I figured a subtler bio change would be more-effective than a big old ‘do not interact’ list, but can’t say I didn’t think about it for a long-ass time 😛

@stroughtonsmith The number of people who want to tell you off on the Internet, even if they don't understand the subject, is rather amazing 🙂

When I first got into machine learning a few years ago, I created an image classifer for Terry Pratchettt cover art — to classify which artist had created a particular piece of art.

I was very proud of it and immediately went to a sub-reddit devoted to Discworld because I'd lurked there for a long time and I thought they were pretty cool people and wanted to share something Discworld related.

You should have seen the reactions — at least the initial ones 🙂Somebody (who obviously didn't understand what an image classifier was) told me that I should leave art to the artists and move on.

I was totally surprised by the tone and by the fact that they were supposed to have been a PTerry fan. PTerry loved tech and would probably have embraced machine learning is what I think.

But anyway, cooler heads prevailed after I stood my ground but it was weird. And that was in the early days. Nowadays, I just don't talk about machine learning or deep learning just because most people who want to tell you off don't even understand what they are talking about 😛

@stroughtonsmith People seem to confuse "statements that sound like incendiary hot takes" with "seriously considered opinions, based on decades of facts, that happen to be controversial as they are outside of the status quo." You have been at this for 14 years (that I know of, and probably longer), but only recently are those opinions being interpreted as the former; this is a reflection on the posture of the industry, and not yourself. Keep it up!

@stroughtonsmith “do not bring negativity” should be Internet 101 but sadly many people take this opportunity to be far ruder than they’d ever be in person