I am a model and I know that artificial intelligence will take my job - <AUTHOR> https://www.vogue.com/article/sinead-bovell-model-artificial-intelligence <comment><USER3> IMO, maybe but unlikely any time soon.

I've lived in NYC for the last decade+. Had many friends that had legitimate careers as models. Some lasted a year with just a few shoots and a self-funded trip to Paris fashion week before they quit or went into debt over it. Some have been going at it for more than a decade and you would recognize if you flipped through a fashion magazine even semi-regularly.

I also work in media, date someone in fashion and have knowledge of what actually gets paid to models.

While there are a rare few who find a real career out of it and rise out of the traps of shitty agencies and contracts, usually by branching out and establishing a self-brand, none of them that I know made something they can comfortably retire on just with what we would consider the job of a model.

There are certainly exceptions to this but in general, if you're a fashion brand, digital or print magazine offering any type of exposure, hiring a model is inexpensive. Rarely if ever livable wages. That goes for most of the people who work on sets or for fashion shows.

So with all of that preamble out of the way, what I am getting at is...

1\. Coordinating an AI model, that has to wear these clothes, and that bracelet, and be on this location, or pictures with this lighting sounds complex and expensive when hiring a set to produce the real thing is a known quantity and cost virtually minimum wages. 2\. There are still people who deeply care about the art of the whole thing and do most of their work for free to be supported in anyway to keep doing it. I am looking on the not so bright, bright side here but I'd like to think AI is little more of a thread than stock photography.

<comment><USER4> You know a lot more about this than me, but one potential counterpoint though is Ikea already using ~75% computer generated images in their catalogues. When the technology is mature enough, it provides a huge amount of flexibility compared to a photo shoot.

<comment><USER5> From my own attempts at hobbyist 3d modelling, computer generating a human with clothes is far harder than furniture. Looking through the computer generated images for IKEA almost all of them are hard body (solid objects) with very few soft objects (clothing, tablecloths, etc) and nothing that is alive. Creating realistic clothing renders is quite difficult, and it gets even more difficult when a lifelike human needs to be rendered as well.

<comment><USER6> Consider the incentives fast fashion vendors have, and it seems clear that completely AI generated product photography is inevitable.

It's expensive and slow to hire a photographer and a studio and a model, and you have to ship the clothes there ahead of the launch on your website to have them spend all day getting in and out of different outfits while stylists keep their hair tidy, then the photographs go to the art direction team to be photoshopped to match the site aesthetic...

If you can just get someone in the factory in China to snap a photograph of the latest batch of dresses and tops and skirts as they come off the sewing table, then you can just send them into a GAN, and have style-matched 'photographs' generated showing the clothes on a selection of different models, each of whose appearance is perfectly tailored to appeal to different market segments.

You can have high quality creative on your website and in the product feed to Google the same day, and start taking orders before the inventory starts piling up.

Then next week, you can do it again with the next set of designs.

<comment><USER7> > If you can just get someone in the factory in China to snap a photograph of > the latest batch of dresses and tops and skirts as they come off the sewing > table,

Just a simple photo of the garment will not tell you how it behaves on the body (how "malleable" it is, how it bends, wrinkles etc.) and how it interacts with the light. Just ask any artist about the nuances of painting clothing materials - it's a big subject in its own right. I suspect that only shooting photos on a in-factory models, in various lighting conditions MIGHT be enough to train the AI.

<comment><USER6> There's plenty of training material available - the internet is full of pictures of people wearing clothes.

<comment><USER7> Yep, but how is that informative for a particular garment that you want to visualize? You can't infer, from a corpus of images of random clothes being worn, how that particular shape and fabric behaves.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Nonsense. Maybe the generic low-end catalogue models will be replaced by some kind of AI but it definitely won't happen in high fashion. I've worked for some of these organisations and it's ALL about the in-person social aspects of the industry. Catwalk shows are an event with real people, not because it's the most effective way to showcase the physical items but because it creates a buzz that everyone wants to be a part of. The business thrives on parties and bars and muses and the backstage chaos, frantically pulling everything together at the last minute so they can glide out there and look serene for a few brief seconds. The designers and stylists and hair and makeup and accessories people love working with the girls - even the difficult diva types who turn up late and think they own the whole show - because it brings fun and spontaneity and joy and relationship building and uncertainty, the dangerous unpredictability, just on the threshold of losing control, is a big part of the energy and many people in the business have their entire 24/7 social life wrapped up completely in their careers. These techno "models" are a gimmick that will be used for as long as they grab headlines but in the long run, fashion people love people (each other, not necessarily their consumers) and - this may be hard for many IT types to comprehend - the business will always thrive on those people who are able to walk into a room and move around and pull faces that grab attention in surprising and unexpected ways, especially if those people are also _enjoyable_ to work with in a way that some CGI never could be.

<comment><USER9> > this may be hard for many IT types to comprehend

Save the condescension, this wasn't written by an 'IT type' or published on a tech journal.

All industries that got disrupted by more modern technology came up with arguments similar to the ones you brought up - bookstores vs amazon, brick- and-mortar stores vs ecommerce, face-to face meetings vs video calls, film vs digital, newspapers vs internet.

There will always be demand for high end fashion, but eventually it'll get relegated to a niche.

<comment><USER10> Yes. The "human factor" was supposed to have saved all those industries. Nope.

<comment><USER11> The "human factor" is still why we don't have AI replacing doctors! There's a lot AI can and should be doing for improving worker efficiency in many industries, but ignoring "human factors" leads to 737 Max sort of screw up for deploying automation technologies.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Just earlier this week, I was talking with a colleague about all the hidden jobs that no longer exist because of software. And these are not jobs that dramatically went away all at once, like a team of longshoremen being cut in the movies.

Think of all the teams of bookkeepers (yes, actual people who penciled numbers in books) who were obsoleted by Excel being able to let a store owner do a calculation/scenario by himself that would take accountants a week to do.

Think of all the secretaries whose work disappeared (or were no longer needed in proportion to the growing economy) as soon as personal calendar software and meeting invites became common.

Graphic designers / publication layout experts you would pay because you didn't have desktop publishing software.

There are more jobs lost silently to these kinds of developments than any factory being shut down dramatically. (for the US at least)

<comment><USER13> Cashiers are on their way out. You can walk into any Walmart and see two people in line for 10 minutes because of the 50 available registers only 2 are open. Walmart wants to drive people to use the self checkout. I hate it because invariably something goes wrong and you have to compete for the sole person manning that section.

<comment><USER14> Self-checkout only stores is exactly what hell looks like. I hate self checkouts with a burning passion, if not for the sake that I got duped as a consumer to work for the company, while paying the same price on my goods, but for the fact that they aren't faster, they certainly aren't friendlier, and generally cause a certain level of frustration or anxiety for the consumer.

If you care about accessibility and not being ageist, they are terrible for people with disabilities or the elderly. You will almost see no old or disabled person using a self checkout line.

As a show of more anecdotal evidence, a recent large grocery store chain in my large populated city of 2+ million people experiment with going self-checkout only failed so bad (lost so many customers and people were complaining), they hired cashiers again to basically scan people's groceries for them at the self-checkout line. Now they are stuck with the worst of both worlds.

<comment><USER15> Why would you think you're paying the same price? Is grocery shopping not a competitive, low margin market?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> My opinion as a tech-inclined person who works with many fashion/beauty clients in a creative capacity: fashion, in general, doesn't understand tech, and have been consistently 5-10 years late adopting The New.

