[true_religion]

What end users are working with arbitrary files that they don’t know the identification of?

This entire use case seems to be one suited for servers handling user media.

[wongarsu]

File managers that render preview images. Even detecting which software to open the file with when you click it.

Of course on Windows the convention is to use the file extension, but on other platforms the convention is to look at the file contents

[michaelmior]

> on other platforms the convention is to look at the file contents

MacOS (that is, Finder) also looks at the extension. That has also been the case with any file manager I've used on Linux distros that I can recall.

[jdiff]

You might be surprised. Rename your Photo.JPG as Photo.PNG and you'll still get a perfectly fine thumbnail. The extension is a hint, but it isn't definitive, especially when you start downloading from the web.

[r0ze-at-hn]

Browsers often need to guess a file type

[michaelt]

Theoretically? Anyone running a virus scanner.

Of course, it's arguably unlikely a virus scanner would opt for an ML-based approach, as they specifically need to be robust against adversarial inputs.

[michaelmior]

> it's arguably unlikely a virus scanner would opt for an ML-based approach

Several major players such as Norton, McAfee, and Symantec all at least claim to use AI/ML in their antivirus products.

[scq]

You'd be surprised what an AV scanner would do.

https://twitter.com/taviso/status/732365178872856577