00:04:15.540um it was not what I quite expected because the glasses Samantha and I were joking about this
00:04:21.700recently but the glasses feel so funny because you're like looking around like they're not
00:04:25.720working um and then you like find the the space you're supposed to look at I was just like very
00:04:33.300very happy to see it uh honestly like all that drama I was working aside I remember thinking
00:04:40.220this is really cool that I get to see this and I'm really happy that I get to see this
00:04:43.700Yes. That was what I remember, too. I burst into tears. And the next day, I woke up in the middle of the night in a panic because I was worried that I will forget what it looked like being in totality. Like, that's how, like, I had never seen anything like it.
00:05:04.580anybody who listens to their no girls on the internet is probably so sick of me talking about
00:05:08.620this eclipse and i am fully making seeing this total eclipse like my personality for this time
00:05:14.600being but yeah and i'm already planning where i will go for the next one so i guess i will see
00:05:20.560y'all in i think what is it um 2044 so that's that's that's like a good one the next the next
00:05:28.140one that you can see you have to you can go to spain and see it i think in 2026 okay so uh but
00:05:33.900then the one that you're referring to Sam is like don't quote me on any of this but that's supposed
00:05:38.360to be like the big one the big one that we will probably be able to see in our lifetimes and
00:05:42.840I think it's in um parts of the African continent I want to say Morocco don't quote me on that
00:05:50.040either yeah I did say at one point like you would be able to view it in the U.S. that's the next
00:05:54.660time you'll be able to it I don't know if it's like the actual like the totality as you say
00:05:59.640But like, I don't know, because I know nothing about this.
00:06:03.820That's the only, I know the date and I know kindness.
00:06:06.860For this past eclipse earlier this month, we had done so much planning, including like
00:06:12.240looking at farmer's almanacs to see what the weather and cloud coverage is like this time
00:08:44.300There's so many puns. I will hold myself back for now. But I have to say, I am very, very excited to talk about the topic you brought today, Bridget, because it is a thing that I love of like the history of something I think a lot of people don't question the history of. And it's fascinating and I didn't know about it. So can you tell us what we're discussing today?
00:09:23.660Even if you don't know the story and you don't feel like you've ever seen this image before,
00:09:27.080you kind of do know this image because as Linda Kintzler puts it in a really meaty piece for Wired
00:09:33.060that I'll be referencing a few times in this conversation,
00:09:35.340She writes, whether or not you know her face, you've used the technology it helped create.
00:09:40.580Practically every photo you've ever taken, every website you've ever visited, every meme you've ever shared owes some small debt to Lena.
00:09:48.800And it really is exactly as you were saying, Annie, one of those stories that is foundational to the Internet and technology that you don't necessarily think of, don't necessarily think of how it came to be.
00:10:00.660And especially, I think it's one of those stories that says a lot about technology on, you know, here on Sminty, we've had plenty of conversations about this. I've had many conversations about this on their No Girls on the Internet about how things like misogyny are kind of can sort of be baked into the foundation of technology.
00:10:20.480And I think that is one of the reasons why tech is so often perpetuating misogyny, not because it's some sort of an unfortunate bug, but because this misogyny can be sort of foundational in some ways.
00:10:32.800And I think this image really is a good example of what I mean.
00:10:35.880And I think especially as we're having conversations about the rise of things like
00:10:39.880nudify apps and AI-generated adult content creators, we're seeing what is kind of becoming
00:10:46.760a marketplace that is men making money off of the bodies and or labor of women without
00:10:54.380their consent, certainly without their compensation.
00:10:56.600And I think this situation in the Lena image, where this image of a woman went on to create this entire field of technology without her consent, can perhaps really tell us something about where we're headed in 2024.
00:11:10.140Yes, absolutely. Especially when you consider where it comes from, which I know we'll talk about.0.62
00:11:14.160But also, yeah, these conversations we're having now about, like, actors perhaps not giving their consent to being used in certain ways.
