[SystemSafety] AI attains an understanding of aesthetics, podiatry - and possibly double-entendre and irony ... ?????

[Olwen Morgan]

A couple of days ago some piece of software on my Android phone asked me 
if I wanted to delete what it labelled "Bad photos".

The snaps in question were of my father's feet. He has dementia and is 
now forgetting to wash his feet and cut his toenails. As a result, the 
feet were a bit pongy (fungal infection?) and the toenails were *very* 
long. I wouldn't touch them for fear of injuring Dad. The local podiatry 
service was not at the time doing domiciliary visits, so I took a 
picture of Dad's feet and took them to his GP's surgery where, on seeing 
the pics, the staff arranged for the district nurse to call to assess 
the situation and do the immediately necessary. It was these pictures, 
which are hardly appealing to look at, and definitely of feet in not too 
good a state, that some clever-dick software decided were "bad".

If some AI specialist suggests that this is because the software can now 
recognise both a lack of aesthetic qualities as well as podiatric 
conditions, I swear I will take out a contract to have them terminated 
with extreme prejudice ... :-O


Olwen