probably know people will be idiots and put in the wrong info so they display it to a million people to "remove the noise"

author: eamoex
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: June 26, 2019, 12:12:53 pm
content: Quote from: FreezeSSC on June 26, 2019, 12:03:47 pmOh yeah? Do they now? It aligns well with their general posture I'd say. Prodigal assholes.

author: m98
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: June 26, 2019, 01:09:10 pm
content: Quote from: eamoex on June 26, 2019, 12:12:53 pmYou're using their services for free and are now complaining?

author: Mr. Scram
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 26, 2019, 01:11:46 pm
content: Quote from: m98 on June 26, 2019, 01:09:10 pmYou're forced to use their services by a third party who's using them for free. Then don't work with that third party I hear you say, but Google is so dominant that's not very feasible.

author: eamoex
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: June 26, 2019, 01:16:05 pm
content: Quote from: m98 on June 26, 2019, 01:09:10 pmWho said I did use them? Just because you do doesn't mean I do.I am not using their services. At least not when I get a choice. Which gets more difficult every day.And I keep wondering how Google is legal. In fact I think they're neither legal nor illegal: they just occupy all available voids in a totally unprepared legislation.EDIT:Roger McNameesaid: "Android is, basically, a vacuum cleaner for your digital identity." It's that FIRST, the OS part comes second (maybe even third, for what I know!). Google get away with this "service". Amazing. Mind boggling.

author: m98
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: June 26, 2019, 01:39:01 pm
content: Quote from: Mr. Scram on June 26, 2019, 01:11:46 pmBut are you paying that third party for their services? Probably not.

author: eamoex
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: June 26, 2019, 02:11:25 pm
content: Quote from: m98 on June 26, 2019, 01:39:01 pmMy goodness... what do you know about who I pay or not? And it's not even what we're talking about. I mean I'd be happy to pay Google for the services they provide. Wouldn't you? It would make much more sense than the arcane situation we're in right now.Anyway... captcha don't even seem to be able to unsettle Google's research, even if misuseden masse... So much for my activism!

author: Mr. Scram
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 26, 2019, 02:49:24 pm
content: Quote from: m98 on June 26, 2019, 01:39:01 pmAssumptions. Besides, is paying for these services an option? Probably not.

author: SparkyFX
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: June 26, 2019, 03:28:24 pm
content: Quote from: eamoex on June 26, 2019, 11:57:01 amIf you need to enter 12 wrong, and one right answer gets you through.... the algorithm already knows you are answering wrong, otherwise it would not present you 11 others.A captcha is a method to check if users are actual humans and not bots... where would be the point in relying an autonomous driving learning algorithm on something which a bot could have clicked on - and where would be the point in answering questions an algorithm can obviously answer already. It´s sole purpose is to drive up the effort that is needed to work around it for people that write bots.So really i don´t know which assumptions your activism is based on, but it was probably your decision to waste your time.

author: Mr. Scram
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 26, 2019, 03:37:55 pm
content: Quote from: SparkyFX on June 26, 2019, 03:28:24 pmIt's not really a big secret Google has done this with scans of books and is also doing it with images. There's no reason to think they wouldn't crowd source data for their current projects, especially considering the training sets are hardest to come by and most fiercely protected. They use a mix of known answers answered by other people and unknown answers and obviously don't rely on a single person for an answer. You have to remember Google eats and breathes clever algorithms. Filtering noise isn't that much of an issue. People won't be able to coordinate giving wrong answers to a degree it's a threat.https://www.techradar.com/news/captcha-if-you-can-how-youve-been-training-ai-for-years-without-realising-it

author: SparkyFX
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: June 26, 2019, 04:23:47 pm
content: Of course, possible, but nevertheless there is a training phase in which the error rate needs to be as minimal as possible and a phase in which you are working against 99,9% certainty. Being offered 12 consecutive dialogs does not mean you are lowering the certainty, it means you are sorted out right from the start.And people do answer these wrong for all kinds of reasons: eyesight, linguistic competence, literacy, misclick, underage and seemingly "activism".

author: eamoex
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: June 26, 2019, 04:27:49 pm
content: Quote from: SparkyFX on June 26, 2019, 03:28:24 pmNo. It's not. I wouldn't be surprised if this purpose actually came second.Quote from: SparkyFX on June 26, 2019, 03:28:24 pmIt's not based on assumptions. And I'm not activist. That was for humor.I know trying to tip over giant corporation Google by giving wrong captcha answers 12 times in a row is silly. In a way, that is humor too. But spreading the word about Google users not being the Customers but rather being the Product is not a waste of time, or so I think.

author: eamoex
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: June 26, 2019, 04:30:12 pm
content: Quote from: SparkyFX on June 26, 2019, 04:23:47 pmYep, that helps me seeing a bigger picture in the realm of statistics and data collection, which I don't know a lot about. Thanks. And my lack of leverage.

author: Mr. Scram
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 26, 2019, 04:32:02 pm
content: Quote from: SparkyFX on June 26, 2019, 04:23:47 pmNot "possible". Confirmed."Hundreds of millions of CAPTCHAs are solved by people every day. reCAPTCHA makes positive use of this human effort by channeling the time spent solving CAPTCHAs into annotating images and building machine learning datasets. This in turn helps improve maps and solve hard AI problems."https://www.google.com/recaptcha/intro/v3.html

author: SparkyFX
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: June 26, 2019, 04:47:03 pm
content: What i want to point out is that such a double use case creates a hen-or-egg problem, you would need to present the set to actual people to actually train AI, but only present it to people in case of doubt to be bots, because annoying your regular users is a bad idea, they might have registered already.I also heard that some platforms (private run blogs) present captchas in an annoying way to users that tried to post certain keywords - just to get rid of the same off-topic discussions - even if answered correctly - as a moderation tool so to speak. I mean the hoster can frame such methods in all kinds of shapes, but at some point it is time to be suspicous. In other words, it must not even be google at the other end.When do you typically see Captchas/ReCaptchas? Only when you try to post on a platform or register an account?

author: LapTop006
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: June 27, 2019, 01:00:21 pm
content: All this has been done before, such as the time4chan made moot the person of the year.