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The First Lady of the Internet · Stuff Mom Never Told You

0:05
Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and Samantha and welcome to stuff
0:07
Speaker 1: I never told you are picture of iHeartRadio. And today
0:19
Speaker 1: we are once again thrilled to be joined by the fabulous,
0:21
Speaker 1: the fantastic Bridget Todd to welcome Bridget.
0:25
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for having me.
0:27
Speaker 3: It's always such a joy when I get to start
0:29
Speaker 3: my week talking to you all.
0:31
Speaker 4: Yes, I feel like you have an extra glow. Maybe
0:34
Speaker 4: it's because you've been like soaking in all of the
0:36
Speaker 4: sun on the beautiful beaches abroad. I've been stalking you
0:41
Speaker 4: on Instagram and I'm like, how is this woman always traveling?
0:44
Speaker 4: And I miss and I'm sad that I'm not.
0:46
Speaker 2: I'm just kidding. Oh you all should have come.
0:49
Speaker 3: We actually so, I was in Mazatlan, Mexico for a
0:53
Speaker 3: clips to be in a hospitality. We actually it was
0:56
Speaker 3: one of those trips where we'd invited all of our friends.
0:59
Speaker 2: We're gonna get a big house on the beach.
1:01
Speaker 3: It's gonna be amazing, and then all of our friends
1:03
Speaker 3: are in and then one by one by one by one,
1:07
Speaker 3: I'm just there.
1:07
Speaker 2: Alone, essentially.
1:09
Speaker 4: No very enjoyed it.
1:12
Speaker 3: I enjoyed it. I love Mexico. It is one of
1:15
Speaker 3: my favorite places. It was my first time in Mazatlan.
1:19
Speaker 3: Ten out of ten completely recommend.
1:21
Speaker 5: Okay, did you see the eclipse and totality?
1:25
Speaker 2: I saw the eclipse of totality.
1:26
Speaker 3: It was my first time ever being in the path
1:29
Speaker 3: of totality of an eclipse.
1:31
Speaker 2: Have you have either of you ever experienced this?
1:33
Speaker 6: No?
1:33
Speaker 5: Yes? Once?
1:35
Speaker 2: What were your thoughts, Annie, I am dying to know.
1:41
Speaker 5: Oh my gosh.
1:42
Speaker 1: If this was a different podcast, we would go into
1:44
Speaker 1: a whole separate thing because I had like a relationship
1:47
Speaker 1: issue that was happening on this day.
1:51
Speaker 5: And kind of a drama situation.
1:55
Speaker 1: So a lot of times when I look back at it,
1:57
Speaker 1: a lot of the pictures I took, I was like,
1:58
Speaker 1: oh wow, we were fighting. But it was also a
2:05
Speaker 1: work event that I was at, so there was that layer.
2:08
Speaker 1: But it was beautiful. It was so cool. I it
2:12
Speaker 1: sounds silly, but I love space, like I like love.
2:15
Speaker 1: The stars are like my favorite thing, So it was
2:18
Speaker 1: really really cool to see. It was not what I
2:22
Speaker 1: quite expected because the glasses. Samanth and I were joking
2:26
Speaker 1: about this recently, but the glasses feel so funny because
2:29
Speaker 1: you're like looking around like they're not working and then
2:33
Speaker 1: you like find the space you're supposed to look at.
2:37
Speaker 1: I was just like very very happy to see it, honestly,
2:41
Speaker 1: like all that drama I was working aside, I remember thinking,
2:45
Speaker 1: this is really cool that I get to see this,
2:47
Speaker 1: and I'm really happy that I get to see this.
2:49
Speaker 2: Yes, that was what I remember too.
2:52
Speaker 3: I burst into tears, and the next day I woke
2:57
Speaker 3: up in the middle of the night in a panic
3:00
Speaker 3: because I was worried that I will forget what it
3:03
Speaker 3: looked like being in totality like that, Like that's how
3:07
Speaker 3: like I had never seen it, but he'd never see
3:09
Speaker 3: anything like it. Anybody who listens to their no girls
3:11
Speaker 3: on the internet is probably so sick of me talking
3:13
Speaker 3: about this eclipse, and I am fully making seeing this
3:17
Speaker 3: total eclipse like my personality. But it's kind But yeah,
3:22
Speaker 3: I'm already planning where I will go for the next one,
3:24
Speaker 3: So I guess I will see y'all in I think,
3:27
Speaker 3: what is it, Spain?
3:30
Speaker 2: So that's that's the one.
3:32
Speaker 3: The next the next one that you can see if
3:34
Speaker 3: you can go to Spain and see I think in
3:36
Speaker 3: twenty twenty six.
3:38
Speaker 2: Ok So, but then the one that you're referring.
3:40
Speaker 3: To, Sam is like, don't quote me on any of this,
3:43
Speaker 3: but that's supposed to be like the big one, the
3:45
Speaker 3: big one that we will probably be able.
3:46
Speaker 2: To see in our lifetimes.
3:48
Speaker 3: And I think it's in parts of the African continent.
3:53
Speaker 2: I want to say, Morocco. Don't quote me on that either.
3:56
Speaker 5: Yeah.
3:56
Speaker 4: I did say at one point, like you would be
3:57
Speaker 4: able to view it in the US. That's the next
4:00
Speaker 4: time you'll be able to. And I don't know it
4:01
Speaker 4: is like the actual like the totality, as you say,
4:05
Speaker 4: but like I don't know, because I know nothing about this.
4:09
Speaker 4: That's the only I.
4:10
Speaker 2: Know the date, in no kindness for this past eclipse.
4:13
Speaker 3: Earlier this month, we had done so much planning, including
4:17
Speaker 3: like looking at farmer's almanacs to see what the weather
4:20
Speaker 3: and cloud coverage is like this time of year. And
4:22
Speaker 3: that's how we settled on Mazetlan, Mexico, because it was
4:25
Speaker 3: the place that is closest to us on the East
4:28
Speaker 3: coast in the United States that was most likely to
4:32
Speaker 3: not have cloud coverage in April because you could see
4:35
Speaker 3: it from Vermont and upstate New York and Texas. But
4:37
Speaker 3: a lot of those places in April might be cloudy,
4:39
Speaker 3: and so I have friends who were in Vermont and
4:42
Speaker 3: Upstate New York who were like, Oh, We're just gonna
4:44
Speaker 3: see it from our house, and I'm like, oh, will you.
4:47
Speaker 3: Then on the morning of the eclipse in Mazetlan, Mexico,
4:50
Speaker 3: we'd been there for a week. Every single day it's
4:53
Speaker 3: like a beautiful, cloudless, blue sky day. So I wake
4:56
Speaker 3: up on April eighth, the day of the eclipse, and
4:58
Speaker 3: it's cloudy, the first day we've had in Mexico for
5:01
Speaker 3: the entire week we have been there. Luckily, during the
5:05
Speaker 3: eclipse time, the clouds did part, so we did get
5:08
Speaker 3: to see it, but there would have been a lot
5:10
Speaker 3: of feelings had we not been able to see it.
5:13
Speaker 5: It's a lot of pressure to put on a trip
5:15
Speaker 5: like that. Honestly, it's pressure to put on the eclipse.
5:18
Speaker 4: I mean, it exists.
5:20
Speaker 2: It's not their fault.
5:24
Speaker 3: So you can can contact like the manager of the
5:27
Speaker 3: Sky to be like, actually, we didn't get a good view, and.
5:31
Speaker 4: We were like, okay, for y'all who are Christians here,
5:34
Speaker 4: tell this got it. Truly, we get canceled.
5:39
Speaker 2: We were like.
