Artificially intelligent software is used more and more to automatically detect and ban nude images on social networks and similar sites. However, today's algorithms and models aren't perfect at clocking racy snaps, and a lot of content moderation still falls to humans. Enter an alternative solution: use AI to magically draw …

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Friday 20th July 2018 22:37 GMT Anonymous Coward

"The team hopes to continue improving their system to make the internet a safer space for children, [...]"

It would appear that yet again children are to be "protected" from the sight of nudity. Yet they will be told by the same people that the image of a man nailed to a cross is good for them. Not to mention the educational paintings of their religion's martyrs being barbequed or torn apart with hot pincers.

Kids see nudity as no problem - until they learn that it gets them into trouble with the sex-obsessed dogma of their parents' religion. That is how they acquire their subsequent prurient fascination with the "forbidden fruit".

165 6 Reply
1. Friday 20th July 2018 22:58 GMT Yet Another Anonymous coward
  
  The Catholic university wants to protect children by blocking images of women......
  
  Perhaps version 2 would replace online images of priests with pictures of naked women
  
  112 2 Reply
  1. Saturday 21st July 2018 06:41 GMT Anonymous Coward
    
    I came here looking for a bash the bishop comment and was not disappointed.
    
    29 11 Reply
    1. Saturday 21st July 2018 07:05 GMT Rich 11
      
      I'm sure we're all very pleased that your determined search for bishop-bashing came to such a speedy climax.
      
      59 1 Reply
      1. Saturday 21st July 2018 09:55 GMT Anonymous Coward
        
        Why thanks, I have to hand it to the original poster though.
        
        13 0 Reply
      2. Saturday 21st July 2018 09:56 GMT frank ly
        
        All new and expectant mothers will be given small blindfolds to be worn by their child during breast feeding.
        
        53 0 Reply
        
        Saturday 21st July 2018 10:14 GMT Anonymous Coward
        
        That's risky given the churches reputation.
        
        11 1 Reply
  2. Saturday 21st July 2018 20:21 GMT Nolveys
    
    Perhaps version 2 would replace online images of priests with pictures of naked women
    
    Or at least replace the alter boy with pants.
    
    12 1 Reply
    1. Tuesday 24th July 2018 12:58 GMT macjules
      
      Thumb down? Nice to see the Vatican reads El Reg.
      
      2 1 Reply
  3. Monday 23rd July 2018 21:21 GMT Anonymous Coward
    
    Make fun all you want, but when they perfect this algorithm we all know these students are going to make sh*tloads of cash in the parental control market.
    
    The whole puritan values crap is a smokescreen. This isn't about Catholicism, it's about Capitalism.
    
    2 4 Reply
2. Saturday 21st July 2018 11:31 GMT macjules
  
  Shouldn't this AI also be applied to any pictures of choirboys? From my recollection they would appear to be far more at risk from priests than any naked lady.
  
  44 2 Reply
3. Sunday 22nd July 2018 21:36 GMT wayne 8
  
  Here's an idea. De-stigmatize the natural human body. Remove the excitement of seeing something that is not supposed to be seen.
  
  Male nipples are nonfunctional and okay to be seen. Female nipples are functional, nourishing life, and not to be seen.
  
  This is a fine example of the limited capabilities of machine learning/intelligence. It cannot differentiate between cloth and flesh.
  
  This will only encourage searching for the original images.
  
  14 0 Reply
  1. Monday 23rd July 2018 09:37 GMT tiggity
    
    .. but how did the system behave when confronted with moobs?
    
    6 0 Reply
4. Monday 23rd July 2018 11:47 GMT JDX
  
  1. Nobody is ever told that "the image of a man nailed to a cross is good for them". They're told that the image is a useful reminder of what their religion holds as central.
  
  2. "Kids see nudity as no problem - until they learn that it gets them into trouble with the sex-obsessed dogma of their parents' religion. That is how they acquire their subsequent prurient fascination with the "forbidden fruit"."
  