The industry continues to be centered around still photographs—generally for the average campaign 90% of the budget/crew will go to the photographs, and video will be thrown in as an afterthought, even though it is an order of magnitude more difficult to create—and nearly exclusively those stills will be experienced on a computer that is told to show that same frame 60 times every second forever.

My clients are just barely starting to understand how video works. To try to get them to wade into 3D—and not just as a splashy one-off tool for attention, but for the actual day to day creation of hundreds of e-comm images/season—I don't see this happening for a long time.

<comment><USER17> I am nowhere near the fashion industry, but my kneejerk reaction is that the industry might be slow to adopt technology because they don't have that much to gain.

If they are very familiar with still photographs and (I assume) can somewhat predict how still photographs will be perceived by the market, what is the incentive to switch to something new?

As a consumer, my guess would be that a video or 3D display would not create a huge spike in revenue. In fact, if done poorly I could even see it having the opposite effect.

So what is the incentive to invest time and money into switching to something new and risky?

\</comment></comment><comment>-

CGI models however seem to be a different story. The cost saving aspect is clear cut and I as the consumer likely won't even realize anything has changed.

<comment><USER16> Those are good points, but fashion exists in a logic-adjacent (interesting, infuriating) intersection of Art and Commerce; on a big set you can almost map where someone is on that continuum by their order on the call sheet.

On one hand, it makes total sense to ask if embracing 3D stuff, or pushing (to my mind) a more appropriate use of the digital mediums in which we create and experience most things will lead to spike in revenue:

If you do it poorly (read: solution looking for a problem) I wouldn't expect that to make much of a leap in any real metrics—and if companies are trying to pass off images on the wrong side of the uncanny valley that'd be more likely to hurt than help.

But it's the Art that actually sells the "lifestyle" (read: clothes), and if you can create a gobsmacking incredible experience that makes people feel things you will absolutely see that in metrics and earned media and attention...

There are so many interesting technologies that are widely accessible today that fashion companies aren't embracing because 1) they don't know to look for them and 2) they don't understand how they work. Small example: I absolutely blew a (publicaly-traded) client's mind showing them a projection mapping concept... 2 years ago, well after the tools made it a 15 minute job they could have gotten the savvy intern to execute.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> It's already here.

See Marvelous Designer[1] and CLO[2]. These are CAD programs for designing clothes. They make both a 3D model for viewing and patterns for cutting and sewing. When design moves to CAD, the designer already has a 3D model before the clothing is made. So, for catalog photos, there's no need for human models.

Mostly. Those two companies need better hair shaders.

[1] [https://marvelousdesigner.com/](https://marvelousdesigner.com/)

[2] [https://www.clo3d.com](https://www.clo3d.com)

</comment><comment><USER19> Presaged eerily in 1981 by Michael Crichton's terrible movie "Looker":

[https://youtu.be/2IZfSr891bE](https://youtu.be/2IZfSr891bE) (warning, nudity)

Two additional scenes stand out:

1\. The protagonist watches a prototype perfume commercial with eye-tracking glasses, and the computer ends up superimposing the closing logo over the part he watched the most often (this being 1981, I'm sure you can imagine...)

2\. The implication that the computer can determine the 'perfect' poses and actions for optimal viewer response ("Not enough body twist according to the computer"), and the physical model having to contort herself to fit the ideal (you can see a few seconds of this at 0:39 in the trailer - [https://youtu.be/yoT-r1slAZ4](https://youtu.be/yoT-r1slAZ4))

</comment><comment><USER20> My first interpretation of the headline was: a self-aware deep-learning model predicted another deep-learning model to replace it.

<comment><USER21> Oh cool we live in a Douglass Adams book. Oh no we live in a Douglass Adams book!

<comment><USER22> You have two s's too many.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Adams](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Adams)

<comment><USER23> Ours is an imperfect copy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> This is one of the few "AI will kill X" that I can see (if the article's claims are true). This wouldn't just impact models - it would automate the entire shooting process.

Models are cheap, but the overhead of the process is expensive. Hiring a photographer, lighting person, studio space, model, clothes and backdrop; coordinating with relatively high-paid internal stakeholders (execs, designers, etc.); and developing/touching up photos after... Big processes add up. There's a need.

At the low and medium end, this could totally replace the shoot process. Presumably, designers would have a basic version of the software in their standard toolkit (you can see it in a catalog before it's shot - talk about sales!), so the marginal cost would be 0. There's no differentiator - <USER2> friction.

If the software's output is comparable to a shoot for a department store, the there's a real solution.

Why would I ever bother with a physical shoot?

<comment><USER25> Isn't this basically Instagram?

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Ah, the realization of this Al Pacino classic:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HuAjeuKXX7c](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HuAjeuKXX7c)

<comment><USER27> For small values of "classic".

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Is there really a point to rampant, non-stop technological advancements if the common people never really get to see the benefits of it? It seems like life just keeps getting harder and harder for the lower classes.

<comment><USER29> But they do get to see them, they usually just don't notice them. Almost everyone in the developed world has a supercomputer in their pocket that acts as a flashlight and a video camera as well! Modern cars are far safer than old cars. They're faster than horses too. A modern combine harvester does the work of many people, which makes food much cheaper.

There are untold small and big improvements like that that we just take for granted. GDP per capita roughly doubles in 20 years. That's the combination of all of these small and big improvements added up on a societal scale. Before industrialization it could take over 1000 years to see a similar level of improvement in the life of an average person.

My grandparents had no running water. They would wash in a sauna with water from a pond or well. Famines were common at that time. People still mostly used horses for transport. Roads were not paved. Clothing was mostly self- made. Televisions didn't even exist yet. Radios were for well-off families. Compare that to today in a developed country.

This rampant non-stop technological advancement is what's making life better. It's just hard to notice if you don't think about it.

<comment><USER27> And yet: "Looming evictions may soon make 28 million homeless in U.S., expert says"

[https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/10/looming-evictions-may- soon-m...](https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/10/looming-evictions-may-soon- make-28-million-homeless-expert-says.html)

You caan't live in a video game. You cannot eat an iPhone. Maslow's Hierarchy still rests on its base, and tens of millions within the US and billions worldwide live precarious existences.

<comment><USER29> Maslow's hierarchy of needs is far from the problem in the US. Many millions might end up being evicted but the vast majority of them will end up finding other accommodations. There's a lot of housing available in the US. It's just not cheap in the places people want to be.

<comment><USER27> Maslow's hierarchy, a friend pointed out a few years back, is best considered not merely as a set of essential and nourishing goods and services, but _security in those elements_. The hand that offers whilst threatening, withdrawing, or threatening is not nurturing but the definition of abuse and trauma.

Living on a knife's edge, at all times, is not tenable.

See:

[https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/2vwfb6/maslows...](https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/2vwfb6/maslows_smartphone_the_role_of_technology_in/)

[https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/3ey7d1/maslows...](https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/3ey7d1/maslows_swimming_pool_greek_austerity/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> As others have commented there are lots of costs and logistical complications involved in a traditional photo shoot. You need to have all the garments of the outfit, the model, the photographer and all support staff in the same place at the same time.

Replacing this with all digital models and clothes would be a big cost reduction.

However, it is still relatively hard to render photo-realistic faces and there's still a long way until all clothes are available as 3D models with realistic simulation of fabrics etc.

But there are already solutions being used today that achieve some of the benefits without using completely generated content.

Looklet[1] provides a system where each garment is shot individually on a mannequin. This is done by a couple of operators in a custom studio, typically placed in a warehouse or similar where samples are received. The images are then combined with other garment images and previously shot images of models to produce photo-realistic catalog images without the need for a traditional photo shoot. The web page has sample images and a list of retailers using this technology.