5:40
Speaker 3: Getting a little superstitious, like the things that we were
5:42
Speaker 3: doing to try to like ensure good sky. It was
5:47
Speaker 3: getting a little a little out there.
5:49
Speaker 2: We'll just leave it at that.
5:50
Speaker 4: He brought a shaman in. I guess we're going in.
5:53
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, Bridgiet, I want to ask so many questions.
5:57
Speaker 2: About this later.
6:02
Speaker 5: Oh well, I'm very glad that you got to see it.
6:04
Speaker 5: It is.
6:05
Speaker 1: It is amazing, like truly and over on the other
6:09
Speaker 1: podcast I Do Savor, we did an episode on like
6:13
Speaker 1: weird companies making money off of the eclipse with their products,
6:18
Speaker 1: and I have heard from so many people about the
6:20
Speaker 1: foods they made for the eclipse, and it's brought me
6:22
Speaker 1: so much story. So oh oh yeah, like totalityea, like tea, oh,
6:29
Speaker 1: oh my gosh, so many things like this. So I
6:32
Speaker 1: feel like we have a couple of we have some
6:34
Speaker 1: years to brainstorm things like this.
6:38
Speaker 4: Next giant celebration, but keep that.
6:41
Speaker 5: In the back of your head, you know.
6:43
Speaker 3: Oh, next time, definitely doing eclipse themed at food party
6:46
Speaker 3: or dinner party or something.
6:48
Speaker 2: I love that.
6:49
Speaker 5: Yes, there's a so many puns.
6:52
Speaker 1: I will I will hold myself back for now, but
6:57
Speaker 1: I have to say I am very very excited to
6:59
Speaker 1: talk about the topic he brought today, Bridget because it
7:02
Speaker 1: is a thing that I love of like the history
7:04
Speaker 1: of something I think a lot of people don't question
7:06
Speaker 1: the history of and it's fascinating and I didn't know
7:09
Speaker 1: about it. So can you tell us what we're discussing today?
7:13
Speaker 3: I feel the exact same way, And today we are
7:15
Speaker 3: talking about the Lenna image.
7:17
Speaker 2: Is this something that either of you had ever heard of?
7:20
Speaker 5: I do not know. I've not known.
7:23
Speaker 2: So even if.
7:24
Speaker 3: You're listening and you're like, what is the Lenna image,
7:26
Speaker 3: I've never heard of this image. I've never seen this image.
7:28
Speaker 3: Even if you don't know the story and you don't
7:30
Speaker 3: feel like you've ever seen this image before, you kind
7:33
Speaker 3: of do know this image, because, as Linda Kinsler puts
7:36
Speaker 3: it in a really meaty piece for wireds that I'll
7:38
Speaker 3: be referencing a few times in this conversation. She writes,
7:41
Speaker 3: whether or not you know her face, you've used the
7:44
Speaker 3: technology it helped create practically every photo you've ever taken,
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Speaker 3: every website you've ever visited, every meme you've ever shared.
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Speaker 3: Owes some small debt to Lenna, and it really is
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Speaker 3: exactly as you were saying, Annie, one of those stories
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Speaker 3: that is found fundational to the Internet and technology that
8:02
Speaker 3: you don't necessarily think of don't necessarily think of how
8:05
Speaker 3: it came to be, And especially I think it's one
8:08
Speaker 3: of those stories that says a lot about technology on
8:13
Speaker 3: you know, here on Sminty, we've had plenty of conversations
8:15
Speaker 3: about this. I've had many conversations about this on their
8:18
Speaker 3: No Girls on the Internet, about how things like massogyny
8:21
Speaker 3: are kind of can sort of be baked into the
8:24
Speaker 3: foundation of technology. And I think that is one of
8:27
Speaker 3: the reasons why tech is so often perpetuating misogyny, not
8:31
Speaker 3: because it's some sort of an unfortunate bug, but because
8:34
Speaker 3: this misogyny can be sort of foundational in some ways.
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Speaker 3: And I think this image really is a good example
8:40
Speaker 3: of what I mean. And I think, especially as we're
8:42
Speaker 3: having conversations about the rise of things like new toify
8:45
Speaker 3: apps and AI generated adult content creators, we're seeing what
8:51
Speaker 3: is kind of becoming a marketplace that is men making
8:55
Speaker 3: money off of the bodies and or labor of women
8:59
Speaker 3: without their consent, certainly without their compensation. And I think
9:03
Speaker 3: this situation in the Lenna image, where the image of
9:06
Speaker 3: a woman went on to create this entire field of
9:09
Speaker 3: technology without her consent, can perhaps really tell us something
9:13
Speaker 3: about where we're headed in twenty twenty four.
9:15
Speaker 1: Yes, absolutely, especially when you consider where it comes from,
9:18
Speaker 1: which I know we'll talk about. But also, yeah, these
9:20
Speaker 1: conversations we're having now about like actors perhaps not given
9:25
Speaker 1: their consent to being used in certain ways. Just and honestly,
9:30
Speaker 1: it ekes sense to all of us if you've posted
9:31
Speaker 1: an image online, right, not consenting to using an image,
9:35
Speaker 1: to an image getting used in a certain way. But
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Speaker 1: so much about this history is fascinating because it feels
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Speaker 1: so standardized, which is odd. Can you tell us about that?
9:46
Speaker 2: Totally?
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Speaker 3: So for folks who don't know, the Lenna image is
9:50
Speaker 3: literally an image of this woman, Lenna Lenna Forsin. She
9:54
Speaker 3: is a woman from Sweden who in the seventies was
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Speaker 3: a model. So this kind of sensual image of her
10:00
Speaker 3: wearing a tan hat with a purple feather flowing down
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Speaker 3: her bare back, staring kind of seductively over one shoulder.
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Speaker 3: That image of her was published in Playboy in nineteen
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Speaker 3: seventy two. She was essentially a playmate. That image would
10:13
Speaker 3: go on to become what's called a standard test image.
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Speaker 2: So big caveat here. I am not an engineer.
10:20
Speaker 3: If I say something that is you're like, if you're
10:22
Speaker 3: an engineer listening, and you're like, that's not totally correct.
10:25
Speaker 2: I am at an engineer.
10:26
Speaker 3: But here is a definition of what a standard test
10:29
Speaker 3: image is that I found from caggle dot com, which
10:32
Speaker 3: is like a developer community site. They say a standard
10:35
Speaker 3: test image is a digital image file used across different
10:38
Speaker 3: institutions to test image processing and image compression algorithms. By
10:42
Speaker 3: using the same standard test images, different labs were able
10:45
Speaker 3: to compare results both visually and quantitatively. The images are
10:48
Speaker 3: in many cases chosen to represent natural or typical images
10:52
Speaker 3: that a class of processing techniques would need to deal with.
10:55
Speaker 3: Other test images are chosen because they present a range
10:58
Speaker 3: of challenges to image reconstrut dirduction algorithms, such as the
11:01
Speaker 3: reproduction of fine detail and textures, sharp transitions and edges.
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Speaker 2: And uniform reasons.
11:06
Speaker 3: So basically, to put that in Layman's terms, a standard
11:10
Speaker 3: test image is like a test image that tests to
11:13
Speaker 3: make sure that the technology is working as it should be,
11:17
Speaker 3: or like rendering the way that it should be. Lenna's
11:19
Speaker 3: image is not the only common standard test image. There's
11:23
Speaker 3: also one that is like a bunch of different colored
11:26
Speaker 3: jelly beans on a table. There's another one that's called
11:29
Speaker 3: peppers that's just a bunch of different colored like red
11:31
Speaker 3: and green peppers, like calapeno peppers. So this is just
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Speaker 3: a thing that becomes a way for technologists to test
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Speaker 3: that the image generating technology is working correctly.