  This is just bollocks. Most kids in the UK don't have religious parents these days, or have much exposure to religion. Yet they still become fascinated with sex and nudity. ALL teenagers have "prurient fascination with the "forbidden fruit"."
  
  Religious (and other) people see that nudity naturally leads to lust. Which doesn't seem controversial, being lustful to the sight of (normally hidden) naked flesh seems to be how we work. THe issue is that some people consider that lust a problem to moral behaviour, and others see it as natural, proper behaviour.
  
  What we consider 'nudity' appears relative. Whatever you don't normally get to see, or are not 'supposed' to be able to see. e.g. a woman in a bikini on the beach not particularly tantalising. If she wears a dress over the bikini and the wind gives you a glipse up her skirt. it is.
  
  3 11 Reply
  1. Monday 23rd July 2018 12:14 GMT phuzz
    
    Most kids in the UK don't have religious parents these days
    
    That's true, but it doesn't mean that religion has no role in shaping conventional UK views on nudity. Attitudes are shaped over many years, and several generations, my parents generation were somewhat religious, and that was shaped by their parents, who were more religious (or at least felt that they had to pay lip service). Where we are now is a watering down of the original religious feelings (eg, bikinis are considered acceptable these days), but there's still some remaining influence.
    
    (And of course there's still bishops in the House of Lords, so religion is still part of our government).
    
    10 2 Reply
    1. Monday 23rd July 2018 12:41 GMT Anonymous Coward
      
      "[...] but there's still some remaining influence."
      
      That influence is disproportionate. Those holding those views as "god given" are generally not open to reason and are the most vociferous in marshalling opposition to any liberalisation.
      
      The religious opposition to civil same-sex marriage was, and in NI still is, an example of how that minority try to impose their religious dogma proscriptions on the laws of civil society.
      
      6 1 Reply
  2. Monday 23rd July 2018 13:06 GMT Anonymous Coward
    
    "Most kids in the UK don't have religious parents these days, or have much exposure to religion. Yet they still become fascinated with sex and nudity. "
    
    My Finnish old girlfriends would roll their eyes and say "Typical English". They have been Anglophiles for over 50 years - but instances of the British equation of nudity = sex still really annoys them. In Finland nudity is taken as natural. Sex is something you do with someone with whom you form a particular relationship.
    
    10 0 Reply
Friday 20th July 2018 22:39 GMT Chris G

I wonder which they think more important, covering up various lady parts in photos or helping to relieve suffering and poverty in the world?

What a fucking waste of a University education.

117 2 Reply
1. Friday 20th July 2018 22:47 GMT Anonymous Coward
  
  "[...] or helping to relieve suffering and poverty in the world?"
  
  IIRC that particular religion makes it a duty to ensure that people with a terminal illness suffer for the glory of their god. They concentrate on proselytizing to poor people - and add to their plight by banning reliable contraception.
  
  97 5 Reply
  1. Saturday 21st July 2018 19:10 GMT Mark 85
    
    I'm a tad bit surprised that they haven't drawn certain other religions universities into this pit. Quite a few preach that a woman's body is sinful and should not be seen except by her husband. Punishment is often severe for violators. But then again, not working is other religions because they are "false" is also in the mindset.
    
    6 0 Reply
2. Friday 20th July 2018 22:59 GMT Yet Another Anonymous coward
  
  I wonder which they think more important, covering up various lady parts in photos or helping to relieve suffering and poverty in the world?
  
  That would be an ecumenical matter
  
  77 0 Reply
  1. Saturday 21st July 2018 03:56 GMT Anonymous Coward
    
    "That would be an ecumenical matter"
    
    more tea father? Aww, go on, go on, go on. go on.
    
    48 1 Reply
  2. Saturday 21st July 2018 08:28 GMT Anonymous Coward
    
    There is a certain Father Ted-ness to this whole thing. Presumably there's some good Catholic boys working on this, and they've got a cast iron excuse for looking at endless pictures of nudes. It's working out quite well for them, isn't it!
    
    Just think of all that unit testing they need to do, all the algorithm refinement. They can string this out for several years at least.
    
    Ted would be proud, and presumably they are too...
    