Take a look at e.g. Saks Off 5th's[2] catalog and see if you can spot the images that have been produced in this way.

[1] [https://www.looklet.com](https://www.looklet.com)

[2] [https://www.saksoff5th.com/c/women/apparel](https://www.saksoff5th.com/c/women/apparel)

</comment><comment><USER31> >For one thing, digital models drastically reduce the environmental footprint associated with photo shoots and bringing clothes to market. It's not uncommon for a model to shoot more than 50 outfits in a single day for an e-commerce shoot, and many of those samples end up in the landfills. Using 3D models would eliminate all of that. I spoke to Anastasia Edwards-Morel, a 3D fashion design expert at the design company CLO, who explained that by using 3D avatars and her company's design software, a significant portion of the supply chain can now happen in a computer.

Model is just a top of the pyramid which is being eaten by software.

One can see though that that may also lead to small tech-advanced (3d printing/etc.) object "materialization" shops popping up close to consumer. While you're running your morning run and having breakfast, the outfit chosen upon waking up (based on looking at weather and your own "feel like") from a design collection just posted couple days ago (and which you can preview online as fitted right onto you instead of a model - it may look good on a model and not on you and vice versa) is getting "materialized" and delivered right to your door (and your previous ones which you don't need/want anymore are collected for recycling, refurbishing, donation, etc.).

</comment><comment><USER32> That article, and the related one about Miquela Sousa [1] now have me thinking in several directions.

1\. How long before someone plugs in a GPT-3 backed chatbot to handle the comments for these virtual models? Eventually, AI powered voice synthesis, lip-sync and animation (helped by a kinematics model) will handle basic animation, to allow real-time chat with a "virtual model" who can walk and talk. This could be my big ticket to Internet fame and fortune!

2\. And then someone will want to marry one, a la William Gibson's novel Idoru. It'll be a real fight when true AGIs are asking for equal rights. But how about before then when someone wants to extend rights to a fancy chatbot with an animation package that we _know_ isn't sentient? Will forming a corporation help or hurt that effort?

We do live in interesting times.

[1] [https://www.vogue.com/article/lilmiquela-miquela-sousa- insta...](https://www.vogue.com/article/lilmiquela-miquela-sousa-instagram-it- girl-digital-simulation)

<comment><USER23> Why do we even need all that? My exposure to modelling is what I see them modelling, typically garments or accessories. There's no dialogue in spoken or written form.

Software has getting/gotten extremely good at mimicry. Natural motion and facial expressions are in development. I really don't see these things as being that far off into the future where the human is just moving a mouse/hand to find the motion and expressions for a specific sequence. Video game avatars are the best indicator. If you go back 5, 10, 15 years and compare those to what we can do now then extrapolate 5-15 years.

<comment><USER32> I was thinking in terms of the modern (2020) "influencer" lifestyle, and making an entire fake online persona, not just generating pictures.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> I think the biggest potential for AI in fashion will be to allow a customer to do "virtual try-on" \- see a clothing item rendered on the customer's own body. Maybe eventually we'll reach a point where it's way cheaper to synthesize a photograph of a model wearing an item, but how expensive could those really be to make using a human being and a camera? But if you can synthesize a model wearing a shirt, it's not that big of a step to instead synthesize ME wearing that shirt. I can't easily get pictures of me wearing every shirt in the store the traditional way, so even an expensive, slow or flawed AI system to accomplish that would still have value.

<comment><USER34> I suspect I would buy significantly fewer clothes online if I saw a picture of myself in them first. The model sells me on it because somewhere deep in my brain I think maybe those clothes will make _me_ look like the model.

As a customer, I would definitely be better off with an AI Selfie - I'd be happier with my purchases more often and maybe even get some sort of hidden psychological benefit to not looking at unrealistic model bodies. But I'm not sure retailers would stand to benefit much.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> there is also rosebud.ai which creates images of clothing on (deepfake) models for businesses. It's supposed to save time and possibly money on photographers/models. Really excited for this to become viable for small businesses <3

</comment><comment><USER36> "What if every time you shopped online you could see yourself in the clothes?"

What if every time you shopped online you could see a version of yourself you'd indicated you want to be (via a thousand small web interactions) in those clothes?

<comment><USER37> Taking that idea a step further, what if every time I wrote a comment online I could see a version of my comment that the person I want to be would write?

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> I think the article is hyperbole. 120 years ago, photography changed painting and today AI is going to change photography. It might be, just as with modernist painting, that freely available perfection creates a desire for distilled humanity that can't (yet) be captured by AI.

I think there is a fairly huge middle ground. I wish that REAL models would digitally represent themselves as 3D meshes, so that I could preview digital clothing on them. That would really sell clothes man.

</comment><comment><USER39> >> The company uses generative adversarial networks (GANs), which is a type of machine learning, a subset of A.I.

"Subfield" is more correct but it's interesting that a model (and that's not a _language_ model) gets the relation between neural nets, machine learning and AI right, when the majority of the so-called tech press gets it consistenty wrong, e.g. using AI to refer to deep learning in a kind of reverse- synecdoche.

</comment><comment><USER40> Wow, so many questions and thoughts this article raises in me.

The biggest takeaway for me was that this technology will likely naturally evolve to seeing ourselves in the content and clothing we want. Maybe it's a bit narcissistic to declare publicly, but I have personally seen through my own work the march towards personalization: what's more personal than seeing yourself everywhere doing everything?

</comment><comment><USER41> I think many of these comnments are missing the broader implications for the fashion modeling world in general.

Right now there are a lot of folks that are not models tied into this as well: photographers, lighting and set people, makeup, dressers, travel arrangers, fixers, etcs.

I can easily see a near future with the equivalent of Unreal Engine for modling. All sets, lighting, makeup, AND people in picture will be life-like. There will be easily configurable random but realistic auto-posing, etc.

The jobs will all become highly comodified down to low paying jobs for long hours much like the video game industry is today.

And _none_ of the afore mentioned jobs or attendent costs will be required.

As for consumers wanting to "know" the real models and their lives and advantures? Ok well, I'll get off your lawn grandpa. If current trends contue, none of that will matter. Folks already form para-relationships with digital/fantasy people (re: go to any cosplay convention). So the models not being "real" will pose no barrier in the long run.

</comment><comment><USER42> On a related subject, most of the images in an IKEA catalogue are now entirely digitally generated. One reason this is so is to allow for slightly different content to be delivered country to country (change of wall colour, different wall furniture etc). Some details here: [https://architizer.com/blog/practice/details/see-how- ikea-3d...](https://architizer.com/blog/practice/details/see-how- ikea-3d-models-the-rooms-in-their-catalogs/)

What remains to be considered is human judgement. But it won't be long. There has been some research on automating the aesthetic placement of the camera within the scene... automatic composition. [https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9112197](https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9112197)

As a painter, I certainly know there are rules, albeit very 'floppy' ones.

</comment><comment><USER43> A side question: do people want digital models that look like real people?

Shudu and her peers _look_ CGI, and I think that's deliberate. Compare the Shudu instagram with the output of a modern GAN. I think this is likely an intentional aesthetic choice. What if part of the appeal of a digital model is it can look both like and not like a person, in a way that is controllable and expressive?

A separate question from the aesthetics is, could it be better to "objectify" something that's already an object, than to do that to a real person?

[https://www.instagram.com/p/BnGmYwzF6nR/](https://www.instagram.com/p/BnGmYwzF6nR/) [https://thispersondoesnotexist.com/](https://thispersondoesnotexist.com/)

</comment><comment><USER44> My first thought at seeing this title was that it was an autobiography of a machine learning model.