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Speaker 1: I do think this is very interesting for a lot
11:43
Speaker 1: of reasons. But if you have like jelly beans and peppers,
11:46
Speaker 1: those are things to be consumed. Then when you're thinking
11:51
Speaker 1: about where they got this image from a Lena, like,
11:55
Speaker 1: how did this happen? How did this image become this
11:59
Speaker 1: standard testing thing?
12:02
Speaker 2: So this is actually a pretty interesting story.
12:04
Speaker 3: The story of Helena's Playboy picture becomes this standard test
12:07
Speaker 3: image that is everywhere and very ubiquitous, starts with computer
12:11
Speaker 3: and electrical engineer Alexander Sawchuk. According to the newsletter for
12:15
Speaker 3: the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, or the I
12:19
Speaker 3: triple E, as I have found out it's sometimes called.
12:22
Speaker 2: I was talking to somebody about this and I was like, oh,
12:24
Speaker 2: the I E E ee, and they were like, it's
12:27
Speaker 2: just the I triple E.
12:30
Speaker 5: I want to I E E.
12:34
Speaker 4: Actually the I E exactly.
12:38
Speaker 2: So it's the summer of nineteen seventy three.
12:40
Speaker 3: Alexander Sawchuk was an assistant professor of electrical engineering at
12:43
Speaker 3: the University of Southern California and also a grad student
12:46
Speaker 3: in the sip I lab as a manager. As the
12:49
Speaker 3: story goes, he's like frantically searching around the lab for
12:52
Speaker 3: a good image to scan for a colleague's conference paper.
12:56
Speaker 3: He had just sort of gotten bored with their usual
12:58
Speaker 3: stock test images because they most had come from like
13:01
Speaker 3: nineteen sixties TV standards and then we're just a little
13:03
Speaker 3: bit dull. He wanted something glossy and sort of like
13:06
Speaker 3: fresh and dynamic, but he also wanted to use a
13:09
Speaker 3: human face specifically.
13:11
Speaker 2: Just then, as the story goes.
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Speaker 3: Somebody happens to walk in holding the most recent issue
13:16
Speaker 3: of Playboy magazine.
13:18
Speaker 2: Why this person was bringing Playboy magazine into his workplace,
13:22
Speaker 2: I cannot tell you.
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Speaker 4: How good did you just come into your world institute?
13:26
Speaker 2: Okay?
13:27
Speaker 5: Cool?
13:27
Speaker 3: Yeah, Like, I mean, I do think that that sort
13:30
Speaker 3: of like gives you a sense of like the dynamics
13:34
Speaker 3: that we're dealing with. Right, that somebody just happens to
13:36
Speaker 3: walk in with the with the most recent Playboy under
13:38
Speaker 3: their arm, right, the engineers tore away the top third
13:42
Speaker 3: of the centerfold so they could wrap it around the
13:44
Speaker 3: drum of their mrhead wire photo scanner, which they had
13:48
Speaker 3: outfitted with analog to digital converters, one for each red, green,
13:52
Speaker 3: and blue channels, and an HP twenty one hundred mini computer.
13:56
Speaker 3: So all of that to say is that they effectively
13:59
Speaker 3: crop to this image so that you can't see the
14:02
Speaker 3: models bears in the image, so it's just a picture
14:05
Speaker 3: of her from the shoulders up looking over her shoulder.
14:07
Speaker 3: It's still like quite a seductive photo, but the full
14:10
Speaker 3: photo has her like bare booty in it. She's wearing
14:13
Speaker 3: I look like a feather boa and like thigh high
14:16
Speaker 3: stockings looking over her shoulder. So back in the seventies
14:19
Speaker 3: and eighties, this image was really sort of like used
14:23
Speaker 3: in very limited cases. You could only really see it
14:25
Speaker 3: on dot org domains. It was pretty limited to like engineers.
14:29
Speaker 3: Then in July of nineteen ninety one, the image was
14:32
Speaker 3: featured on the cover of Optical Engineering, alongside that other
14:36
Speaker 3: test image of the different colored peppers. Funny enough, I
14:40
Speaker 3: took a look at that cover. It's all black and white,
14:43
Speaker 3: so I'm like, oh, I think they're trying to demonstrate
14:45
Speaker 3: that like these images had all these different dynamic colors,
14:48
Speaker 3: but both of them are rendered in black and white,
14:50
Speaker 3: kind of rendering that meaningless. So this is when Playboy
14:55
Speaker 3: gets wind of this, and they are not happy because
14:57
Speaker 3: it's basically copyright infringement, which this is not related to
15:01
Speaker 3: the story, but I always have to add this whenever
15:03
Speaker 3: it comes up how litigious Hugh Hefner and Playboy were.
15:07
Speaker 3: I always think this is very rich because, as y'll
15:09
Speaker 3: probably know, Hugh Hefner made an entire lucrative industry off
15:15
Speaker 3: of images of Marilyn Monroe that she did for a
15:18
Speaker 3: calendar company for which she was only paid fifty dollars.
15:21
Speaker 3: Many years after that photo shoot, Hugh Hefner bought those
15:25
Speaker 3: photographs from the calendar company republished them without Marilyn Monroe's
15:29
Speaker 3: consent or permission in nineteen fifty three. That was the
15:32
Speaker 3: first ever issue of Playboy. Hugh Hefner paid five hundred dollars.
15:36
Speaker 3: She got fifty dollars. Right, So, whenever I read about
15:38
Speaker 3: how litigious Playboy is, which they're very litigious, I always
15:42
Speaker 3: had to chuckle at that that, Oh, like, you don't
15:45
Speaker 3: want somebody profiting off of your intellectual property. But had
15:49
Speaker 3: no problem profiting off of a woman's body without compensating
15:54
Speaker 3: her fairly or even her consent.
15:55
Speaker 2: Interesting, this is like par for the course for him.
15:59
Speaker 2: Oh my Goodnes, don't even get me started with Shu Hefner.
16:02
Speaker 2: We will be here all day.
16:06
Speaker 4: The things that came out after he died, which I'm like, Wow,
16:09
Speaker 4: he had a pretty good, like powerful handle on people
16:12
Speaker 4: not talking until he died.
16:14
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh.
16:15
Speaker 3: I was listening to an episode of Celebrity memoir book
16:19
Speaker 3: Club where they read a lot of X playmate and
16:22
Speaker 3: ex Playboy bunny memoirs.
16:24
Speaker 2: Some of the things that they write about, I'm like,
16:26
Speaker 2: oh my god.
16:27
Speaker 3: Like even even Lenna in an interview, she talks about
16:30
Speaker 3: how in the seventies, after this photo shoot, she was
16:33
Speaker 3: invited to go to the Playboy mansion, and the quote
16:36
Speaker 3: is something like, they made it clear in the invites
16:39
Speaker 3: that I would have to spend time with Hugh Hefner
16:41
Speaker 3: while he was in his dressing robe, and I said no, thanks.
16:47
Speaker 5: I mean she already knew.
16:50
Speaker 6: Was like yeah, yeah.
17:04
Speaker 3: So Playboy threatens to sue these engineers, and at this point,
17:07
Speaker 3: the engineers, it sounds like, had like grown very fond
17:10
Speaker 3: of using this image so they fought back. Eventually, Playboy
17:13
Speaker 3: back down because, as a Playboy vice president put it, quote,
17:17
Speaker 3: we decided we should exploit this because it is a phenomenon.
17:20
Speaker 3: So yeah, by his own words like, oh, let's exploit this.
17:24
Speaker 6: Yeah.
17:25
Speaker 2: No, talk about the fact that this is.
