[ElongatedMusket]

I don't see the point of this. This app has a massively disproportionate number of helpers versus those needing assistance. Personally, I've had the app installed for 3 years and never once was asked to assist anyone. Why take the risk of AI providing false info and injuring someone when there's willing and able humans at the ready?

Are there a large number of users that feel like they are wasting volunteer time with menial tasks?

[famouswaffles]

Strictly speaking, Just because the app had excess helpers doesn't necessarily mean the visually impaired users wouldn't like assistance more often, just that they wouldn't bother others about it.

[kaibee]

Probably plenty of times you might want to ask the question specifically to something as impersonal as a machine. ie: how's this itchy spot I've had look?

[anonylizard]

There is tremendous dignity in being self-sufficient. It can be painful and humiliating to depend on others for simple tasks 'normal people' can do.

[xp84]

This is completely relatable, but also, it’s sometimes sad that our brains make us feel this way even at times when it’s truly no burden to help.

[gnicholas]

I've noticed that people like to ring up their private purchases at the pharmacy using the self-checkout. I wonder if purchases of such items have increased since the self-checkout option was opened, as people shift their purchases from other pharmacies to this one.

[latexr]

> just that they wouldn't bother others about it.

Considering how often I’ve seen the complaint from your parent post, it’s quite clear people don’t mind. Quite the opposite, they’d embrace the opportunity. Maybe the people who need assistance don’t realise that, but again, that complaint is quite common. I’d like to help but never signed up specifically because of that surplus.

So they had a solution based on humans who are eager to help and are replacing it with an automated system which when mistaken can have disastrous results and cause personal injury. Seems odd to me. A humanised approach is often seen as a positive and this cuts it out without necessity.

All that said, I don’t have any insider information. Perhaps the people who need assistant do prefer talking to a machine.

[adroniser]

I would personally feel pretty guilty about making use of the tool knowing i'm using someone else's time. Also privacy reasons I guess, it feels like there's a difference between a person seeing your photo and an ai seeing it.

[lolinder]

There's a blind person upthread who concurs that they avoid using it unless absolutely necessary [0]. I sympathize: Even if someone assures me that they're happy to do something for me, it's hard to believe they're not acting out of a sense of duty. This is probably especially true for someone who has a specific disability that they know breeds sympathy.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37675095

[mtrimpe]

Human assistants might also just be worse than AI assistants.

When I received my first (and only) BeMyEyes request I spent the first minute or so figuring out how to work the app and the video delay.

“Let me turn the volume up” “Oh wait it’s on my AirPods” “Could you move it more to the left?” “No your left.” “No; not that far”

I’m quite confident that I was a less than optimal assistant and an AI might’ve well done better than me.

[addaon]

It sounds like as part of the sign-up they should ask an experienced helper to make an "artificial" request of the new signee, to give them a chance to see the workflow and to provide an opportunity ask questions of someone who's been in the role that they've signed up for. If there's really an excess of helpers, generating one extra request per new future helper seems reasonable.

[mtrimpe]

I’d guess that they have a rating system and prefer assigning request to helpers who reliably perform well… which might be why I didn’t get repeat requests after my initial fumbling.

[addaon]

Sure, and that's an important tool for improving quality in the face of different skill levels / levels of effort. But that's independent of investing a bit in improving the skill level across the helper base; as you experienced, it's something where experience helps, and if your first time in the real flow is with an actual request, there's no way to avoid the helper needing to deal with both helping and learning simultaneously.

[dmazzoni]

And that's just one more thing that blind people don't want to have to deal with when they just want to go about their lives.

Humans are slow and unreliable. AI is fast and consistent.

Both are imperfect. You shouldn't rely on either one for something life-or-death. Nobody is using them to decide if it's safe to cross a street.

[lynx23]

It is about choice, ...

Thanks for being a volunteer. But please dont judge blind users if you apparently can not put yourself in ther shoes...

Yes, one reason is that some blind users dont want to waste volunteer time. Another reason is that volunteers are different, but the performance of the image AI is predictable. Another reason is that the AI OCR is fast, can also translate, and, surprise, the text is easier to handle later, for copy&paste.

Besides, the performance of the AI describing pictures is, sorry to say, a little bit above what the typical human is willing or capable of doing. IOW, some humans performs worse then the AI. Also, camera access is different from picture taking. I use volunteers when I need more interactive help, but I totally prefer the AI when I just need a single pic.

[imglorp]

I was sighted volunteer on a call with a fellow using a treadmill touchscreen. He already knew the menu flow but the UX was dynamic and it wasn't his screen or he could put locator dots on it (Lesson to all designers! Hardware can have physical buttons!). Our interaction was mostly him stating his goal determining the screen's starting state and then where UI elements were, and I would feed back his finger position like "a little left ... no, too far, now up a little ... ok hit it."