</comment><comment><USER45> The self-description of "Shudu Gram" as "world's first digital supermodel" ignores the history of Lara Croft's spread in The Face magazine (in Versace, amongst others), or the likes of Hatsune Miku and more Japanese idoru.

</comment><comment><USER46> I was skeptical, but while I was reading the article my wife looked over my shoulder at the photo on top of the article. Unprompted, she asked "Wow, she's absolutely gorgeous. Who is she?"

We might be further along towards CGI models than I thought

<comment><USER47> The photo at the top of the article is the author, not the CGI model.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> I'm not sure I agree with this. Just like people still like to go to live concerts I think that people will still like real live models. And knowing that a real live model has a limited life span will make them way more interesting while in their prime. Besides, what makes a person quite interesting many times is not necessarily only how they look but how they live their lives.

I do agree that AI models may/can become huge. But there will still be plenty of room for human ones.

It almost feels that if AI models became prevalent the result would be to make some human models even more interesting.

This is just a gut feeling of course.

</comment><comment><USER49> This reminds me of another article on IKEA's catalogue: at least 75% those photos are 3D renders[0]

I can definitely see how a major fast-fashion brand can adopt this practice.

Won't kill Paris and NYC fashion week, but certainly will decrease the number of models that are currently paid for more trivial modelling jobs.

[0] [https://kotaku.com/most-pics-in-ikea-catalogues-arent- photos...](https://kotaku.com/most-pics-in-ikea-catalogues-arent-photos- theyre-3d-re-1627713133)

<comment><USER49> When I say Paris and NYC fashion week won't be kill I mean: the more artistic and high aspirational side of fashion will always be driven by humans (IMO) and humans will want to work with other humans. Not a fashion designer but I suspect it is hard for you to design clothes for a digital human to wear. I mean, if you're a game designer maybe you're moved by that. But not sure a fashion designer would.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> Modeling is an art form. In my opinion it's about as likely to be taken over by AI as any other art form.

We have seen AI (or CGI) being used increasingly in film, music and writing, but the highest forms of these arts are not AI, unless they are AI for AI's sake (i.e. as a novelty).

A fintech firm might now be producing daily stock summaries from AI. A Hollywood studio might make use of CGI in its movies. But the highest art form still makes without AI and will continue so for many decades to come.

<comment><USER27> The ... _value_ ... in at least fine or collectable art (as opposed to mere mass entertainment) or other assets (wine, ancient artefacts, first editions and original manuscripts, etc.) lies largely, though not necessarily entirely, in uniqueness, particularly in status signalling value, as a Veblen good. Costs of production and provenance here are actually favourable characteristics and establish signalling capability.

There is at least some likelihood that it's precisely the elements or aspects which are _not_ automatable, or which are not automated, which will achive higher status.

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> Actual models are already unrealistically attractive and fit so I'm a little bit worried about generated models are going to make people feel about themselves.

<comment><USER12> The fact that GPT-3 can write a better essay than I can has sent me into a full blown funk this last week.

edit: *than I can, not "that I can", hah.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I can see models being eliminated just because operating with them is politically dicey and fraught with ethical issues.

So many stories of abuse and mistreatment and them eating tissue paper or being sexualized at 14 keep periodically occurring that eventually enough people will just say forget it and use digital creations.

<comment><USER52> Conversely, I can see models _not_ being eliminated. Because the people in power with money and choosing where to spend it would rather spend it on pretty women they can creep on than throwing it at a few nerds and a supercomputer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> If you`re one of the parties on the leading edge of the transition to "artificial beauty", the champagne will continue to flow.

Beyond the fad and hype sales cycles of fashion perhaps art will flourish again with all of the excess natural beauty that is still in demand. Its still timeless!

</comment><comment><USER54> I was actually hoping that at the end, it would be revealed that the article was written by a bot.

</comment><comment><USER55> i can see that software will also eat the fashion industry how ever not primarily with AI first but CGI+AI. I can imagine that there will be a transition from hollywood like VFX artists from film/gaming to fashion if the demand for CG models is there.

Putting real life actors in AAA games has been a thing for years at this point, but now the graphics are so advanced that it will look completely photo real within the next couple console generations. Those game companies put real life actors in their movies because of the audience recognizes them. Same thing will likely happen for fashion as well. If you buy famous models'/celebrities' digital model you can reuse and license that however you want.

</comment><comment><USER56> This is for the best. It seems especially damaging to the formation of a fully actualized human to derive your living merely on being born looking a certain way. Maybe I'm wrong, but is there any particular skill to being a model?

</comment><comment><USER57> It seems more like the job of "Model" is being replaced by "Instagram Influencer". Companies can get attractive people on Instagram (possibly a CG person) to show off the clothing for them, and seemingly quite cheaply.

<comment><USER58> An example of a completely AI generated Instagram "influencer" is Miquela (@lilmiquela) with 2.5M followers

[https://www.instagram.com/lilmiquela](https://www.instagram.com/lilmiquela)

</comment></comment><comment><USER59> Age will take her job but yeah AI will take away the job of model for the most part when not at in person events. An AI can't ever really replace the pheromone response at those I think.

</comment><comment><USER60> These are impressive but lifeless, and nobody wants to feel lifeless. It will not take hold other than as novelty.

</comment><comment><USER61> Maybe that will help with the model scouting -> human trafficking pipeline.

</comment><comment><USER62> the era of artificial / roboticized everything is gonna be "interesting".. we need to exist for others even if we have nothing to do (as obligations, survival or else).

</comment><comment><USER63> PlaceIt.net does this for lots of things. Love it.

</comment><comment><USER64> Natural aging will impact you much faster than AI.

</comment><comment><USER65> Age will come for it sooner than 'AI'

</comment><comment><USER66> I wonder what happens to porn industry.

</comment><comment><USER67> I recently started brainstorming with my brother about what fields are actually likely to be disrupted by AI technologies that exist today and the list was quite surprising and unlike what I had seen in the media. The impact is likely to start in the creative industries. Entrepreneurs feel free to steal :

1\. Hollywood in the Cloud : The progress of computer vision algorithms, game engines like Unreal and massive computation in the cloud mean that in 25 years time you maybe able to produce a Hollywood quality movie by writing code. Unreal engine will render the backgrounds, Deep neural nets will generate the actors voices and faces and code will be used to stitch everything together. This may also include the production of background scores by neural nets primed on music in similar scenes. The number of people needed to produce a film will be cut by 10x and we will see an explosion in film making. Tik Tok is an early example of this.

2\. Digital Models: This is connected to the above. You will also see digital models being used on billboards and news readers will be replaced by models like GPT-3 that convert data into narratives and then they are read by digital newsreaders. They may even make it interactive by reading out the most popular tweets or having fake discussion between AI models with different personalities.

3.Lawyers : GPT-3 has given me a lot of confidence in predicting a major disruption to legal research. You can probably semi automate case research and you don't need armies of junior lawyers or para legals to fight cases.

4.Accountants: This relies on the continued improvement in computer vision in the ability to read and interpret printed invoices. More and more transactions will happen via APIs and be shepherded by digital accountants too.

5.Programmers: I am less sure of how programmers will be replaced but there are some obvious avenues. Natural language interfaces could make most front end work obsolete. You don't really need an Uber app if GPT-3 on steroids can understand exactly what you want and then produce a widget on the fly that shows you the appropriate information on demand. Most simple apps will be folded into natural language assistants which means that front end work will go down. What does exist will be designed with the assistance of AI tools. The backend work could also increasingly be subsumed into making a knowledge base that can learn and respond to intelligent queries.