00:11:22.880just and honestly it extends to all of us if you posted an image online not consenting to using an
00:11:29.400image to an image getting used in a certain way but so much about this history is fascinating
00:11:34.780because it feels so standardized which is odd um can you tell us about that totally so for folks
00:11:42.540who don't know the Lena image is literally an image of this woman Lena um Lena Forsen she is
00:11:49.340a woman from Sweden who in the 70s was a model.
00:11:52.440So this kind of sensual image of her wearing a tan hat
00:11:56.640with a purple feather flowing down her bare back,
00:11:59.800staring kind of seductively over one shoulder,0.99
00:12:02.320that image of her was published in Playboy in 1972.0.91
00:13:14.200Lena's image is not the only common standard test image.
00:13:17.680There's also one that is like a bunch of different colored jelly beans on a table.
00:13:22.560There's another one that's called peppers.
00:13:24.420It's just a bunch of different colored like red and green peppers, like jalapeno peppers.
00:13:27.920So this is just a thing that becomes a way for technologists to test that the image generating technology is working correctly.
00:13:36.420I do think this is very interesting for a lot of reasons.
00:13:39.120But if you have like jelly beans and peppers, those are things to be consumed.
00:13:43.400And then when you're thinking about where they got this image from of Lena, like, how did this happen?
00:13:51.020How did this image become this standard testing thing?
00:13:56.900So this is actually a pretty interesting story.
00:13:58.400The story of how Lena's Playboy picture becomes this standard test image that is everywhere and very ubiquitous starts with computer and electrical engineer Alexander Sawchuck.
00:14:08.400Sawchuck. According to the newsletter for the Institute of Electrical and Electronic
00:14:12.600Engineering, or the IEEE, as I have found out it's sometimes called, I was talking to
00:14:17.560somebody about this and I was like, oh, the I-E-E-E-E-E, and they were like, it's just
00:14:35.100Alexander Sawchuck was an assistant professor of electrical engineering at the University of Southern California and also a grad student in the SIPI lab as a manager.
00:14:43.460As the story goes, he's like frantically searching around the lab for a good image to scan for a colleague's conference paper.
00:14:50.420He had just sort of gotten bored with their usual stock test images because they mostly had come from like 1960s TV standards and they were just a little bit dull.
00:14:59.120He wanted something glossy and sort of like fresh and dynamic, but he also wanted to use a human face specifically.
00:15:06.060Just then, as the story goes, somebody happens to walk in holding the most recent issue of Playboy magazine.
00:15:12.800Why this person was bringing Playboy magazine into his workplace, I cannot tell you.
00:15:51.160So all of that to say is that they effectively cropped this image0.98
00:15:55.380so that you can't see the model's bare ass in the image.0.96
00:15:59.120So it's just a picture of her from the shoulders up looking over her shoulder.0.99
00:16:02.200It's still like quite a seductive photo,0.84
00:16:04.580but the full photo has her like bare booty in it.1.00
00:16:07.720She's wearing like a feather boa and like thigh-high stockings looking over her shoulder.
00:16:12.700So back in the 70s and 80s, this image was really sort of like used in very limited cases.
00:16:19.460You could only really see it on .org domains.
00:16:22.400It was pretty limited to like engineers.
00:16:24.340Then in July of 1991, the image was featured on the cover of Optical Engineering alongside that other test image of the different colored peppers.
00:16:33.700Funny enough, I took a look at that cover.
00:16:37.900So I'm like, oh, I think they're trying to demonstrate that like these images had all these different dynamic colors, but both of them are rendered in black and white, kind of rendering that meaningless.
00:16:47.700So this is when Playboy gets wind of this and they are not happy because it's basically copyright infringement, which I this is not related to the story, but I always have to add this.
00:16:57.880Whenever it comes up how litigious Hugh Hefner and Playboy were, I always think this is very rich because, as y'all probably know, Hugh Hefner made an entire lucrative industry off of images of Marilyn Monroe that she did for a calendar company for which she was only paid $50.
00:17:15.780Many years after that photo shoot, Hugh Hefner bought those photographs from the calendar company, republished them without Marilyn Monroe's consent or permission in 1953.