17:27
Speaker 3: Two groups of men fighting over who owns this image
17:31
Speaker 3: of a woman, in one case being used in a
17:34
Speaker 3: manner that is completely without her consent or control. It
17:37
Speaker 3: just it already from the beginning, it just feels to
17:39
Speaker 3: me like men fighting over how they can use a
17:43
Speaker 3: woman's representation that I think is so foundational to some
17:47
Speaker 3: of the conversations we're having about technology like AI right
17:50
Speaker 3: here in twenty twenty.
17:51
Speaker 1: Four, absolutely, and she did become pretty foundational, right.
17:58
Speaker 3: Oh, absolutely, So this is when the image of Lena
18:01
Speaker 3: really becomes super popular. The whole drama about the cover
18:05
Speaker 3: catapults this image into what you might think of as
18:08
Speaker 3: like early internet virality or popularity.
18:10
Speaker 2: This was in nineteen ninety five.
18:12
Speaker 3: The use of the photo and electronic imaging has been
18:14
Speaker 3: described as clearly one of the most important events in history.
18:18
Speaker 3: It is truly hard to overstate how ubiquitous this one
18:21
Speaker 3: image is in technology. There is this fascinating interactive piece
18:25
Speaker 3: by Jennifer Ding at the Pudding.
18:27
Speaker 2: The piece is so cool.
18:28
Speaker 3: It's like one of those interactive pieces that has a timeline.
18:31
Speaker 2: Definitely check it out. But in that piece, Ding.
18:34
Speaker 3: Actually includes a freeze frame of the show Silicon Valley
18:38
Speaker 3: on HBO where in the background there is a poster
18:42
Speaker 3: with the Lenna image on the wall right. So this
18:44
Speaker 3: image is also included in scientific journals just all over
18:47
Speaker 3: the place.
18:48
Speaker 2: Ding found that within the dot edu.
18:50
Speaker 3: World, so like websites related to education, the Lenna image
18:54
Speaker 3: continues to appear in homework questions, class slides, and to
18:58
Speaker 3: be hosted on educational and research sites, ensuring that it
19:01
Speaker 3: will be passed down to new generations of engineer. So
19:04
Speaker 3: this became so popular that Lenna herself is often called
19:09
Speaker 3: the first Lady of the Internet.
19:11
Speaker 1: Wow, yeah, I kuld of like her taking that picture
19:14
Speaker 1: having no idea that this is what would happen, Which, yeah,
19:18
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess that speaks to the next.
19:19
Speaker 5: Question, why did this image take off the way that
19:23
Speaker 5: it did?
19:24
Speaker 2: Well? If you asked David C.
19:25
Speaker 3: Munson, who is the editor in chief of the I
19:28
Speaker 3: E or the Tripoli Transactions on Image processing, he said
19:34
Speaker 3: that the image happened to meet all of these requirements
19:36
Speaker 3: for a good test image because of its detail, it's
19:39
Speaker 3: flat regions, shading, and texture. But even he will not
19:44
Speaker 3: leave out the obvious fact that it's also a picture
19:46
Speaker 3: of like a seductive, sexy young woman. Duh, right, Like
19:50
Speaker 3: that's that's definitely part of it. He says, the Lena
19:53
Speaker 3: image picture is of an attractive woman. It is not
19:55
Speaker 3: surprising to me that the mostly male image processing research
19:58
Speaker 3: community gravitated toward an image that they found attractive. And
20:02
Speaker 3: so I do think there's something about these highly male
20:07
Speaker 3: dominated spaces where it's not just that there's a lot
20:10
Speaker 3: of men, it's like their worldviews, their interests, their perspectives,
20:15
Speaker 3: their biases that are really taking up a lot.
20:18
Speaker 2: Of space in these in these spaces.
20:21
Speaker 3: I just think that men feel like these spaces are theirs,
20:24
Speaker 3: and that they are free to decorate those spaces with
20:27
Speaker 3: the pretty women that they think they feel like they
20:29
Speaker 3: should be able to use without their consent or compensation.
20:33
Speaker 3: I just think that, like Annie, you mentioned earlier, that
20:36
Speaker 3: the other test images are these things that you consume, right,
20:39
Speaker 3: like peppers or jelly beans.
20:41
Speaker 2: There's another famous one of.
20:42
Speaker 3: A baboon that's like has different colors on its face.
20:46
Speaker 2: It's interesting to me that it's these.
20:47
Speaker 3: Things that are not human, things that are like animal
20:51
Speaker 3: or or that you consume that like throwing a sexy
20:54
Speaker 3: young woman into that mix. I don't think maybe seem
20:56
Speaker 3: like a huge departure for these guys.
20:58
Speaker 1: Yeah, and again, when you think about things in the
21:02
Speaker 1: realm of AI or even I know I've complained about
21:06
Speaker 1: this many times, but in the worlds of fandom are gaming,
21:10
Speaker 1: it's like that, it's like, you can come into our
21:11
Speaker 1: world on our terms and you wear what we want
21:13
Speaker 1: you to wear. You are here because we let you
21:16
Speaker 1: be here in this male dominated space, but you're gonna
21:19
Speaker 1: do what we want. It's not up to you. And
21:22
Speaker 1: that's the only way that you can you can be
21:25
Speaker 1: in this world. But that being said, there has been
21:31
Speaker 1: some pushback recently, ish right, Bridget.
21:35
Speaker 2: Yeah, So one thing about what you just said.
21:38
Speaker 3: When I was researching for this episode, some of the
21:40
Speaker 3: different engineers who had contributed to this image's popularity, they
21:46
Speaker 3: were quoted when they actually met the actual real Letta
21:49
Speaker 3: at a conference that she was invited to. They were like,
21:52
Speaker 3: I can't believe she's a real person. A part of
21:54
Speaker 3: me was like, you didn't even see her as a
21:56
Speaker 3: real human. They just saw her as something that they
21:58
Speaker 3: had got an image in a picture that they had
22:01
Speaker 3: been consuming for decades, and they had so removed her
22:04
Speaker 3: from being a real, breathing human that meeting her in
22:08
Speaker 3: real life was like they were surprised that she was real.
22:11
Speaker 3: And I think that really speaks to the sort of
22:13
Speaker 3: fandom element that you were talking about, this idea that
22:15
Speaker 3: like you can come if you are a fantasy and
22:20
Speaker 3: in some ways not even a real human.
22:23
Speaker 2: You know what I'm saying.
22:26
Speaker 1: You're like, do I ever, Yeah, Like, don't say anything
22:30
Speaker 1: that I don't like, like, keep quiet and look.
22:32
Speaker 5: The way I like, then you can be here. But
22:35
Speaker 5: oh you're a real person.
22:38
Speaker 2: Oh no, I don't.
22:38
Speaker 5: Want you hear it at all.
22:41
Speaker 3: Yeah, So you're exactly right, Annie. All of this happened,
22:44
Speaker 3: but it was not without pushback. Around like the twenty tens,
22:49
Speaker 3: people started publicly asking whether or not this image of
22:53
Speaker 3: a woman from Playboy should be so foundational to technology,
22:58
Speaker 3: especially in education seating, you know, given conversations about the
23:01
Speaker 3: need for more women in these spaces and how to
23:04
Speaker 3: make these spaces more inclusive and more diverse.
23:06
Speaker 2: That's really around when you start.
23:07
Speaker 3: Hearing like people in public being like, wait a minute,
23:10
Speaker 3: maybe this isn't so cool. In twenty fifteen, Mattie Zugg,
23:13
Speaker 3: who was then a student at the Thomas Jefferson High
23:15
Speaker 3: School for Science and Technology right here in DC riilive
23:18
Speaker 3: who I should say now is a product safety engineer
23:20
Speaker 3: at Apple who focuses on preventing tech and abled abuse
23:24
Speaker 3: and stalking and harassment on Apple platforms.