6.Therapists: Smarter NLP models could act as digital therapists. People maybe more comfortable talking to a digital therapist and not be judged by an actual person. They can be given digital bodies and voices to make them more realistic. GPT-3 is way ahead of ELIZA and even in the original ELIZA studies people became quite attached to it. Technology is making people lonely and people may turn to technology to fix it.

7.Fake twitch streamers / Cam models: Synthesis algorithms could become so advanced that some people could become more attractive versions of themselves and create fake model personas that make a lot of money on websites like Twitch.

Our economy and education system are probably unprepared for the scale of disruptions we may see.

</comment><comment><USER68> You had a good run

</comment><comment><USER69> Influencers will take your job well before AI does.

</comment><comment><USER70> Can someone tell me why models are so in demand? Can't people remix existing photos and so on? There are tons of stock photos now too. It's not like they need a new model for every time they show a watch.

<comment><USER71> What's considered aesthetically pleasing continually evolves over time. There are underlying trends in physical beauty that resemble what we see in fashion, art, music, etc. Humans also have a quite a lot of control over much of their appearance with hair styling, makeup, and (increasingly) cosmetic surgery. This, combined with the ageism inherent to modeling, adds up to fairly sustained demand.

</comment></comment><comment><USER72> I am not so sure. Copying from a short horror story I wrote myself, "The level of earthly technology (...) was already advanced enough to create whole movies using digital actors exclusively, with perfect bodies and unprecedented beauty. But, for some reason, the masses still preferred flesh-and-bone actors, in spite of the costs and their erratic performance. The blurry, undefined line between the character and the human being is attractive by itself."

<comment><USER31> >whole movies using digital actors exclusively, with perfect bodies and unprecedented beauty.

lets make one step further - how about digital actors' images adjusted slightly for any given movie watcher. Can't be done with real people. New tech isn't always "better" (like in "better horse"), it opens/brings in new possibilities/capabilities (like in "car").</comment></comment>


HP Envy 14 Spectre Ultrabook Full Specification - <AUTHOR> http://7z-tutorials.com/hp-envy-14-spectre-ultrabook-full-specification/

<comment><USER2> Does anyone know what resolution the screen is? This is usually where Apple beats the crap out of the competition.</comment>


The Hidden Co-Founder - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2015/03/05/the-hidden-co-founder/

<comment><USER2> It's fascinating that some founders will always post things like this, "I don't think true work/life balance is possible in the day-to-day reality of startups" and yet others say that there's really no need to sacrifice work life balance even at a start up, and that if you are working yourself to death, you aren't working smart.

I suppose there's not necessarily a right answer.

<comment><USER3> People who say it isn't possible to maintain a work/life balance in a startup are usually those who find it hard to delegate - they don't have people around them that they trust to do as good a job of something as they do themselves so they refuse to hand responsibility to other people or accept that they aren't the best person for the job.

In a small startup that's fine because there aren't that many things to do. A founder _can_ be the developer, support, strategist, and marketer all at once. Arguably it's even a good thing at that stage because it keeps the burn rate down. The problems arise when there's too much growth for the jobs to be all be done, or even just overseen, by a founder. Then they struggle and start to hold the business back.

A good founder is always be looking for people who are _better_ than they are to hand things over to. That's how a business succeeds.

<comment><USER4> Absolutely. It's crucial for a founder to be able to take a step back and think strategically. Being always under water and completing task after task prevents you from seeing the big picture and taking the big decisions.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> If you're interested in this kind of thing, Sherry and Rob Walling have been doing a nice podcast here: [http://zenfounder.com/](http://zenfounder.com/)

Highly recommended, although I hope that sooner or later they'll add a transcript.

</comment><comment><USER6> isn't this just a different way of saying success is who you know, not what you know?

also what do you do if you don't have any of those support systems or connection networks?</comment>


The Wagon Wheel Effect Shows the Limits of the Human Brain - <AUTHOR> https://www.wired.com/story/the-wagon-wheel-effect-shows-the-limits-of-the-human-brain/ <comment><USER2> No. It is just an effect of the sampling rate of the film, it is totally unrelated to the brain. The other effects in the article have similar explanations.</comment>


Ask HN: Agency's client hates agency, loves me (the contractor) - <AUTHOR>

Dear HN, I got hired few weeks ago by a small agency to rescue a project that had gone through multi levels of offshoring screwups. In the first phone call between the agency, client and I, it was apparent the client does not like the agency too much. Yet, he took instant liking to me and finally felt a bit at ease.
This was few weeks ago. Since then, little has changed. Since bringing me on, we've made significant progress on the project. Yet, the agency still leads the demos to the clients and they are very painful to me. The client has very little regard for the agency and it is clear the only person he respects is me.
In our last call between the client, agency and me, the shit hit the fan where the client almost began giving me orders on what I should work on--something typically done by the agency.
The agency can't stop badmouthing the client. My feeling is if I had a private conversation with the client--which I've never had--he would do the same about the agency.
Yet, I am afraid to really speak out my mind because I feel my loyalty belongs to the agency that is paying me. If I could speak out my mind, I would just tell the agency to let me work directly with the client and I am pretty darn sure I can make him happy...only faster than when having the agency leading the demo/calls. At the same time, I'm afraid of the agency thinking I have other motives(such as stealing their client) which I don't have any intention of. I care more about my longterm relationship with the agency even though this is our first project together.
All I want to do is get this agency through a nightmare client.
I usually work directly with my clients without agency involvement. Any tips on the best way to finish this project most efficiently while keeping my relationship with the agency intact. <comment><USER2> The job of the agency is to make the sale, keep the client happy, let the developers work and deliver the project.

One of the pro's of working for an agency for me is that I generally don't have to worry about dealing with the client. The agency protects me from these things.

If you don't mind dealing directly with the client then I don't see why they couldn't just let you deal with communications with this client. In this case you would be keeping the client happy while still being able to deliver.

If I were running the agency, I wouldn't worry too much about employees snagging my clients. Development and sales (not to mention running an agency) are two totally different skills.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm always skeptical of the "I'm right, my agency sucks" contractor. What you should do is try to figure out what it takes to make the agency delight the client. If you can do that, you are valuable. Otherwise you're just sand in a crank.

</comment><comment><USER4> Keep your head down. Discretion is the better part of valour. Maintain best relationships with everyone till the project is finished. Put it behind you.

</comment><comment><USER5> Your contract with the agency should have a non-compete clause that says you won't steal their clients.

Mention this if you do bring it up.</comment>


Ask HN: Are there any startups disrupting business banking? - <AUTHOR> Ally and Simple are doing a great job in the consumer space, but is there anyone working on business banking?<p>We have used both national and local banks and it's nothing but a struggle. Fees to receive money, fees to move money, fees to send money. There's a fee for just about everything, and almost nothing works as it should. <comment><USER2> Actually, yes: [http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/12/13/small-bank-in- kansas-...](http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/12/13/small-bank-in-kansas-is-a- financial-testing-ground/)

<comment><USER3> I was going to suggest this one. But outside of that, there are so many regulatory barriers that it tends to keep competition out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Was there a particular process you're thinking of? Business banking in general is huge - I'm only aware of startups who tackle a small subset of the service (i.e. payments, loans, etc.)