00:17:25.980That was the first ever issue of Playboy. Hugh Hefner paid $500. She got $50, right? So whenever
00:17:32.680I read about how litigious Playboy is, which they're very litigious, I always have to chuckle
00:17:37.440at that, that, oh, like, you don't want somebody profiting off of your intellectual property but
00:17:43.440had no problem profiting off of a woman's body without compensating her fairly or even her
00:18:21.980Like even even Lena in an interview, she talks about how in the 70s after this photo shoot, she was invited to go to the Playboy Mansion.
00:18:30.360And the quote is something like they made it clear in the invite that I would have to spend time with Hugh Hefner while he was in his dressing robe.
00:20:13.980It's like if you can hide some real messages inside compelling characters, then that is a Trojan horse.
00:20:21.900Whether you're looking for literary deep dives, smart pop culture conversations, or a community of readers who love to think a little too much, you're in the right place.
00:20:31.060Listen to Pro Society on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:22:08.860It's like one of those interactive pieces
00:22:10.180It has a timeline. Definitely check it out. But in that piece, Ding actually includes a freeze frame of the show Silicon Valley on HBO, where in the background, there is a poster with the Lena image on the wall. Right.
00:22:23.940So this image is also included in scientific journals just all over the place.
00:22:28.520Ding found that within the .edu world, so like websites related to education, the Lena image continues to appear in homework questions, class slides, and to be hosted on educational and research sites, ensuring that it will be passed down to new generations of engineers.
00:22:44.460So this became so popular that Lena herself is often called the first lady of the Internet.
00:22:51.340Wow. Yeah, I can, like, her taking that picture, having no idea that this is what would happen, which, yeah, I mean, I guess that speaks to the next question. Why did this image take off the way that it did?
00:23:04.020Well, if you ask David C. Munson, who is the editor-in-chief of the IE, or the IEEE, transactions on image processing, he said that the image happened to meet all of these requirements for a good test image because of its detail, its flat regions, shading, and texture.
00:23:22.000But even he will not leave out the obvious fact that it's also a picture of, like, a seductive, sexy young woman.
00:23:30.080Like, that's definitely part of it.0.91
00:23:32.140He says, the Lena image picture is of an attractive woman.
00:23:35.540It is not surprising to me that the mostly male image processing research community gravitated toward an image that they found attractive.
00:23:42.400And so I do think there is something about these highly male dominated spaces where it's not just that there's a lot of men.
00:23:51.420It's like their worldviews, their interests, their perspectives, their biases that are really taking up a lot of space in these in these spaces.
00:24:00.840I just think that men feel like these spaces are theirs and that they are free to decorate those spaces with the pretty women that they think they feel like they should be able to use without their consent or compensation.
00:24:13.640I just think that, like, Annie, you mentioned earlier that the other test images are these things that you consume, right?
00:24:21.280There's another famous one of a baboon that has different colors on its face.
00:24:25.780it's interesting to me that it's these things that are not human things that are like animal or or that
00:24:31.920you consume that like throwing a sexy young woman into that mix I don't think maybe seem like a huge
00:24:37.340departure for these guys yeah and and again when we think about things um in the realm of AI or
00:24:43.960even I know I've complained about this many times but in like the worlds of fandom or um gaming
00:24:49.920it's like that it's like you can come into our world on our terms and you wear what we want you
00:24:53.820You are here because we let you be here in this male-dominated space, but you're going to do what we want. It's not up to you. And that's the only way that you can be in this world. But that being said, there has been some pushback recently-ish, right, Bridget?
00:25:15.480Yeah. So one thing about what you just said, when I was researching for this episode, some of the different engineers who had contributed to this image's popularity, they were quoted when they actually met the actual real Lena at a conference that she was invited to.