23:26
Speaker 2: So like go Maddie.
23:27
Speaker 3: Maddie sounds like she was cool in high school and
23:29
Speaker 3: is cool now. So Maddie wrote this op ed basically
23:33
Speaker 3: asking the question of like, should I, as.
23:35
Speaker 2: A high school student at at a STEM.
23:38
Speaker 3: High school, be given an image from Playboy as part
23:42
Speaker 3: of my education in technology and STEM? She writes, I
23:46
Speaker 3: first saw a picture of Playboy magazines Miss November nineteen
23:49
Speaker 3: seventy two. A year ago as a junior at TJ
23:53
Speaker 3: my artificial intelligence teacher told our class to search Google
23:56
Speaker 3: for Lenna Soderbird, not the full image though, and use
23:59
Speaker 3: her pick to test our latest coding assignment. At the time,
24:03
Speaker 3: I was sixteen and struggling to believe that I belonged
24:05
Speaker 3: in a male dominated computer science class. I tried to
24:08
Speaker 3: tune out the boy's sexual comments. Why is an advanced science, technology, engineering,
24:13
Speaker 3: and mathematics school using a Playboy centerfold in its classrooms?
24:17
Speaker 3: Her piece ends was saying it's time for TJ to
24:20
Speaker 3: say hello to inclusive computer science education and say goodbye
24:23
Speaker 3: to Lena. So Maddie was not the only person who
24:27
Speaker 3: was like, maybe this image shouldn't be the thing that
24:29
Speaker 3: all of our education is centered around. In that piece
24:32
Speaker 3: for Wired, I mentioned they talked to several women in technology.
24:35
Speaker 3: You had very similar stories. This one is actually pretty funny.
24:38
Speaker 3: Deanna and Needle, a math professor at UCLA, had similar
24:41
Speaker 3: memories from college. So in twenty thirteen, she and a
24:44
Speaker 3: colleague staged a quiet protest. They acquired the rights to
24:47
Speaker 3: a headshot of the male model Fabio Lonzoni and used
24:52
Speaker 3: that for their imaging research. So they kind of like
24:55
Speaker 3: turned it around, like, oh, you're gonna use a sexy woman,
24:57
Speaker 3: Well we'll use a sexy man.
24:59
Speaker 2: What do you think about that?
25:02
Speaker 5: I love it.
25:03
Speaker 3: So in that piece they actually track down and speak
25:07
Speaker 3: to the real Lenna, who also called for her image
25:10
Speaker 3: to be retired. She says, I retired from modeling a
25:13
Speaker 3: long time ago. It is time I retired from tech two.
25:16
Speaker 3: We can make a simple change today that creates a
25:18
Speaker 3: lasting change for tomorrow. Let's commit to losing me. And
25:23
Speaker 3: there's actually some news on that front, because as of
25:26
Speaker 3: April first of this year, that I Triple E officially
25:29
Speaker 3: retired the use of the Lenna image and announced they
25:32
Speaker 3: will no longer be using that image and their publications.
25:35
Speaker 3: Ours Technica points out that this is kind of a
25:37
Speaker 3: really big deal that will likely have a ripple effect
25:40
Speaker 3: in the space. Because the journal has been so historically
25:43
Speaker 3: important for computer imaging development, it'll likely set a precedent
25:47
Speaker 3: removing this image from common use. In an email, a
25:50
Speaker 3: spokesperson for the I Triple E recommended wider sensitivity about
25:54
Speaker 3: the issue, writing, in order to raise awareness of and
25:57
Speaker 3: increase author compliance with this new policy, program, committee members
26:01
Speaker 3: and reviewers should look for inclusion of this image, and
26:03
Speaker 3: if present, should ask authors to replace the Lenna image
26:06
Speaker 3: with an alternative.
26:08
Speaker 1: Yeah, I love that from Lenna herself, Like, let's commit
26:12
Speaker 1: to forgetting me. That's such a great line, but it
26:16
Speaker 1: does speak to it speaks volumes, as you've been saying,
26:20
Speaker 1: bridget to our attitude towards women on the internet and
26:25
Speaker 1: towards consent on the internet. And so when we're thinking
26:29
Speaker 1: about this, which was foundational, what do you think about
26:35
Speaker 1: this the legacy of this image.
26:38
Speaker 3: Yeah, I love that question. You know what I was
26:41
Speaker 3: reading about how this image came to be? I'm imagining
26:44
Speaker 3: a very different time, right, It's the seventies. People aren't
26:48
Speaker 3: necessarily having a lot of public loud conversations about the
26:52
Speaker 3: power dynamics of who's in the room and who's not
26:55
Speaker 3: in the room where a lot of this technology is
26:57
Speaker 3: getting built. And it really made me think of like, wow,
27:00
Speaker 3: the seventies, that probably was such a different time. But
27:03
Speaker 3: here in twenty twenty four, we are having those conversations,
27:06
Speaker 3: loud voices, are publicly having those conversations. There are women
27:11
Speaker 3: and people of color, and trans folks and queer folks
27:13
Speaker 3: and all kinds of folks who are building and making
27:16
Speaker 3: the technology that shapes our world today. And so in
27:19
Speaker 3: twenty twenty four, it almost feels like we are pretending
27:23
Speaker 3: that we're still in this nineteen seventies we didn't really
27:27
Speaker 3: know how who could have foreseen world? When in fact
27:31
Speaker 3: we're not really in that world. People are asking the
27:33
Speaker 3: questions people are raising the alarm, and I guess I
27:36
Speaker 3: don't think it should be several decades after AI technology
27:40
Speaker 3: becomes ubiquitous for people to start asking the question about
27:43
Speaker 3: how traditionally marginalized people like women are being used and
27:48
Speaker 3: represented and perhaps exploited without their consent in these spaces.
27:52
Speaker 3: I think it provides a really interesting precedent for what's
27:55
Speaker 3: going on here in twenty twenty four.
27:56
Speaker 2: And Jennifer Ding put it really well.
27:59
Speaker 3: She writes to me, the crux of the Lena story
28:01
Speaker 3: is how little power we have over our data and
28:04
Speaker 3: how it is used and abused. That threat seems disproportionately
28:08
Speaker 3: higher for women, who are overrepresented in Internet content but
28:12
Speaker 3: underrepresented in Internet company leadership and decision making. Given this reality,
28:17
Speaker 3: engineering and product decisions will continue to consciously and unconsciously
28:22
Speaker 3: exclude our needs and concerns, right, And so I really
28:25
Speaker 3: agree with that that this Leta story really is a
28:28
Speaker 3: story about power dynamics and who is represented in technology
28:32
Speaker 3: and who is just sort of like has their needs
28:35
Speaker 3: exploited or erased.
28:36
Speaker 2: Right Like.
28:38
Speaker 3: Men wanting to consume the bodies of women is like
28:42
Speaker 3: foundational to the Internet. It's like why we have the
28:45
Speaker 3: Internet the way that we have it, and I think
28:48
Speaker 3: we know that now it's like an objective fact about
28:52
Speaker 3: the Internet and technology. I don't think we can still
28:55
Speaker 3: make technology that does not honest about that, because if
28:59
Speaker 3: we're not being honest about that, we can never fix that,
29:02
Speaker 3: we can never question that, we can never have that
29:04
Speaker 3: be a dynamic that we stop perpetuating with technology.
29:08
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think it's like going back to the
29:10
Speaker 1: point about being in a classroom setting and being shown
29:14
Speaker 1: explicitly like this is how women are viewed in space.