</comment><comment><USER5> Credit unions + Transferwise</comment>


Ask HN: How to best interview a candidate? - a-saleh Hi all!
I should interview potential new candidate for the team I work in, and based on the many opinions on "fixing the job interview" here on HN I figured I will solicit some advice.
My situation looks like this:
* Candidate has been pre-screened by HR already
* I have read the CV
* We have 1.5 hour video-call scheduled
* Predominantly a dialogue
Any tips how to best lead this dialogue? <comment><AUTHOR> First, a bit of meta-advice. People who have a lot of time and energy to opine about interviewing techniques are not always the most knowledgeable. And people who know how to hire people probably have better things to do with their lives than to give away their competitive advantage on Hacker News. From the perspective of a job applicant, the interview process sucks and hiring decisions can seem capricious. Since these interviews often determine a lot about our livelihoods, it's easy for people to get emotional about them. Nonetheless, strong emotions do not make someone an expert.

Now to the actual advice. Make it a technical conversation. Talk about systems design. Turn the video-call into a screen-share and review some code together. A 1.5 hour open-ended conversation sounds like hell on earth and doesn't let you evaluate much about the candidate other than how much of a conversationalist they are. Dialogues are fine, but at least make it a technical dialogue through which the candidate can showcase their expertise and skills.

You probably have time for some of the behavioral stuff other commenters are suggesting, but beware--behavioral interviewing is more complicated than people are making it out to be. Are you hiring a programmer or a storyteller? You have to figure out which behaviors you want to evaluate people on and lead them to give you meaningful information about whether or not their behavior fits the desired pattern. To complicate matters, this is an inherently adversarial endeavor, since the candidate isn't going to want to tell you anything that will make you not want to hire them. Behavioral interviewing is great, but it's going to take a lot more than asking random people on Hacker News how to do it before you get good at it.

<comment> a-saleh Thanks, I think I will try turn the thing into a screen-share, rather than just a conversation as well as adding behavioral interviewing to my backlog of things to investigate further :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER2> Look at all the responses you're getting here, and imagine trying to get 3-4 interviewers to reliably and objectively measure candidates by applying them. "Tell me about a time you had to work with a developer". "Let them lead the interview".

Don't waste your time. This isn't going to work. Even the most careful, thoughtful interview processes proposed here are essentially suggesting you hire by gut feel. Make sure you eat a full lunch before the interview! That way you'll be more open-minded and accepting! Wait, no, starve yourself for 24 hours before the interview. That way you'll be more rigorous!

There are two very simple suggestions I can offer for really improving interviews:

1\. Replace as much of them as possible with work-sample tests: small, carefully scoped projects that closely resemble actual work you do in your day-to-day, given identically to every candidate. Note the word "replace". Work sample tests do not work unless they offset actual interviews. Lots of people give homework. They're still hiring by gut feel. Don't waste the candidate's time unless you have an exercise that will count as a vote in the final hiring decision.

2\. Standardize your interview. Every question, written down. Before you give the interview, write a rubric: I expect answer X for question 1, answer Y for question 2. You don't have to be completely straitjacketed by the rubric, but it should be solid enough that any of your interviewers could give the interview, create the candidate measurement, and hand it back to you on paper, and then you could make a hiring decision from it without knowing who the interviewer was.

I did both of these things at Matasano. They worked wonders. I have since talked to several other shops that had similar processes. All of them swore by them.

The dirty open secret of tech hiring is that it is overwhelmingly optimized to hire people who are good at interviewing. Everybody in this industry knows a bunch of very "successful" people who have bounced from job to better job on the strength of their persuasiveness, calm under fire, likeability, and vocabulary. The reason we remember those people is we've had to work with them, in the real world, where likeability and calm under fire take a back seat to "actually being able to solve problems day in and day out", and the experience hasn't been pleasant. Try not to add to that problem.

<comment><USER3> At a previous employer, #2 was a requirement from HR. It made the process more defensible should someone claim bias and/or favoritism.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> A remarkably subtle and effective way to assess the candidate is to let them lead the interview.

Start with this script - "I've read your CV, know you've met with HR -- what questions do you have for me? what areas would you like to discuss?"

The quality of their questions tells you a great deal about their intellection, motivation, and business acumen.

Incidentally, George Bradt offers excellent advice on evaluating candidates> [http://www.forbes.com/sites/georgebradt/2011/04/27/top- execu...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/georgebradt/2011/04/27/top-executive- recruiters-agree-there-are-only-three-key-job-interview- questions/#667eef0d4de7)

<comment><USER5> This can quickly backfire and you don't get to know anything you need to about the candidate.

I use the behavioral interview process.

I spend 10 minutes reviewing their resume before the interview. I introduce myself to the person at the start of the interview, about 5 minutes. Then I explain my interview process to them so that they know what to expect though the interview, it helps put people at ease to understand what is coming.

Then I dig through their history, asking who they've worked with (yes, get names, people are inherently more honest when they use real names). Ask anything you want here. For technology I find it useful to dig into the areas they find most exciting, and discover how well they actually know those areas. This should last about 20-30 minutes. I try to focus on the thing that are important to the job being interviewed for, but this is also a great place to see how personable they are.

After this I turn the floor over to them, allowing them to ask any questions until the end of the interview, generally 10 minutes.

In total this is structured for an hour, I think more than that is too much, personally.

<comment><USER6> "Allowing them to ask any questions until the end of the interview, generally 10 minutes."

10 minutes sounds like a really short time for candidate driven discussion, IMO. Personally, when I've been the candidate, I treat the interview as a two- way discussion. I'm I suited to the job, are they an employer that I feel comfortable with.

If there is no time reserved for myself leading the discussion, or I feel I would have nothing to discuss anyhow, is an indication to me that no matter the technical requirements, the position is not a terrific match.

The best interview sessions I've had have evolved into a detailed discussion about technical details, business angles and organizational skills, lasting well over an hour. But those interviews were in a situation where the candidate pool was very limited.

<comment><USER5> The earlier portion should be in the form of a conversation, not some point and shoot questions. I think you need this to get at the details you as an interviewer need, but it doesn't mean they can't interject questions, that's how conversations work. 10-15 minutes of candidate led questions, gives them the floor entirely after that, and I've never found it to not be enough time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Don't ask questions, have a conversation, preferably with quite a few people involved from the team they're applying to. Some conversation starters I have used:

* What's the biggest project you've worked on so far?

* What's the worst outage you've had to deal with?

* What do you think about [framework] (vs. [framework])?

An organic conversation with someone on the right topic(s) will give you far more insight into their suitability for a role, and their own personal career goals than any list of questions. Communication is one of the biggest factors when it comes to making a team work well.

<comment> shawn-butler This is a good way to hire a talker and not a doer.

<comment><USER8> Only if the conversation is superficial. A well-crafted conversation will highlight a talker pretty easily.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> 1.5 hour is petrifying, for both parties. I'm somewhat introvert, but even the extrovert people I know would struggle to fill that amount of time with useful content when the parties don't know each other and have substantial shared experiences to draw from.

<comment> a-saleh I have already been through such interview, and 1st hour was a ad-hoc technical conversation, with last 30 mins questions of the candidate about the workplace. I don't think the length should be the problem.

On the other hand, I wouldn't mind short-circuiting the interview.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> It's pretty controversial, but where I work, we have two questions we're looking to answer:

1\. Can this person do things with software?

2\. Do we want to work with this person?

We screen for 1 in a short tech screen. We screen for 1&2 by having onsite pairing sessions, typically a day.

Mysteriously, having people work on real work with real potential co-workers in the way we actually work is a _really good indicator_ of whether people can work on real work with real potential co-workers in the way we actually work.

<comment><USER8> You currently hiring? :P

<comment><USER10> Always, and I'm an active referrer. See my profile for my work email.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I generally start by asking about their story. While in the story, when they start talking about their experiences, I ask questions to figure out how much of their resume is padded. [Almost everyone pads their resume and the junior the developer the more the padding. Its a personal opinion though]. Once thats done, I ask a system design problem and try to solve it together. Eg. Lets build Facebook newsfeed today! Go as deep as possible and try to solve it "together" as you would be working together and not against each other. This results interesting hacks/stories from candidates. Then I ask about the toughest problem they solved and go as deep as possible with the details. Finally, I ask "why us?". Take ~2 hours if the candidate is exciting or less if not.