00:25:31.540they were like I can't believe she's a real person and part of me was like you didn't even
00:25:35.860see her as a real human they just saw her as something that they had like an image in a in
00:25:40.820a picture that they had been consuming for decades and they had so removed her from being a real
00:25:46.220breathing human that meeting her in real life was like they were surprised that she was real and I
00:25:52.040think that really speaks to the sort of fandom element that you were talking about this idea
00:25:55.580that like you can come if you are a fantasy and in some ways not even a real human. You know what
00:26:03.840I'm saying? You're like, do I ever? Yeah. Like don't say anything that I don't like. Like keep
00:26:12.140quiet and look the way I like. Then you can be here. But oh, you're a real person. Oh no, I don't
00:26:18.940want you here at all. Yeah. So you're exactly right, Annie. All of this happened, but it was
00:26:25.320not without pushback, around like the 2010s, people started publicly asking whether or not
00:26:31.880this image of a woman from Playboy should be so foundational to technology, especially
00:26:38.740in education settings. You know, given conversations about the need for more women1.00
00:26:42.920in these spaces and how to make these spaces more inclusive and more diverse, that's really0.99
00:26:47.200around when you start hearing like people in public being like, wait a minute, maybe this
00:26:51.080isn't so cool. In 2015, Maddie Zug, who was then a student at the Thomas Jefferson High School for
00:26:56.500Science and Technology right here in D.C., where I live, who I should say now is a product safety
00:27:00.800engineer at Apple who focuses on preventing tech-enabled abuse and stalking and harassment
00:27:05.280on Apple platforms. So like, go Maddie. Maddie sounds like she was cool in high school and is
00:27:09.940cool now. So Maddie wrote this op-ed basically asking the question of like, should I, as a high
00:27:16.580school student at a STEM high school be given like an image from Playboy as part of my education
00:27:23.860in technology in STEM? She writes, I first saw a picture of Playboy magazine's Miss November 1972
00:27:30.280a year ago as a junior at TJ. My artificial intelligence teacher told our class to search
00:27:36.000Google for Lena Soderbergh, not the full image though, and use her picture to test our latest
00:27:41.380coding assignment. At the time, I was 16 and struggling to believe that I belonged to the
00:31:12.840People are asking the questions. People are raising the alarm. And I guess I don't think it should be several decades after AI technology becomes ubiquitous for people to start asking the question about how traditionally marginalized people like women are being used and represented and perhaps exploited without their consent in these spaces.
00:31:32.240I think it provides a really interesting precedent for what's going on here in 2024.
00:31:39.600She writes, to me, the crux of the Lena story is how little power we have over our data and how it is used and abused.
00:31:47.160That threat seems disproportionately higher for women who are overrepresented in Internet content, but underrepresented in Internet company leadership and decision making.
00:31:55.980Given this reality, engineering and product decisions will continue to consciously and unconsciously exclude our needs and concerns. Right. And so I really agree with that, that this Lena story really is a story about power dynamics and who is represented in technology and who is just sort of like has their needs exploited or erased. Right.0.96
00:32:16.800Like women, men wanting to consume the bodies of women is like foundational to the Internet.0.91
00:32:24.560It's like what it's like why we have the Internet the way that we have it.0.99
00:32:27.540And I think we know that now it's like an objective fact about the Internet and technology.
00:32:33.860I don't think we can still make technology that is not honest about that, because if we're not being honest about that, we can never fix that.
00:32:42.260We can never question that. We can never have that be a dynamic that we stop perpetuating with technology.
00:32:48.600Yeah. And I think it's like going back to the point about being in a classroom setting and being shown explicitly like this is how women are viewed in space.
00:32:58.120This is what built a lot of what we use today.
00:33:58.920So Ding actually points this out in her piece.
00:34:01.020She says, while social norms are changing toward non-consensual data collection and data exploitation, digital norms seem to be moving in the opposite direction.
00:34:09.460Advancement in machine learning algorithms and data storage capabilities are only making data misuse easier.
00:34:14.800Whether the outcome is revenge porn or targeted ads, surveillance or discriminatory AI, if we want a world where our data can retire when it's outlived its time or when it's directly harming our lives, we must create the tools and policies that empower data subjects to have a say in what happens to their data, including allowing their data to die.
