I think learning is more about losing neurons, not creating it. Or meatspace neural netowrks are less about changing weights and more about pruning connections.
I can't find the link, but I recently read an article that sugggested people with autism did less connection pruning during puberty than people without autism.
I'm not as worried about techs planting the images because even among people willing to break the law to make money, this is an area often considered too immoral to touch and the consequences are massive if caught. I'm more worried about people over reporting images and people having lives ruined over the mere allegations and investigations. Photos of your own kids running around a water sprinkler on a hot summer day can be enough for some busy body to call inappropriate. Even fully clothed images fall on the copine (spelling?) scale. Or maybe there is some films of people who specialize in looking young, but who are of age (I remember a court case where a court expert testified than someone was clearly underage, until that person showed up and proved they were of age and were a professional in the industry; imagine what could've happened if she hadn't shown up).
It goes beyond that. My father once tried to print some photographs through Wal-Mart. They refused to do so without a copyright waiver from the photographer--which was him. They looked at the images, decided they were "too professional", and proceeded to enforce the copyrights of the imaginary professional photographer.
Not only is this troubling from a law enforcement perspective, but it also provided him with a true story he could use to backhandedly brag about how great his photos are, and also an excuse to purchase expensive, top-of-the-line photo printers until the end of time. ~Thanks, Wal-Mart.~
There is good reason to avoid empowering busybodies to enforce laws on other people in public when they would have no standing to do so in a court. We simply can't trust random people to know the laws they purport to enforce, enforce them fairly and impartially, and preserve the rights of those they target for that enforcement. We can't even fully trust professional cops, judges, and lawyers with all that at once, which is why the legal system is set up to be adversarial.
If you witness a crime, you can certainly report it if you feel that's necessary, but paid informants and vigilante enforcers are a few steps too many down a very dark path.
The first three are policy / legislation issues. Rather than focus on the FBI / GeekSquad / See-something-say-something bits, take issue with what constitutes "illegal imagery".
Basically, all your concerns are about the scope of this, not the essence of it.
Yes, the core problem is the law. But until the law is fixed, I'll take issue with something that extends the application of the law.
And I think it does get to the essence of it, because of just how we quantify something as illegal. The laws are very poorly written, where the worse images possible are treated just as no more illegal than images that are on the borderline of legal (not to mention that the border itself is very fluid, especially when considering artistic images that would be illegal if they weren't artistic but which is left up to a random jury to make a judgment call on).
Why would you tell them, until such a time that you need to tell them? They have strong deterrent value, but there is no need to let others know until such a time as the deterrent value is needed.
So there is incentive for corruption with both public and private labs. The solution will require something far more drastic, which I'm not sure the population is willing to support given how many people don't like to use science when it disagrees with their emotional stances. As long as the population wants tough on crime stances, and are willing to dehumanize anyone charged (much less wrongly convicted), then the system is giving them what they want. So how can we change the voters so that they demand a more just legal system?
>Certain industries have a much slimmer margin than others.
I don't see how this has any impact. Either the companies that exist will find a way to make the market work, or they will leave and a new company will.
Seems fine to me. When I make a loss for a year, I still have to pay income tax. And by making it apply to all local business regardless of where the company is located, they can't hide from it if they want to do business with the market in the area. And if they don't, someone else will.
>Alternately, people who give advice likely experienced similar issues and overcame them.
Think about this like if someone was talking about fiscal matters. If you had someone who worked their way into the middle class telling poor people helpful tips to do the same, what is the chance they are overlooking factors in their success that aren't easily replicated for others or which was more based on luck?
I grew up in the middle of rural nowhere where most my old classmates hold minimum wage jobs if they have jobs. I worked hard to get ahead, but I was also assisted by things outside of my control. Natural talents and lucky opportunities being the two largest ones. Socially it's the opposite.
For example, contacting a stranger to ask for a ride can be as difficult for someone as learning a new programming language. Some can do it with no difficulty, others have a major block. What happens when someone tries a new hobby and realizes they are still isolated, even from the community of others engaged in the same hobby?
Underlying a lot of this, be it for making friends or finding a career, is the issue of learned helplessness.