29:17
Speaker 1: This is what built a lot of what we use today,
29:20
Speaker 1: and we're still talking about it is telling in itself,
29:23
Speaker 1: and especially when we're seeing that perpetuate in all of
29:27
Speaker 1: these tech spaces where it still feels in a lot
29:31
Speaker 1: of ways even though women in marginalized people have built
29:33
Speaker 1: those spaces that like you're the guest here and you're
29:38
Speaker 1: only here because we're opening our gates a little bit
29:43
Speaker 1: to let you in, but otherwise, yes, get out.
29:47
Speaker 3: And I just think that's a dynamic we need to
29:49
Speaker 3: be questioning in twenty twenty four. And I think so
29:52
Speaker 3: like something about the use of this image it's ubiquity
29:56
Speaker 3: in education spaces I find so telling. But also, even
30:00
Speaker 3: if you're not studying to be an engineer or something,
30:03
Speaker 3: I think there is a dynamic that says that if
30:05
Speaker 3: you are a person who is traditionally marginalized, you're not
30:08
Speaker 3: a decision maker, you're not a power holder, you're not
30:11
Speaker 3: doing or making anything that anybody needs to care about.
30:14
Speaker 3: And the entire dynamic is that we use you. In fact,
30:18
Speaker 3: so Ding actually points this out on her piece. She says,
30:21
Speaker 3: while social norms are changing toward non consensual data collection
30:24
Speaker 3: and data exploitation, digital norms seem to be moving in
30:27
Speaker 3: the opposite direction. Advancement and machine learning algorithms and data
30:31
Speaker 3: storage capabilities are only making data misuse easier, whether the
30:35
Speaker 3: outcome is revenge porn, or targeted ADS, surveillance, or discriminatory AI.
30:40
Speaker 3: If we want a world where our data can retire
30:42
Speaker 3: when it's outlived its time, or when it's directly harming
30:45
Speaker 3: our lives, we must create the tools and policies that
30:48
Speaker 3: empower data subjects to have a say in what happens
30:51
Speaker 3: to their data, including allowing their data to die. And
30:54
Speaker 3: so I think, even if you're not somebody who is
30:56
Speaker 3: a techie, that does concern you this dynamic that just says,
31:00
Speaker 3: we consume, we exploit, we make money from you, and
31:04
Speaker 3: you don't get to have a say about it. That's
31:06
Speaker 3: the dynamics that I think this Lena image really did
31:08
Speaker 3: usher in without really even necessarily meaning to.
31:22
Speaker 4: I think there's a big conversation here on like the
31:25
Speaker 4: power of capitalism within the tech industry and what makes money.
31:30
Speaker 4: I can't help but think, like with the Lina image,
31:33
Speaker 4: the fact that this toxicity was used to make more
31:36
Speaker 4: profit and more power within this industry. It took forty
31:40
Speaker 4: to fifty years for it to even have a conversation about,
31:43
Speaker 4: like let's change it, let's retire it. But the fact
31:46
Speaker 4: that it had that much pushback because they didn't care
31:48
Speaker 4: enough and they wanted to build on this toxicity because
31:51
Speaker 4: they knew it could make money is the most concerning
31:53
Speaker 4: thing to me. And then the powers that be are
31:56
Speaker 4: saying that, yeah, yeah, we're definitely going to control this
31:58
Speaker 4: and then just goes after an app instead of the
32:01
Speaker 4: root of the problem. It seems like the biggest part
32:03
Speaker 4: of the conversation because even in the AI world, with
32:07
Speaker 4: new apps coming through, new programs coming through, and they're
32:09
Speaker 4: all competing with each other, they don't want to let
32:13
Speaker 4: go of the toxicity. But that's what's making the money,
32:15
Speaker 4: which is really really concerning.
32:18
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I mean, like if there was one, so
32:20
Speaker 3: what of why I wanted to have this conversation Sam.
32:23
Speaker 3: That is exactly it that it is about money. It
32:26
Speaker 3: is about capitalism. It is about making money off of
32:29
Speaker 3: people's own exploitation and selling that exploitation back to them to.
32:33
Speaker 2: Make more money.
32:34
Speaker 3: And it's just a really toxic dynamic that I believe
32:39
Speaker 3: is harming us and making the people who have created
32:44
Speaker 3: that dynamic rich all the while they get to be like, Oh,
32:47
Speaker 3: it's not a big deal for you.
32:48
Speaker 2: Actually, this is going to be really good for you.
32:49
Speaker 2: This is going to be convenient for you.
32:51
Speaker 3: And I don't know, Like I woke up this morning
32:54
Speaker 3: when I was trying to decide like what I wanted
32:56
Speaker 3: to talk to you all today about, and one of
32:59
Speaker 3: the ideas that I had that I scrapped was just
33:02
Speaker 3: this feeling that being on the internet just doesn't feel
33:05
Speaker 3: fun anymore. Anytime I go on a website, anytime I
33:08
Speaker 3: google something just to find out information, it feels like
33:12
Speaker 3: a scam.
33:12
Speaker 2: It feels like exploitation.
33:14
Speaker 3: I feel like I am one click away from somebody
33:16
Speaker 3: getting my social Security number. It feels like AI generated garbage,
33:21
Speaker 3: and I just think we have hit the wall of
33:25
Speaker 3: that feeling.
33:26
Speaker 2: I can't imagine that I'm alone in this.
33:28
Speaker 3: I think the feeling of being showing up online today
33:31
Speaker 3: in twenty twenty four feels exhausting, and I think part
33:35
Speaker 3: of it is because it feels like we are being
33:37
Speaker 3: bled dry by people that we have already made rich
33:41
Speaker 3: from our own exploitation.
33:42
Speaker 2: Do you want to feel that way? Oh?
33:44
Speaker 4: Absolutely, I think with because getting on TikTok, the first
33:48
Speaker 4: opening video I'm sure you've seen it is that content
33:51
Speaker 4: manager who's like, I'm here for the safety of TikTok.
33:53
Speaker 4: Have you seen this?
33:54
Speaker 2: I have not.
33:55
Speaker 4: She's been there. She is for safety in something like
33:58
Speaker 4: she has a very specific safety yes, Susie someone she
34:03
Speaker 4: is very white and she's very redheaded. It's I was like, okay,
34:05
Speaker 4: so we've got played into the xenophobe. She's like, look,
34:07
Speaker 4: I'm a white person. I'm gonna help you out here.
34:09
Speaker 2: Don't worry. Don't worry.
34:10
Speaker 6: I got this.
34:12
Speaker 4: But that's the first thing that I'm seeing, So, like,
34:15
Speaker 4: you know, urging TikTok users to talk to the government
34:18
Speaker 4: because they voted this in and this is real bad
34:20
Speaker 4: and all this and not whatnot. And I'm just like,
34:22
Speaker 4: all right, it's gonna go away next. This is now
34:26
Speaker 4: my attitude because also I'm very tired. But also I
34:29
Speaker 4: just got an email saying that AT and d YES
34:32
Speaker 4: has a record that oh that that reached. They have
34:34
Speaker 4: your stuff. But good news. Since you don't have a
34:36
Speaker 4: bill with us, we don't, we didn't. You didn't even
34:38
Speaker 4: get any perfecent information. But I literally think every month
34:43
Speaker 4: I have been given seeing an email that says something
34:46
Speaker 4: of my information is has been breached, and it's nothing
34:49
Speaker 4: that I have done. It is literally everything from my insurance,
34:52
Speaker 4: my dental insurance, my healthcare provider, my internet, which I'm like,
34:58
Speaker 4: what the hell, my phone subscription, my cell phone, which
35:02
Speaker 4: I'm like, I'm starting to get back to that. I
35:04
Speaker 4: think I want a landline. I'm gonna at this moment, y'all,
35:06
Speaker 4: to each of those things popping up on things. I'm like,
35:09
Speaker 4: I hadn't I have to use that information in order
35:12
Speaker 4: for me to have healthcare. So y'all, let my healthcare
35:15
Speaker 4: information go out and they have my Social Security number.