I think we can imagine an AI could describe the screen, and even find non-language visual elements if asked explicitly, like arrows or turtle vs hare icons etc. But is it ready to have shared context of how people need to interact with that UI?

[krisoft]

> But is it ready to have shared context of how people need to interact with that UI?

And what if it is not? Does the AI have to be useful for every single possible use case before it can be used?

You are reacting as if they are proposing to remove the already existing venues of help. When I see no sign of that.

[PoignardAzur]

Ehh, give it a few years.

[fullstop]

I've had it for five years and have had 8 or 9 calls, so you're right about it being very infrequent. You need to be mindful, at least on Android, that as the application is infrequently used that the OS may remove permissions. This feature can be disabled for Be My Eyes specifically.

As for menial tasks, I could definitely see people wanting to use this instead of calling a stranger for more personal matters -- at least initially.

[arbitrarian]

Thanks for being a volunteer. For me as a blind person, there still is that sense that I'm bothering someone when I ask for human assistance. I realize that this is not really rational, given how much people seem to appreciate the opportunity to help, but it takes some effort to overcome this in my own brain regardless.

[Angostura]

Both my ans my wife volunteer and both have taken calls. I suspect you can really brighten someone's day by asking for help :) Go at it !

[fullstop]

I wanted to let you know that I _race_ to answer a call as quickly as possible. If I didn't want to be called I never would have installed the app in the first place.

[tapoxi]

I think they care more about being a tech demo and positive press for OpenAI. There's no advantage here, only risk.

Not to mention I imagine the carbon cost of pushing this through AI is much higher than just using humans.

[dmazzoni]

No, this is genuinely a useful technology. Blind people are getting a ton of value out of it. It's way faster than humans, you can do it quietly without bothering anyone, and honestly it's better at describing some things than 90% of humans are.

There are a lot of things that are just tech demos. This is far more than that.

[lynx23]

You apparently have no personal experience wth needing help. Can you pleas take your AI-angst somewhere else, and leave the best innovation that assistive technologies have ever made, for those to discuss which actually know what they are talking about?

This sort of dismissive comment is very anti-social and full of hidden hatred. Projecting your squarrels with a company onto people that really need the help provided.

And before you click, I am that pissed because I am blind. You have absolutenly no idea what that means, and what BeMyEyes and BeMyAI did for us. Just go home and hate someone else please.

[robertlagrant]

> Just go home and hate someone else please.

I didn't read any hate towards anyone in the previous comment?

[tapoxi]

I'm sorry, but after seeing numerous self driving cars plow into people and no clear testing about what's safe when the platform already provides instant access to a live human, I'm really worried about technologies like this.

[bensonperry]

you've seen numerous self driving cars plow into people? i'd love to learn more, could you provide some links?

[tapoxi]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Elaine_Herzberg

[dmazzoni]

That death is of course tragic, but it's important to put it in context.

That's the only death of a self-driving car. That's the only one. There was a safety driver with their hands on the wheel, and they didn't see the pedestrian either. And that was an Uber self-driving car, and they've since canceled that project.

While incredibly tragic, it's not at all fair to say that self-driving cars are constantly plowing into people.

Waymo has driven more than 1 million miles with no human injuries. That's dramatically better than any human driver.

Cruise is a close second in number of miles, also with no human injuries.

[lynx23]

What makes you think random human volunteers are any safer when it comes to being trolled?

[latexr]

Be My Eyes has existed since 2015. If trolling is common, there should be reports of it online. A cursory search hasn’t revealed anything, but maybe you’ll find something.

[dmazzoni]

Trolling isn't a big problem, but many humans have good intentions but just aren't that helpful. Some want to be chatty or give unsolicited advice. Some just aren't very good at tech. Some just aren't very good at describing things clearly.

[canes123456]

Don’t you think blind people are smart enough to know when something requires a human to review versus an AI?

[hn_throwaway_99]

Is this some sort of sarcastic joke? No, I absolutely don't think that people who are unable to see could know whether the thing they cannot see could accurately be described by an AI.

[letmevoteplease]

Can you give an example of the dangerous situation you are imagining here? I do not see how this app could be dangerous unless combined with poor judgment and failure to follow instructions (e.g., do not use to read medicine labels, do not use to cross the road).

[itishappy]

You've come to this conclusion without setting eyes on my individual pill bottle collection? How?

Perhaps critical thinking is unrelated to sight?

[circuit10]

I’d say your comment is even more dismissive, because at least the one you replied to actually makes a point where yours is just a personal attack