    67 0 Reply
    1. Saturday 21st July 2018 09:00 GMT Anonymous Coward
      
      "Presumably there's some good Catholic boys working on this, and they've got a cast iron excuse for looking at endless pictures of nudes. "
      
      Possibly they have realised that it is what is hidden that is alluring. Salome's dance for King Herod was almost certainly salacious. In the 19th century that was portrayed as The Dance of the Seven Veils - a strip-tease.
      
      Humans are an animal with curiosity. What cannot be seen - or only glimpsed - fires the imagination. D.H.Lawrence's poem about figs made the case that fig leaves are not for modesty - but to excite interest. Nudity per se soon becomes normal and boring. Adding a skimpy bikini will do wonders for the appeal of the hidden - especially for people conditioned always to regard nudity as sexual.
      
      29 0 Reply
      1. Saturday 21st July 2018 16:25 GMT Anonymous Coward
        
        As C.S. Lewis said...
        
        In the Screwtape Letters (C.S. Lewis, 1948), Screwtape ( a demon) writes to a junior tempter thus:
        
        ",,,,The age of jazz has succeeded the age of the waltz, and we now teach men to like women whose bodies are scarcely distinguishable from those of boys. Since this is a kind of beauty even more transitory than most, we thus aggravate the female's chronic horror of growing old (with many excellent results) and render her less willing and less able to bear children. And that is not all. We have engineered a great increase in the license which society allows to the representation of the apparent nude (not the real nude) in art, and its exhibition on the stage or the bathing beach. It is all a fake, of course; the figures in the popular art are falsely drawn; the real women in bathing suits or tights are actually pinched in and propped up to make them appear firmer and more slender and more boyish than nature allows a full-grown woman to be. Yet at the same time, the modern world is taught to believe that is being "frank" and "healthy" and getting back to nature. As a result we are more and more directing the desires of men to something which does not exist—making the role of the eye in sexuality more and more important and at the same time making its demands more and more impossible. What follows you can easily forecast!" pgs. 102-103
        
        Now, many people do not accept Lewis' theology, but I think he has a point here, with the acceptable female body shape being one that few healthy adult women have.
        
        More real nudity, not less. You know it makes sense!
        
        24 0 Reply
        
        Saturday 21st July 2018 17:10 GMT Anonymous Coward
        
        Re: As C.S. Lewis said...
        
        Lewis was conditioned by the Edwardian era that had promoted over-indulgence in food for those who could afford - and often a poor diet of fattening food for those who couldn't.
        
        He was writing when the emancipated flapper fashion styles of the 1920/30s were accompanied by women particularly being encouraged to do exercises and eat healthily. This was followed by the austere, but healthy, food regime of the 1940s - with many women now doing the physical work previously reserved for men. Most women film stars of the day were certainly not gamine waifs.
        
        Since the 1970s the general UK population has been increasingly fed on fattening diets - with a significant reduction in physical exercise in their daily life. In the last 20 years many in the population have achieved a level of obesity that far exceeds that of previous generations. The catwalk models' style of emaciated "heroin chic" was a fleeting phenomenon in recent years - and rarely seen in the streets.
        
        11 1 Reply
        
        Sunday 22nd July 2018 04:42 GMT Anonymous Coward
        
        Re: As C.S. Lewis said...
        
        >Lewis was conditioned by the Edwardian era that had promoted over-indulgence in food for those who could afford
        
        He certainly couldn't - spent long periods living from hand to mouth despite his books popularity - he was a very committed whisky drinker, sexual adventurer and sadist (in the true sense - was a big Marquis de Sade fan) - used to sign off his letters to like minded friends 'lover of the whip'.
        
        0 6 Reply
        
        Sunday 22nd July 2018 13:07 GMT Anonymous Coward
        
        Re: As C.S. Lewis said...
        
        Please provide a citation for C.S. Lewis being a "a very committed whisky drinker, sexual adventurer and sadist (in the true sense - was a big Marquis de Sade fan) ". This is far from the normal biographical accounts of someone who was wounded in the trenches in WW1, and worked for many years as an Oxford Don. Most of his work was published while at Oxford, so I hardly think he "spent long periods living from hand to mouth despite his books popularity".
        