00:34:34.440And so I think even if you're not somebody who is a techie, that does concern you, this dynamic that just says, we consume, we exploit, we make money from you, and you don't get to have a say about it.
00:34:46.120That's the dynamic that I think this Lena image really did usher in without really even necessarily meaning to.
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00:35:42.640If your bookshelf and your For You page are equally important to your personality,
00:35:47.060welcome home. This is Prose Society, the weekly podcast that's part book club,
00:35:53.240part group chat for thought daughters, pop culture obsessives, and anyone who thinks
00:36:25.160Whether you're looking for literary deep dives, smart pop culture conversations, or a community of readers who love to think a little too much, you're in the right place.
00:36:34.760Listen to Pro Society on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:39:11.120I think with, because getting on TikTok, the first opening video, I'm sure you've seen it, is that content manager who's like, I'm here for the safety of TikTok.
00:40:45.040As many times as I can change my password, the next email I'm getting is telling me that I've got a data breach of my information.
00:40:53.240So what is the point? Like, at this point, the only way is to rewrite my identity and to never get online again, which would be really hard for my job.
00:41:03.660Yes. Like if you have a phone in your in your life, if you vote, if you drive these things that that we are required to do to participate in public life should not just be avenues for somebody to make money and scam us.
00:41:20.220But yet it feels that way. And you know what, Sam, I have actually not seen the TikTok that you're referring to because I have not opened my TikTok app in days because it's starting to feel like QVC and I cannot take it anymore.
00:41:33.300Like, whatever happened to spaces on the Internet that were supposed to feel like safety or exploration or fun or community or connection?
00:41:41.320I hope that somebody out there listening is like, Bridget, you're old and unhip.
00:41:50.120But I think that we really got to get back to, like, to those principles of the Internet feeling like something other than being taken for a ride on which you are the chump.0.92
00:42:02.940Right. And I will say a lot of people have felt like Discord and Reddit has been like brought in, but we already know Reddit has had its problems. And then I think there's a new lawsuit with Discord with its problems and its terms of service changing as well. I'm like, what?
00:42:17.300So there's literally no one is protecting the individual to, like, there's no protection for us at all.
00:42:24.900But they want us to say, they want us to take away things from us, which is like the least of our worries.
00:42:31.040Or they're just like, sorry, you're like, you can't sue us.
00:42:35.140Yeah, I think everybody is feeling that.
00:42:37.180But I think it is particularly dangerous for people who are traditionally marginalized.
00:42:42.100Because, yeah, it's just the expectation that, oh, it's totally fine if people who make apps that non-consensually undress women using AI, why wouldn't they be able to advertise on Facebook or Instagram or Twitter?
00:42:57.900They got to make money. That's a business.0.54
00:42:59.500Like, how easy it is to erase the human people at the heart of this dynamic, erase their concerns, erase their needs, erase their harm, because men got to make money off of it.
00:43:18.720It was definitely not exploiting somebody or taking advantage of somebody or using humiliating content.
00:43:26.060Because she wasn't humiliated, I don't think.
00:43:27.660But, like, in the ideal of, like, it being forever and ever and ever of, like, your seductive picture being used for IT people, which is a whole different conversation in itself.
00:43:38.560I mean, so Lena, the real life Lena, and again, there's a really interesting Wired article that has an interview with her.
00:43:44.700She doesn't feel like she was exploited.
00:43:46.460She's actually really proud of that image, even as she recognizes that it's like time for it to be retired.
00:43:50.960However, she does wish that she had been fairly compensated for what would go on to be her like non-consensual contributions to tech.
00:43:59.780When she took that image, there's no way that as a, you know, young playboy playmate in 1971 or whatever, you would have a sense of like, well, if this goes on to be to make me the first lady of the Internet, I better have compensation and protections.
00:44:13.480No way. Right. So in that Wired piece, they say it makes sense that she would feel this way.
00:44:18.560Unlike so many women in tech, Lena has at least been acknowledged, even vetted for her contribution.