35:17
Speaker 4: There's nothing I can do about that as many times
35:19
Speaker 4: as I can change my password. The next email I'm
35:24
Speaker 4: getting is telling me that I've got a data breach
35:26
Speaker 4: of my information. So what is the point. Like, at
35:29
Speaker 4: this point, the only way is to rewrite my identity
35:34
Speaker 4: and to never get online again, which would be really
35:37
Speaker 4: hard for my job.
35:38
Speaker 3: Yes, Like if you have a phone in your life,
35:42
Speaker 3: if you vote, if you drive, these things that we
35:46
Speaker 3: are required to do to participate in public life should
35:51
Speaker 3: not just be avenues for somebody to make money and
35:53
Speaker 3: scam us.
35:54
Speaker 2: But yet it feels that way.
35:56
Speaker 3: And you know what, Sam, I have actually not seen
35:59
Speaker 3: the TikTok that you're to because I have not opened
36:01
Speaker 3: my TikTok app in days. Because it's starting to feel
36:04
Speaker 3: like QVC and I cannot take it anymore. Like whatever
36:08
Speaker 3: happened to spaces on the Internet that we're supposed to
36:10
Speaker 3: feel like safety or exploration or fun or community or connection.
36:15
Speaker 3: I'm I hope that somebody out there listening is like,
36:18
Speaker 3: bridget you're old and on hip.
36:19
Speaker 2: We have those spaces, they are syz tell me about them.
36:23
Speaker 2: I want to know about them.
36:24
Speaker 3: But I think that we should we really got to
36:26
Speaker 3: get back to like to those principles of the Internet,
36:31
Speaker 3: feeling like something other than being taken for a ride
36:35
Speaker 3: on which you are the chump, right.
36:37
Speaker 4: And I will say a lot of people have felt
36:39
Speaker 4: like Discord and read it has been like brought in,
36:42
Speaker 4: but we already know Reddit has god of its problems.
36:44
Speaker 4: And then I think there's a new lawsuit with Discord
36:47
Speaker 4: with his problems and in terms of service changing as well.
36:50
Speaker 4: I'm like, what, totally it's happened. So there's literally no
36:53
Speaker 4: one is protecting the individual to like, there's no protection
36:57
Speaker 4: for us at all, but they want us to say,
37:00
Speaker 4: they want us to take away things from us, which
37:03
Speaker 4: is like the least of our worries, or they're just
37:06
Speaker 4: like sorry, You're like, you can't sue us.
37:09
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think everybody is feeling that, but I think
37:11
Speaker 3: it is particularly dangerous for people who are traditionally marginalized
37:16
Speaker 3: because yeah, which it's just the expectation that, oh, it's
37:21
Speaker 3: totally fine. If people who make apps that non consensually
37:26
Speaker 3: undress women using AI, why wouldn't they be able to
37:29
Speaker 3: advertise on Facebook or Instagram or Twitter.
37:31
Speaker 2: They got to make money, that's a business.
37:33
Speaker 3: Like how easy it is to erase the human people
37:37
Speaker 3: at the heart of this dynamic. Erase their concerns, erase
37:41
Speaker 3: their needs, erase their harm because men got to make
37:44
Speaker 3: money off of it.
37:45
Speaker 4: I'm thick of it, right, Or is tradition literally like, yeah,
37:49
Speaker 4: this image has always been here, we need to teach
37:50
Speaker 4: it as a historical now. It was definitely not exploiting
37:55
Speaker 4: somebody or taking advantage of somebody or using humiliating content,
38:00
Speaker 4: because she wasn't humulated, I don't think. But like in
38:02
Speaker 4: the ideal of like it being forever and ever and ever,
38:05
Speaker 4: of like your seductive picture being used for it people,
38:10
Speaker 4: which is a whole different conversation in itself.
38:12
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, so Lenna, the real life Lenna.
38:15
Speaker 3: And again there's a really interesting Wired article that has
38:17
Speaker 3: an interview with her.
38:18
Speaker 2: She doesn't feel like she was exploited.
38:20
Speaker 3: She's actually really proud of that image, even as she
38:22
Speaker 3: recognizes that it's like time for it to be retired. However,
38:25
Speaker 3: she does wish that she had been fairly compensated for
38:30
Speaker 3: what would go on to be her like non consensual
38:32
Speaker 3: contributions to tech when she took that image. There's no
38:35
Speaker 3: way that as a you know, young playboy playmate in
38:38
Speaker 3: the night in nineteen seventy one or whatever, you would
38:40
Speaker 3: have a sense of like, well, if this goes on
38:42
Speaker 3: to be to make me the first lady of the Internet,
38:45
Speaker 3: I better have compensation and protections, no way, right. So
38:49
Speaker 3: in that wired piece they say it makes sense that
38:51
Speaker 3: she would feel this way. Unlike so many women in tech,
38:54
Speaker 3: Lenna has at least been acknowledged, even fedan for her contribution.
38:58
Speaker 3: She did that work, and the people started using that
39:00
Speaker 3: photo in this neat new way, and now she has
39:03
Speaker 3: this kind of immortality woven into the design of the machine.
39:07
Speaker 3: This is from Marie Hicks, a historian of technology and
39:09
Speaker 3: the author of programmed Inequality.
39:11
Speaker 2: All of this happened for a reason.
39:13
Speaker 3: Hicks writes, if they hadn't used a Playboy centerfold, they
39:15
Speaker 3: almost certainly would have used another picture of a pretty
39:18
Speaker 3: white woman. The playboy thing gets our attention, but really
39:21
Speaker 3: what it's about is this world building that's gone on
39:23
Speaker 3: in computing from the beginning. It's about building worlds for
39:26
Speaker 3: certain people and not for others.
39:29
Speaker 4: I find it interesting too that they invited her to
39:31
Speaker 4: the conference, Like I'm wondering what the purpose was other
39:35
Speaker 4: than two like for because it obviously wasn't to ask
39:39
Speaker 4: her questions about tech and how she did this thing
39:43
Speaker 4: because they did not even consider human as we know.
39:46
Speaker 4: It was just literally to oggle her in real life.
39:49
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was thinking about why they did that.
39:53
Speaker 3: I don't know, I have parted me wonders if it
39:55
Speaker 3: was like an attempt to be like, oh, we need
39:57
Speaker 3: to acknowledge the way that this woman's image was so
40:01
Speaker 3: foundational to our technology, but then like not really doing it,
40:06
Speaker 3: like still sort of treating her as like a booth
40:08
Speaker 3: babe or something like.
40:09
Speaker 4: I don't know, right, I just find all of that
40:12
Speaker 4: interesting in this level of like not again of not
40:16
Speaker 4: what she was doing this for. She came in with
40:20
Speaker 4: like whatever her ambitions were in being this model and whatnot,
40:23
Speaker 4: and then all of a sudden being told you're being
40:26
Speaker 4: used as an example for computers, like for specially images
40:31
Speaker 4: for computers, and not only will you see this, but
40:35
Speaker 4: your grandkids will also like if she has children, like
40:37
Speaker 4: any of those things, and your your family members.
