
Automatically “block” people in images using a pretrained neural network - thefox
https://github.com/minimaxir/person-blocker
======
lwansbrough
The road to hell is paved with good intentions. And I think software engineers
are this century's key perpetrators of "good intentions." Here's a hint: if
you saw it in a dystopic thriller you probably don't need to build it, even
out of morbid curiosity.

~~~
bufferoverflow
You can't stop progress, even if it's negative. Especially something that is
relatively easy to make. If nukes were easy to make, we'd all be dead.

~~~
sametmax
You can't. But you can choose not to be part of it. I refused politely an
interview with google and facebook for the same reason in the past.

The world is what you make of it

People keep saying you can't change the world. That you can't do anything
about it.

Well yes you can. Don't be part of it.

Oh yes, there is a price to pay.

------
Scaevolus
This would combine well with an in-painting algorithm-- or the video
equivalents: [https://research.adobe.com/project/content-aware-
fill/](https://research.adobe.com/project/content-aware-fill/)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3uCV0JYMJ4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3uCV0JYMJ4)

~~~
abledon
Will someone kindly smash this repo [https://github.com/fivemok/image-
inpainting](https://github.com/fivemok/image-inpainting) together with the
submission?

~~~
minxomat
Or, [https://github.com/DmitryUlyanov/deep-image-
prior](https://github.com/DmitryUlyanov/deep-image-prior)

------
panic
Why are we building the technology of a dystopia? What happened to shows like
Star Trek which gave us more helpful goals to work toward?

~~~
krapp
The Star Trek whose utopia needed a world war against the ethnic cleansing of
genetically engineered Nazi supermen and an alien invasion to "civilize"
humanity in the post-apocalyptic aftermath? After which which humankind just
_somehow_ evolved beyond the petty desires and violent impulses that had
hitherto been baked into its primate genome for millions of years?

I love Star Trek but one person's utopia is another person's dystopia, it's
just a matter of perspective.

And as far as technology goes, the original series predicted a couple of
things, and we got a Space Shuttle named after the Enterprise, but most of it
is magic and therefore useless to the real world. No matter how hard we work
or how much we believe in ourselves we're never getting matter replication or
transporters or holodecks that will create sentient life on command.

We could look at the _ideals_ of Star Trek, but remember that what we see is
quasi-militaristic, autocratic and there is no real sign anywhere of privacy
or freedom from the surveillance infrastructure of the computer. Even the
transporters keep copies of people's entire genetic code.

~~~
pluma
Depends. In TNG the outlook tends to be far more rosy than in DS9 or DIS.
There were a few episodes which hinted at darker tendencies in Starfleet but
those usually turned out to be corrupt individuals or some kind of alien
influence.

Having grown up with TNG my impression of the Federation was much like what
the US was pretending to be prior to 9/11 (i.e. prior to "world police"), a
beacon of liberty, equality and hope for mankind, but with all the ills of
real-world USA eliminated by scientific progress and a more idealistic and
altruistic society.

The show had a few militaristic undertones initially but they mostly went away
in season 2 and later, except for the ranks. The ranks and offensive
capabilities are lampshaded a number of times but Picard and other characters
frequently prove that those are just born out of necessity and for self-
defense, never to attack. The Borg represent such a threat exactly because
they are not interested in diplomacy and Starfleet has to fight an all-out war
to survive them -- unlike the Romulans or Klingons who even at the worst of
times mostly didn't outright attack them.

------
MBCook
“I thought what I'd do was, I'd pretend I was one of those deaf-mutes.”

~~~
rootsudo
Also, that Black Mirror episode.

Edit: Turns out it's exactly what the author intended. Damn.

~~~
downer67
Not exactly “intended”, but rather, for want of a better quote, the person
you’ve replied to, chose Ghost In The Shell reference, based on a J.D.
Salinger quote.

The “ _author_ ”, meanwhile, wrote the article we’re discussing in this HN
thread.

------
d33
This doesn't seem to work for me. I ran "python person_blocker.py -i
images/img1.jpg -l" after installing dependencies and I only get:

/home/d33tah/virtualenv-py3/lib/python3.6/site-packages/h5py/__init__.py:36:
FutureWarning: Conversion of the second argument of issubdtype from `float` to
`np.floating` is deprecated. In future, it will be treated as `np.float64 ==
np.dtype(float).type`.

    
    
      from ._conv import register_converters as _register_converters
    

Using TensorFlow backend.

2018-03-31 12:53:18.777911: I
tensorflow/core/platform/cpu_feature_guard.cc:140] Your CPU supports
instructions that this TensorFlow binary was not compiled to use: AVX2 FMA
/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/scipy/misc/pilutil.py:480: FutureWarning:
Conversion of the second argument of issubdtype from `int` to
`np.signedinteger` is deprecated. In future, it will be treated as `np.int64
== np.dtype(int).type`.

    
    
      if issubdtype(ts, int):
    
    

/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/scipy/misc/pilutil.py:483: FutureWarning:
Conversion of the second argument of issubdtype from `float` to `np.floating`
is deprecated. In future, it will be treated as `np.float64 ==
np.dtype(float).type`.

    
    
      elif issubdtype(type(size), float):

~~~
minimaxir
Author here: All of these are warnings, they shouldn't block the script. Check
the current directory for person_blocked.jpg and person_blocked.gif.

~~~
d33
Thanks! That helped.

------
userbinator
What's next, cameras that refuse to take pictures of specific things? I find
this unsettlingly creepy.

~~~
slig
Scanners have been refusing to scan certain things for ages.

~~~
toomanybeersies
It's always a "fun" party trick at the office to show people that you can't
scan money.

~~~
fibers
In a stallman-esque world, this is just a problem in installing custom
firmware in the scanner, right?

------
thisisit
This reminds me of the character _Laughing Man_ in the anime Ghost in the
Shell:

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_in_the_Shell:_Stand_Al...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_in_the_Shell:_Stand_Alone_Complex)

------
gus_massa
In some cases the shape is too small and left a few pixels around the person,
or it has corners that are too sharp. Is it possible to add an option to
enlarge the shape a few pixels?

[Bonus points for another option to make soft shadows near the border of the
shape, so it is not so sharp.]

------
berbec
We are now a few steps away from Peril Sensitive Sunglasses. [1]

1:
[http://www.hhgproject.org/entries/perilsensitivesunglasses.h...](http://www.hhgproject.org/entries/perilsensitivesunglasses.html)

------
garyfirestorm
What purpose does this serve? I'm genuinely curious what are the applications
of this?

~~~
matte_black
Imagine wearing AR glasses and blocking out people you find annoying or
disagree with.

~~~
Tempest1981
Or animals that frighten you.

------
Keloo
Prepare your bicycle!!!

