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Re: Google Automatic Alts?

for

From: Chagnon | PubCom
Date: Nov 19, 2014 11:57AM

With Google's face recognition software being so "successful," I'm not
surprised to find them migrating it to Alt-text for photos. Fascinating,
even though it's not ready for prime time.

Agree with Sarah; for now, nothing but a human, professional communicator
can determine that "track" more accurately describes the picture than
"road."

One beautiful facet of language is its massive vocabulary that can describe
subtle nuances, adding important details to Alt-text. So far, it takes a
skilled human to see and use "track" rather than "road."

-BJC
- PubCom.com - Trainers, Consultants, Designers, and Developers.
- Print, Web, Acrobat, XML, eBooks, and U.S. Federal Section 508
Accessibility.
- 508 Workshop: www.workshop.pubcom.com
- US Federal Training: www.gpo.gov/customers/theinstitute.htm
-----Original Message-----
From: <EMAIL REMOVED>
[mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of Bourne, Sarah
(ITD)
Sent: Wednesday, November 19, 2014 1:48 PM
To: WebAIM Discussion List
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] Google Automatic Alts?

I had two first thoughts. Well, reactions - I haven't looked into it enough
to have thoughts.

The first was that they are descriptions, and a description is only
sometimes suitable as an alternative.

The second was that I disagreed with the categorization of their examples.
Their first example of "Describes without errors" actually had an error -
that's a man riding a dirt bike on a track, not a road. I don't agree with
their self-assessed level of success.

But perhaps I'm being too harsh, and I will try to keep Samuel Johnson's
words in mind: "A horse that can count to ten is a remarkable horse - not a
remarkable mathematician."

sb
Sarah E. Bourne
Director of IT Accessibility
Massachusetts Office of Information Technology Commonwealth of Massachusetts
1 Ashburton Pl. rm 1601 Boston MA 02108
617-626-4502
<EMAIL REMOVED>
http://www.mass.gov/itd


-----Original Message-----
From: <EMAIL REMOVED>
[mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of L Snider
Sent: Wednesday, November 19, 2014 1:26 PM
To: WebAIM Discussion List
Subject: [WebAIM] Google Automatic Alts?

HI Everyone,

Just saw this on another list. Very interesting concept to create
'automatic' alts... I wonder how it will work in practice?

Google building a natural description of images
http://googleresearch.blogspot.ca/2014/11/a-picture-is-worth-thousand-cohere
nt.html

Cheers

Lisa
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