        11 1 Reply
        
        Sunday 22nd July 2018 17:49 GMT The_Idiot
        
        Re: As C.S. Lewis said...
        
        Hmmm - Let's see:
        
        http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2013/12/01/the-c-s-lewis-you-never-knew/
        
        "Lewis displayed an interest in sadomasochism during his youth. He read the writings of the Marquis de Sade; once became drunk at a party and begged people to allow him to whip them; and signed three letters to friend Arthur Greeves with the closing “lover of the whip,” according to McGrath’s biography."
        
        5 3 Reply
        
        Sunday 22nd July 2018 22:12 GMT The_Idiot
        
        Re: As C.S. Lewis said...
        
        And from the same article:
        
        "“His books left him poor,” Maudlin said. “He had all of this money coming in, but he didn’t take those royalties.”
        
        Lewis vowed to donate all the money he made from his books on Christianity, Maudlin says. He got big tax bills for his Christian books but struggled to pay them because he had given the money away.
        
        Lewis refused to renounce his vow even though his money worries persisted throughout his life, Maudlin says."
        
        "“American publishers worried about offending their more puritanical readers because it seemed impossible to get a dust jacket picture of Jack without a pint or a cigarette,” says Michael Tomko, a literature professor at Villanova University in Pennsylvania."
        
        "When the University of St. Andrews in Scotland awarded Lewis an honorary degree in 1945, Lewis gloomily joked that he preferred getting a “case of Scotch whiskey.”"
        
        4 2 Reply
        
        Monday 23rd July 2018 07:50 GMT veti
        
        Re: As C.S. Lewis said...
        
        I'm sure Lewis would have known how to spell "whisky". And cigarettes? Surely those didn't become sinful until the early 80s.
        
        I don't know much about Lewis's life, but that linked article doesn't fill me with faith in the rigour of its research and writing. To parlay one drunken incident at a student party into his being "a big Marquis de Sade fan" does not, to me, look like research conducted in good faith.
        
        6 1 Reply
        
        Monday 23rd July 2018 11:52 GMT The_Idiot
        
        Re: As C.S. Lewis said...
        
        With respect, the Anonymous post asked for a citation - a citation was provided. Additionally the McGrath biography from which the article quotes is by Dr Alister McGrath, not someone totally unknown for his rigour in such things:
        
        https://www.tyndale.com/authors/alister-mcgrath/1320
        
        Alister McGrath is Andreas Idreos Professor of Science and Religion of the University of Oxford. In addition, he is Senior Research Fellow at Harris Manchester College at Oxford and President of the Oxford Centre for Christian Apologetics.
        
        The comments about book royalties are from an executive at Harper One, who hold current publication rights in this context and might be thought to be a reliable source. You may, of course, feel this is not the case and have every right to do so :-).
        
        2 0 Reply
        
        Monday 23rd July 2018 03:53 GMT Anonymous Coward
        
        Re: As C.S. Lewis said...
        
        >This is far from the normal biographical accounts
        
        Perhaps you should read some before commenting.
        
        1 1 Reply
        
        Monday 23rd July 2018 06:51 GMT werdsmith
        
        Re: As C.S. Lewis said...
        
        When a man gets past his teen years and has been up close with a few naked ladies and experienced real life intimacy as a normal part of life, then pictures of nakedness really don't have the same appeal that they do to inexperienced youths.
        
        I'd much rather see elegantly dressed ladies as a pleasing aesthetic. Let's face it, some anatomical features are not necessarily pretty.
        
        5 3 Reply
        
        Sunday 22nd July 2018 09:56 GMT Spanker
        
        Re: As C.S. Lewis said...
        
        Upvoted for ‘Gamine Waifs’
        
        7 0 Reply
      2. Saturday 21st July 2018 19:14 GMT Mark 85
        
        Nudity per se soon becomes normal and boring.
        