<comment> a-saleh Like the "What if we need to build $RANDOM_PROJECT, what would you do?", thanks!

With "padding your resume", do you mean when candidate has "Proficient in Javascipt" in his resume but means "Can slap a jquery on an html button", or alike?

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Don't do dialogue. Their job isn't to chat it's to _do_.

Give them tasks which are as realistic as possible.

This is my process:

1) Start with a easy (but real) task to get the candidate over their initial period of nerves.

2) Provide positive reinforcement.

3) Gradually ramp up the difficulty of the task, providing positive reinforcement and/or guiding the candidate where you think they've gone wrong.

4) Towards the end put 'traps' in the tasks which you have encountered in real life - i.e. problems which surprised and stumped you. This is an opportunity to spot exceptional candidates who can see the traps.

I'd skip literally all of the conversation and video aspect and communicate solely with text based chat and screen sharing. Unless you have a real _need_ to see the color of the candidate's skin before you make a decision, I suppose.

<comment><USER13> > Don't do dialogue. Their job isn't to chat it's to do.

I think you are wrong. An exceptional programmer who cannot communicate is basically useless.

<comment><USER12> If you are giving them a sufficiently realistic task, their communication skills will be tested more thoroughly than if you decided to just have a nice chat about tech.

I think the importance of developers' communication skills is context dependent. It's more vital in some roles than in others.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> You haven't provided enough information for people to provide focused recommendations.

What is your role in the interview process? Are you technical and is the company depending on _you_ to properly vet the candidate for technical skills? Then you need 90 minutes of concrete coding evaluation, etc. If you're just in the loop to make sure the candidate "fits" the culture, I suppose you could have a dialogue about anything... e.g. "soft" questions like _" name a time a you and a coworker didn't get along and how did you handle it?"_

If it's a technical programming candidate, is it web front end work? CRUD LOB? back end engineering and scaling? custom algorithms work?

The way you've posed your question is really wide open.

<comment> a-saleh To be honest, I mostly wanted to know how to do the "We have a ad-hoc conversation for 90 mins and then hire on our gut reaction" better, without limiting the replies to the concrete problem of hiring for a "junior QE position, focused on integration testing automation, with some manual verification and ops work on the side".

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> You can see from these comments why everyone hates tech interviews.

Many devs don't want to tell their life stories (introverts eh, go figure). And the devs you want don't want to fluff for 1.5 hours to satisfy your arbitrary time allocation or inane questions.

Focus. You're looking for:

1\. Does the candidate have the skills I need. - Ask about their projects and test their skills.

2\. Does the candidate fit with the team/culture. - Interview them with some or all the team, take them out to lunch with the team. See if they gel.

Look at the candidates work history that would be valuable to your company. Work down a checklist of things you need. I have a PM who sends the list to candidates, they appreciate the contact and it has led to hiring some talent we didn't deserve at that salary range.

</comment><comment><USER16> Don't hire if they can't write code during the interview in the language they would be working with. Technical discussion and even pseudocode are not substitutes.

<comment><USER17> Ehh, I don't agree with this. If you're hiring primarily for a Java position, but a candidate with 5 years of C# experience shows up, they're not going to have too hard of a time in switching.

<comment><USER16> That's a special case because C# and Java are so similar. Amend my advice to include actual code in a reasonably similar language to that used in the job.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> >Predominantly a dialogue

Use this process and you're most likely going to wind up hiring the candidate with the best conversation and storytelling skills. There are a lot of people who can make themselves look good on paper and in conversation that don't actually have a lot of skill.

If you're determined to go through with it anyway, my suggestion would be to probe deeply into technical details and the engineering decisions they made in the past projects they worked on and what the results were and also to probe for their decision making process when solving a hypothetical or real engineering problem that you have. Note that asking people for deep details on past projects has its own problems; even when the candidate is attempting to answer with full honesty, memory is fallible and highly variable between people.

<comment> a-saleh I actually share these concerns, and that is why I asked here, so that I can improve upon this process.

Like the strategy of probing "deeply into technical details and the engineering decisions of the past" as a mitigation, thanks!

I don't actually think memory would play that big of a role, if candidate solved interesting problems in the past "How would you solve it now?" might be more interesting question than "Do you accurately remember your past solution?" :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> There are as many different interviewing techniques that would be successful as there are different types of software jobs. If you're hiring for people to churn out code 80%+ of the time, perhaps 80%+ of your interview / test process should be about that. However, we don't hire people to crank out code in a bubble - we hire people to work with others typically. This starts to tilt more important skills towards technical decision-making and ability to communicate effectively.

If all you're going to do in that dialogue is have a back and forth at a high level instead of looking at and writing some code, you're not going to be selecting well on a technical basis and you're really getting a randomized sampling of a distribution of technical skill of people that are applying for the job.

<comment> a-saleh Yes, I think I can see the randomized sampling in my team almost :P

That is actually what prodded my question, because out of the colleagues we hired this year, half of them are amazing and half of them left because they couldn't keep up, so I wanted to know how to improve the "90 minute dialogue and go by your gut" interview process.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Have a 20-30min scripted phone conversation. Lead with an overview of the company, description of the position, and responsibilities. I do this first because I've had candidates bail out when they learned the details, so don't waste time interviewing people who don't want the job. Then, ask a few technical questions. I typically start with really easy ones. "Tell me the difference between the public, protected, and private keywords." A surprisingly high percentage of candidates will not be able to explain the difference clearly. If people can confidently go through my canned list of technical questions, then I'll bring them in for a group interview with the team they'll be working with.

<comment> a-saleh Thanks, seen the suggestions for creating a canonical script already, but like the suggestion of

1\. describing the position early to not "waste time interviewing people who don't want the job."

2\. ask a few trivial and easy questions first

Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I like dialogue-based phone interviews.

One time, in response to a ten minute description of the product, I asked, "So what distinguishes your product from just another CRUD app?"

The response: "Ummm... Well, actually, nothing. That's pretty much just what it is."

"I withdraw my application. Thanks for your time. I would suggest that you revise your advertisement to target candidates with less work experience. Good luck."

Based on my model interview, that is an amalgam of all my interview anecdotes, that interview format probably saved me about 45 minutes of a technical grilling before I finally got the opportunity to poke through the more obvious lies in the job advertisement.

Make sure to give candidates time to ask questions before you run through your entire spiel.

</comment><comment><USER22> Get them to tell stories.

I'm a YUUUUUGE Belieber (see what I did there?) in the power of stories. It breaks the ice, and gets both parties into a rhythm of exchange.

With the CV as a "script" I try to get people to tell me a story about how they came to be sitting in this interview with me. I have them start at the beginning of their career and quickly move forward.

I ask open-ended questions and try to get them off topic -- talk about the city/country they worked. Or the tech stack.

Also, get them to tell a story about a side project.

ANd share one of your own. Like the time I thought self-hosting DNS in out office was a good idea, and how that blew up in my face...

Or, maybe you both should crack open a beer, screenshare some youtube clips, and share some favorite vids for 5 mins.

MAKE IT AS HUMAN AS POSSIBLE.

<comment><USER23> This is dangerous. A charismatic story teller can mask his true technical skill with a captivating tale.

I've definitely hired candidates who were less technical then I thought.