40:39
Speaker 3: Forever and like who would who would have ever thought
40:43
Speaker 3: that that's how that image would go on to be
40:44
Speaker 3: used in history? And I really think like this is
40:47
Speaker 3: where we are today, and this is like why I
40:48
Speaker 3: wanted to talk about this is that I think, like
40:52
Speaker 3: the idea, the concept of images being shared online, the
40:56
Speaker 3: way we understand that in twenty twenty four, the fact
40:58
Speaker 3: that this image of Letta became so foundational to that
41:02
Speaker 3: concept without her consent, you know, perhaps without like proper
41:06
Speaker 3: contribution to the way that she actually was foundational to that,
41:09
Speaker 3: and building out this entire universe around it that is
41:12
Speaker 3: mostly like controlled and protected and profited off by men,
41:18
Speaker 3: and nobody stopping to ask about the ramifications of that
41:21
Speaker 3: until decades later. I just think it really establishes like
41:25
Speaker 3: a concerning precedent for where we're going right now with
41:27
Speaker 3: AI in twenty twenty four, And it doesn't have to
41:30
Speaker 3: We can learn from what we did with that Letta
41:32
Speaker 3: image if we ask the right questions, if we cent
41:35
Speaker 3: her the right perspectives and the right voices, and so Yeah,
41:37
Speaker 3: I don't want to wait until twenty forty to be like, oh,
41:41
Speaker 3: should we have been talking about the ways that women
41:43
Speaker 3: and girls and other marginalized people are being exploited and
41:47
Speaker 3: used to make technology companies money.
41:50
Speaker 2: I don't want to ask that question when it's too late.
41:53
Speaker 4: Right, And here's like the big conversation is shouldn't we
41:57
Speaker 4: also recognize that big companies, big tech companies and big
42:01
Speaker 4: companies that are developing are purposely leaving out marginalized people
42:05
Speaker 4: because they like the old ways and in that it's
42:07
Speaker 4: only making a certain amount of people money.
42:09
Speaker 3: Yes, that's exactly I think that I would argue that's
42:12
Speaker 3: exactly what's going on.
42:13
Speaker 2: I mean, in twenty twenty four, there are so many.
42:16
Speaker 3: Loud, thoughtful voices from women and people of color who
42:20
Speaker 3: are really talking about AI in some interesting and thoughtful ways.
42:24
Speaker 3: So they exist, They are out there. This is the
42:27
Speaker 3: tale as the oldest time when it comes to technology.
42:29
Speaker 3: It is not that they are not there. It is
42:31
Speaker 3: that they are being, whether intentionally or unintentionally, marginalized, sideline silenced,
42:37
Speaker 3: pushed aside to make room for voices who are just
42:42
Speaker 3: repeating the status quo, who are just saying like, well,
42:45
Speaker 3: I'm trying to get rich, so who cares how this harms?
42:48
Speaker 3: Somebody who cares about whether or not this goes on
42:51
Speaker 3: to exploit.
42:52
Speaker 2: And I think that's really it's really.
42:53
Speaker 3: Like a it's a little bit of a complicated cultural
42:56
Speaker 3: dynamic and cultural shift that I think that we really
42:59
Speaker 3: got a break.
43:00
Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, And it's really sad, going back to your point,
43:03
Speaker 1: Bridget of like the internet not being a place of
43:06
Speaker 1: joy anymore, because so many times it was marginalized people
43:10
Speaker 1: who made those spaces because they couldn't.
43:13
Speaker 5: Find them anywhere else.
43:16
Speaker 1: And then these companies come in and are like, Okay,
43:20
Speaker 1: well we can make money, and then it doesn't become
43:24
Speaker 1: a joyous space anymore. It becomes a very toxic, a
43:28
Speaker 1: toxic place. And so like hearing this story and seeing
43:35
Speaker 1: how so much of what we use still is based
43:38
Speaker 1: on something that was.
43:40
Speaker 5: A guy walked in with the Playboy.
43:42
Speaker 1: Magazine like, it's it's bad when you that doesn't feel
43:49
Speaker 1: so out of place and what we're talking about in
43:52
Speaker 1: our current time.
43:53
Speaker 3: Yeah, and again, I mean, I opened up our conversation
43:56
Speaker 3: with this, but I guess, and I guess I'll close
43:58
Speaker 3: with that too. I believe people when I say this,
44:01
Speaker 3: people think I sound alarmist or extreme, but I mean
44:04
Speaker 3: it the way that I mean it. I think that
44:06
Speaker 3: these things are features, not bugs. I think we've got
44:09
Speaker 3: to be honest about the ways that things like misogyny
44:11
Speaker 3: and exploitation, particularly when it comes to marginalized people, has
44:15
Speaker 3: been foundational to technology and the Internet.
44:18
Speaker 2: From the very beginning. I love the Internet. I love technology.
44:22
Speaker 2: It is why I do the work that I do.
44:24
Speaker 3: But I think that until we are honest about that,
44:27
Speaker 3: but these things are features and not bugs, we will
44:30
Speaker 3: never get anywhere. And so I think that it really
44:32
Speaker 3: starts with having honest conversations about where we started so
44:35
Speaker 3: that we can get to a place that we that
44:37
Speaker 3: actually feels a little bit better for everybody.
44:40
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, well, thank you so much. As always, Britte,
44:46
Speaker 1: every time you come on, I'm like, we could talk
44:47
Speaker 1: for hours about this and this and this.
44:51
Speaker 3: Invite me back for an episode just dragging Hugh Hefner.
44:54
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'll be here for it.
44:56
Speaker 4: I think we need to do this because I think
44:58
Speaker 4: this for a minute about back into the magazine world
45:02
Speaker 4: and jumping into like all of that.
45:04
Speaker 3: Don't even get I mean like this is like spoiler alert.
45:07
Speaker 3: I like totally had this wrong. For so long in
45:09
Speaker 3: my life, I was like, oh, Hugh Hefner was a
45:12
Speaker 3: champion for free speech.
45:13
Speaker 2: And the riots and blah blah blah.
45:15
Speaker 3: Then I grew up and learned and I was like, actually,
45:18
Speaker 3: she wasn't such a good guy.
45:19
Speaker 4: Right, I Mean, we really fed into the but read
45:22
Speaker 4: the articles so so good.
45:24
Speaker 2: Oh my god, the corbell.
45:27
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, oh yes, please come back for that Bridget.
45:34
Speaker 1: In the meantime, where can the good listeners find you?
45:37
Speaker 3: Well, you can listen to my podcast. There are no
45:39
Speaker 3: girls on the internet. You can follow me. I'm not
45:41
Speaker 3: really on social media that much anymore, but you can
45:43
Speaker 3: try to find me there. I'm on Instagram at Bridget
45:45
Speaker 3: Marie in DC. I am at Blue Sky at Bridget
45:48
Speaker 3: Todd on Threads at Bridget Marie and DC sometimes on TikTok.
45:54
Speaker 3: You'll I'm easy to find. You'll find Google me. You'll
45:55
Speaker 3: find me, Yes, google me.
45:58
Speaker 4: That's a flex.
46:00
Speaker 5: It's true though. Our listeners are smart. They can find
46:03
Speaker 5: you and listeners.
46:05
Speaker 1: If you would like to contact us, you can our
46:07
Speaker 1: email us a step media mom stuff at iHeartMedia dot com.
46:09
Speaker 1: You can find us on Twitter at most of the podcasts,
46:11
Speaker 1: or on TikTok and Instagram that stuff I'll.
46:13
Speaker 5: Never told you.
46:14
Speaker 1: We're also on YouTube. We have a tea public store
46:16
Speaker 1: and a book you can get wherever you get your books.
46:18
Speaker 1: Thanks as always to our super duced Christina, our executiveroducer
46:20
Speaker 1: My and your contributor Joey.
46:22
Speaker 4: Thank you, and.
46:23
Speaker 1: Thanks to you for listening. Stuff will never told you
46:25
Speaker 1: this poiction by Heart Radio. For more podcasts my heart Radio,
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46:29
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