Week 12
Jake's Consult and 3D Experiments
Pixel Oracle Website
Over the weekend, I was thinking about my pixel oracle experiment and felt there was more I could do with it. So I set myself a goal of materialising the system into a website.
v1: Wireframe + TeachableMachine Model
Wireframing + Interative TeachableMachine Model
I started with a brief instructional/explanation on the website. Followed by the interactive portion on the right, in which I had to upload my TeachableMachine model. Then I created a system that allowed the user to upload their own images to receive their reading.
Brief ASCII Rabbithole
I got a little distracted along the way, and thought about how to present the title text "pixel
oracle". I wanted to see what it would look like as an ASCII text.
ASCII generation
I then tried placing it where the title text would be, and I couldn't get it to be in the right format on VSCode.
At some point, I accidentally pasted the ASCII into the google search bar, and thought it looked pretty cool as a single line. (In fact, what if our searches were visualised as blocks like these, instead of text, almost like morse code?)
So, I ended up using the ASCII art as a divider for the page.
This was a slight digression, but it just got me interested in thinking of the deconstruction of ASCII text, and how it could symbolically hold the meaning of the orginally text, even when pulled apart.
v2: Interactive Model Testing + Explanation
Website + Explanation
The final website is pretty much the same, but I included a area below that explained the concept of the system. I wondered if I was overexplaining but I decided to just go ahead first, and then do some user testing afterwards.
Asking a tree for answers
Asking grandma for answers
Feedback from friends
I got Zarer and Alda to try the website, and got a few feedback points from them. The overall feedback was that the website was not intuitive enough, and there was too much text. The explanation text could come at a later part of the website, and the process of inputting the image and reading could be more descriptive (visually) of the process of noise divination.
Feedback from Andreas
When I showed Andreas the website, he questioned the accuracy of the model. We tested a few images,
and most of them were showing "My Sources Say No..." as the answer. I wondered why this happened
because all the images that the model was trained on were truly random. I decided to consult Blackbox
AI.
Question:
My machine learning model is trained on 30 images of 1000x1000px, each pixel is randomly assigned a
black or white color, creating a truly random imgae. There are 3 classes and each class is trained
on 10 images. However, I seem to get the result "my sources say no" more than the other two. Why
could that be?
It suggested some possibilities:
Class Imbalance: Even though you trained on 10 images per class, there might be some subtle
imbalance
in the data that's causing the model to favor one class over others.
Random Chance: Given that your images are truly random, it's possible that by chance, the "my
sources
say no" class had patterns that were more distinctive or easier for the model to learn.
Model Overfitting: With only 30 images total, there's a high risk of overfitting. The model
might have
latched onto specific patterns in the "my sources say no" images that aren't actually
meaningful.
Threshold Effects: The model might be more confident in its "my sources say no" predictions,
leading
to more frequent selection of this class when applying classification thresholds.
Input Processing: If there's any preprocessing of the input images before classification that
differs
from the training process, it could inadvertently favor one class.
Model Architecture: The specific architecture of your model might be more prone to detecting
features
present in the "my sources say no" images.
Random Initialization: The initial random weights of the model could have led to a bias towards
one
class that persisted through training.
Testing Data Distribution: If you're testing on a small number of images, you might be seeing a
temporary bias in results that would even out with more tests.
Overall, I think this was a great exercise into initial user testing and getting feedback for the
website. I was able to identify a few problems that I could work on from here.
A few changes I intend of making are:
1. Overall, rethink the user experience and the amount of text it takes for them to understand the
concept. I want to experiment with the experiment as a physical interactive experience, maybe with a
camera.
2. Test the model again to see what the problem is, and why one result is more common than another.
Extension for Manifestation
I stumbled onto an article that talked about a trend of the Manifinsta.
Click to view article
I thought back to my writings about the ritual back in week 4. I believe this could be viewed as a modern "superstition" in which we get back what we put out into the universe (in this case, on the internet).
Some interesting quotes from the article:
“There’s a culture of self-deprecation online that I’ve started to reject”
"As young people continue to turn away from traditional organised religions, ideas and techniques
like manifestation are ultimately getting picked up by Silicon Valley-type apps and
companies."
"While posting that your job interview will go well or that your ex-boyfriend still definitely “needs
you” to ten people are harmless, the premise that everything you consume and engage with online builds
your future reality is terrifying."
This is yet another example of a well-meaning trend that finds its roots in our old divination
practices. The article warns of the risks of such trends, as they still allow insidious advertisements
to use the data we put up for its own gain. It seems only a matter of time before our personal
manifestations are used by algorithms to sell us a product, or used to manipulate us in other
ways.
This begs the question, is there a way we can create a self-contained manifestation portal that
doesn't rely on the internet?
Glance Back
A log of moments through the day
I was reminded of Maya Man's project 'Glance Back' that I found a while ago. The chrome extension
gets the user to take a photo of themselves at random moments of the day and type a short caption of
what they were doing at the moment.
The extension served as little interventions through the day to take the user out of the trance that
we often fall into while browsing the internet. Man stressed the importance that the images were
self-contained and saved to the local storage, making the experience one purely shared by the user
and the computer.
SFPC_Malware_Anthology.zip
A "virus" for lost emails
I also remembered seeing a series of projects by School for Poetic Computation students in which they created a series of "viruses" as interventions. The idea of a virus infiltrating the experience of a user, but turned on its head for positive interventions was so genius to me, and I wanted to see if I could create my own version of that.
Light a Candle
Lighting a Candle in Temples
I thought of the act of lighting a candle in temples that I used to do with my family. I dont have a
good picture
so the stock photo on the left will do.
I got an idea to create an extension that served as a user's personal manifestation platform. One
that was self-contained and did not require the user to post it on any online platform.
So I tried my hand at making an extension.
Asking a tree for answers