Concerned Photography
Every day at the Metra station in my town, an evangelical group sets up their station. Twenty feet away are homeless people, slumped or sleeping in waiting chairs, amid piles of trash and the smell of urine. Neither the evangelicals nor the homeless ever engage with each other, seemingly, one group offering the possibility of hope or help, and another not seeing either. One feels extreme cognitive dissonance.
I wanted to take a picture with my camera, but I decided to let my eyes take it instead. I wondered if others would take that same picture.
Apparently, AI cameras ("computational photography") can learn to take these pictures as well, and perhaps do it to provoke acts kindness and empathy, but the intention would have to be sincere.
Perhaps what stops people is the feeling of not having or making time.
Pico Iyer in an interview:
"When somebody is standing in the street with a hand extended, and in need, and people are walking past..the one fact that determines whether they'll stop and help the person is not income or background or race. It's just whether they have the time. If you don't have enough time, you don't have enough kindness in your life."
I wanted to take a picture with my camera, but I decided to let my eyes take it instead. I wondered if others would take that same picture.
Apparently, AI cameras ("computational photography") can learn to take these pictures as well, and perhaps do it to provoke acts kindness and empathy, but the intention would have to be sincere.
Perhaps what stops people is the feeling of not having or making time.
Pico Iyer in an interview:
"When somebody is standing in the street with a hand extended, and in need, and people are walking past..the one fact that determines whether they'll stop and help the person is not income or background or race. It's just whether they have the time. If you don't have enough time, you don't have enough kindness in your life."
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