        Quite agree. Visit a nudist camp for longer than a day or two and it's rather boring. Clothing sparks the mind and imagination of what is unseen. Lack of clothing removes all the pretense as once it's out there, it's no big deal.
        
        21 0 Reply
        
        Monday 23rd July 2018 09:41 GMT tiggity
        
        Surely that depends on an individuals libido?
        
        I'm sure for some that after a few days it will still definitely not be boring
        
        2 1 Reply
        
        Monday 23rd July 2018 09:52 GMT werdsmith
        
        Photos of naked people on the internet do as much to satisfy the libido as the online McDonalds menu does for hunger.
        
        0 5 Reply
        
        Tuesday 24th July 2018 13:13 GMT werdsmith
        
        LOL, sad sacks. Get a real partner.
        
        0 1 Reply
      3. Monday 23rd July 2018 08:28 GMT Tigra 07
        
        RE: AC
        
        "Presumably there's some good Catholic boys working on this, and they've got a cast iron excuse for looking at endless pictures of nudes"
        
        Uh oh, bathroom break! How many is that this morning...16? Little Timmy is getting a lot of hand blisters from his keyboard too!
        
        4 0 Reply
Friday 20th July 2018 22:41 GMT Androgynous Cow Herd

No one has ever been killed by a nipple

free the hostages.

55 0 Reply
1. Friday 20th July 2018 23:27 GMT Anonymous Coward
  
  Re: No one has ever been killed by a nipple
  
  >No one has ever been killed by a nipple
  
  That sounds like a challenge I could enjoy trying to prove or disprove!!
  
  15 0 Reply
  1. Saturday 21st July 2018 05:40 GMT onefang
    
    Re: No one has ever been killed by a nipple
    
    "That sounds like a challenge I could enjoy trying to prove or disprove!!"
    
    You'll dive into a mosh pit with razor sharp pasties, and see what sort of damage you can do?
    
    2 0 Reply
2. Saturday 21st July 2018 06:42 GMT Anonymous Coward
  
  Re: No one has ever been killed by a nipple
  
  What about snoo snoo?
  
  17 0 Reply
  1. Saturday 21st July 2018 08:48 GMT Anonymous Coward
    
    Re: No one has ever been killed by a nipple
    
    Wasn't that kinda Letha Weapons' whole thing?
    
    0 0 Reply
3. Saturday 21st July 2018 10:03 GMT smudge
  
  Re: No one has ever been killed by a nipple
  
  You've never heard of Chesty Morgan, and her two... films :) ?
  
  5 0 Reply
4. Monday 23rd July 2018 08:40 GMT hplasm
  
  Re: No one has ever been killed by a nipple
  
  But many have nearly lost an eye -particularly when cold...
  
  3 0 Reply
5. Tuesday 24th July 2018 16:39 GMT Stevie
  
  Re: No one has ever been killed by a nipple
  
  They're breasts. They need air.
  
  1 0 Reply
Saturday 21st July 2018 05:55 GMT onefang

Looking at those examples, might be more productive to automate the application of that censor blur instead of faking bikinis.

I guess naked men are not a problem. Or the naked children you see on prime time TV adverts for baby shampoo. Or naked baby Jesus in Mother Mary's arms. I was walking to the supermarket the other day and a saw naked ten year old wander past on a busy street. No one batted an eyelid. Probably would have been police called if it was her mother that was naked. Front page of a popular news web site was showing a "photos of the week" teaser, that featured a naked child in an empty tub, right next to an "evil pedo caught with evil pedo photos" article teaser.

Would be even more productive if we just all got over this silly nudity taboo. Even sillier that it's a sexist and ageist taboo. Women nipples bad, men and child nipples good. Meh, I'd rather look at women's nipples given a choice.

44 0 Reply
1. Saturday 21st July 2018 09:10 GMT Anonymous Coward
  
  "Women nipples bad, men and child nipples good."
  
  In the 1976 heatwave an Oxford cafe banned shirtless men. The woman who owned it said that as she wasn't allowed to keep cool by going topless - then it was a fair restriction for men too.
  
  40 0 Reply