00:44:24.380She did that work, and the people started using that photo in this neat new way,
00:44:28.080and now she has this kind of immortality woven into the design of the machine.
00:44:32.980This is from Marie Hicks, a historian of technology and the author of Programmed Inequality.
00:44:37.560All of this happened for a reason, Hicks writes.
00:44:39.680If they hadn't used a Playboy centerfold,
00:44:41.600they almost certainly would have used another picture of a pretty white woman.0.52
00:44:46.540but really what it's about is this world building that's gone on in computing from the beginning.
00:44:50.820It's about building worlds for certain people and not for others.
00:44:55.580I find it interesting, too, that they invited her to the conference.
00:44:58.660Like, I'm wondering what the purpose was other than to, like, for me, because it obviously wasn't to ask her questions about tech and how she did this thing because they did not even consider human, as we know.
00:45:12.220It was just literally to ogle her in real life.
00:45:15.740Yeah, I was thinking about why they did that.
00:45:19.560I have part of me wonders if it was like an attempt to be like, oh, we need to acknowledge the way that this woman's image was so foundational to our technology, but then like not really doing it, like still sort of treating her as like a booth babe or something like I don't know.
00:45:35.700Right. I just find all of that interesting in this level of like, not again, of not what she was doing this for. She came in with like, whatever her ambitions were in being this model and whatnot. And then all of a sudden being told you're being used as an example for computers, like for images for computers.
00:45:58.700And not only will you see this, but your grandkids will also, like if she has children, like any of those things, and your family members forever.
00:46:06.440And like who would have ever thought that that's how that image would go on to be used in history?
00:46:10.900And I really think like this is where we are today, and this is like why I wanted to talk about this, is that I think like the idea, the concept of images being shared online, the way we understand that in 2024,
00:46:23.760The fact that this image of Lena became so foundational to that concept without her consent, you know, perhaps without like proper contribution to the way that she actually was foundational to that and building out this entire universe around it that is mostly like controlled and protected and profited off by men.
00:46:43.700And nobody's stopping to ask about the ramifications of that until decades later.
00:46:48.240I just think it really establishes, like, a concerning precedent for where we're going right now with AI in 2024.
00:46:55.960We can learn from what we did with that Lena image if we ask the right questions, if we center the right perspectives and the right voices.
00:47:02.800And so, yeah, I don't want to wait until 2040 to be like, oh, should we have been talking about the ways that women and girls and other marginalized people are being exploited and used to make technology companies money?
00:47:16.340I don't want to ask that question when it's too late.
00:47:18.560Right. And here's like the big conversation is, shouldn't we also recognize that big companies and big tech companies and big companies that are developing are purposely leaving out marginalized people because they like the old ways and that it's only making a certain amount of people money?
00:47:35.040Yes, I would argue that's exactly what's going on. I mean, in 2024, there are so many loud, thoughtful voices from women and people of color who are really talking about AI in some interesting and thoughtful ways.
00:47:50.380So they exist. They are out there. This is the tale as old as time when it comes to technology. It is not that they are not there. It is that they are being, whether intentionally or unintentionally, marginalized, sidelined, silenced, pushed aside to make room for voices who are just repeating the status quo, who are just saying like, well, I'm trying to get rich.
00:48:12.480So who cares how this harms somebody? Who cares about whether or not this goes on to exploit? And I think that's really it's really like a it's a little bit of a complicated cultural dynamic and cultural shift that I think that we really got a break.
00:48:25.560yeah yeah and it's really sad going back to your point bridget of like the internet
00:48:30.560not being a place of joy anymore because so many times it was marginalized people who made those
00:48:36.900spaces because they couldn't find them anywhere else um and then these companies come in and are
00:48:45.920like okay well we can make money and then it doesn't become a joyous space anymore it becomes
00:48:52.720a very toxic a toxic place and so like hearing this story and seeing how so much of what we use
00:49:03.080still is based on something that was a guy walked in with the playboy magazine like
00:49:09.940it's it's bad when you that doesn't feel so out of place and what we're talking about