<comment><USER24> In addition to this, a bright person can mask their software development skills. Everybody gets so hung up on hiring the brightest, that they ignore whether this person actually has software development experience. A bright person who writes clean code but only works from scratch is not useful to many companies

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Spend 5 minutes making the candidate feel at ease.

Spend 1 hour pair programming (using a remote collaboration editor, something like collabnet) on a real world problem, perhaps a feature you've already built and shipped.

Spend 15 minutes on a STAR[1] formatted question, such as

"Tell me about a time you had to work closely with a developer, but it was a frustrating collaboration."

Spend 10 minutes letting them ask questions and try to leave them with a positive brand experience and feeling good about the interview.

Interviewing is super difficult and uses skills not often used as a coder.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Situation,_Task,_Action,_Resul...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Situation,_Task,_Action,_Result)

<comment> a-saleh I don't think I will have time to do a pair programming session, but I am thinking about discussing a work-sample or something like that.

Thanks for the STAR mention, haven't heard the term before.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Start by figuring out what your goals for the interview are. In most cases, this will come down to information you want to learn about the candidate and information you want the candidate to learn about the company or project.

Once you know what you want to learn from the candidate you can come up with a list of questions. Think hard about them. Will they really give you the information you want? Rank your questions based on how likely you think they are to give you clear information and how important you think that information is. You'll probably want some redundancy in your questions in case you don't have a clear picture based on the first answer.

</comment><comment> barry-cotter If it's predominantly a dialogue it'll test dialogue skill more than skill at doing the job. Do a work sample test instead if possible.

> Choosing personnel selection procedures could be so simple: Grab your copy > of Schmidt and Hunter (1998) and read their Table 1 (again). This should > remind you to use a general mental ability (GMA) test in combination with an > integrity test, a structured interview, a work sample test, and/or a > conscientiousness measure.

[http://www.focus.vc/tokenadult-recruiting- faq/](http://www.focus.vc/tokenadult-recruiting-faq/)

</comment><comment><USER27> Have a conversation.

That's it.

Just have a conversation.

From rule of thumb this can go from 30 minutes to 3+ hours. So don't block off time ahead; if this person is valuable to you, give them all the time you and they need.

Edit: I do not buy in to multiple interview rounds. If secondary interview is needed, only for a significant role.

Multiple interview rounds indicate no one is taking responsibility.

</comment><comment><USER28> Make a plan for the questions you will ask, problems to be solved, etc and then test your plan on one of your coworkers. Calibrating your interview plan with your co-workers will help you iron out any problems with the plan and get to know your co-workers skills. Make sure the conditions are similar.

</comment><comment><USER29> I would differentiate the interviews. If it's a first discussion, more casual talk about their experience might be most appropriate.

If it's a hands on programming role, not seeing them code (or some of their existing code) early on in the process could make for a costly mistake.

</comment><comment><USER30> Be super clear about the purpose of the interview (to yourself). What do you want to discover about the candidate? Tech skills? Soft skills? Culture fitness? All of them? Is there a concern the HR pre-screening uncovered and you need to dismiss/validate?

</comment><comment><USER31> I wrote a blog post on this topic a while back: [http://timothymorton.com/post/67472164000/on-hiring- develope...](http://timothymorton.com/post/67472164000/on-hiring-developers)

</comment><comment><USER32> You didn't really provide enough facts to actually answer your question. In general, I'd present realistic scenarios, dilemmas etc. and talk about those. What would you do etc.?

</comment><comment><USER33> I've been on a lot of interviews and the predominant tactic is to ask a pre- determined set of questions that the company/interviewers think you should be able to answer even if the questions aren't in a domain you listed as a skill or something you have knowledge in on your resume/CV.

I, on the other hand, try to tailor the interview and questions to what the candidate has stated they know or what they are proficient in to determine if they truly are knowledgable in areas they say they are. I'll also ask questions tailored to the publicly available job description since, by applying to the job, you implicitly said "Yeah, I can do that", but put less weight on these questions if it doesn't match up with their stated skills and knowledge (so I'm kinda just probing; you'd be surprised at what some candidates know, but don't put on their resume/CV). The prescreen should basically mean, if you pass this prescreen you are eligible for this job, but we still have to validate that what you said about yourself in the prescreen and resume/CV are true.

So for example I'll usually ask questions about object oriented design patterns. When I ask someone how many design patterns they know and to list them and they give me three (and Singleton and Factory are 2 of them) that's totally fine. I would've only been able to give around 3 a couple years ago before I studied hard for interviews. But if their resume says something like "Strong object oriented design skills" and they can only give me 3 design patterns, then that's a mark against them because if you claim to be strong in object oriented design I would expect you to know more than the standard rube (like me) that can only rattle off 3 or 4.

If their resume talks about doing distributed systems I'll ask questions about distributed systems: what's good design, what are common pitfalls, ways to avoid or mitigate those pitfalls, etc. C# is your number one language, then how are parameters passed to methods in C#? What does it mean that C# is a managed language? What sorts of things aren't managed for you in C#?

As much as possible I try to include a question about how they used a skill or knowledge in a real-world application disregarding whether the end result was good or bad. Then discuss why effort ended up good or why it was bad and how they would've done it differently given hindsight.

If the pre-screen didn't cover it then give them a programming problem to make sure you weed out the candidates that can't FizzBuzz their way out of a wet paper bag. But don't make the programming problem the entire focus of the interview. I'm currently scheduled for a Google interview which is going to be 5 hours of non-stop programming puzzles that you have to solve while the interviewer is looking over your shoulder critiquing everything you do and expects you to figure out the "trick", code it perfectly, and do this while simultaneously explaining everything that you are doing. Plus the problems they come up are purposely designed to be tricky and sometimes even confusing. The funny thing is I bet any of those engineers would crumble under the pressure and ambiguity I have to work with right now every day and yet they'll be judging me on how I deal with tricky problems under pressure. You can see I'm not a fan of the traditional coding interview.

TLDR: Tailor the interview to the candidate's purported strengths. Ask for real world experiences and discuss the positives and negatives of the experiences. Probe for knowledge and skills stated as required on the job description, but don't put as much weight in them if the candidate doesn't list them as a strength. Check for basic coding capability, but don't make that the focus.

<comment><USER24> I like the words you use

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> My favourite: Tell me about the project your most proud of.

Let it flow from there, either through asking more probing questions or just listening.

</comment><comment><USER35> Turn off the video link. Go voice only.

</comment><comment><USER36> What is a work environment you thrive in and what was your previous work environment like

</comment><comment><USER24> I feel like a bit of an odd duck in this topic, because I enjoy and value a lot of the interview process. I've had many interviews, and all but two have been greater than or equal to 4 hours. I enjoy whiteboarding, giving presentations, algorithmic analysis, puzzle problems. I think a lot of people complain in this space, because they don't think to practice them. Interviewing for computer science is a public game, there are so many blogs where people describe their interview process that you should be able to prepare for nearly any interview.

I don't believe that all of this is necessarily applicable to a one and a half hour interview.

As far as programming ability, I think that if your company does any pair programming then this is a good exercise during the interview. I interviewed with a company where I was asked to use a computer without internet connection and solve the problem. The problem the script was vague, and my pair was required to be my research arm.

Regardless of if you are doing pairs programming. If you ask a scenario question and you are looking for a specific algorithm, data structure, or solution, this is okay. You are however strongly suggested to stop them before they waste your entire shared time and lead them down the correct path. With obvious hints. Requiring your candidate to discover that you're looking for a breadth first search when you ask them to implement a text based adventure game, doesn't make sense.

I believe that soft topics have become undervalued. Most the time a soft topics interview is done by a manager or an HR person that you're likely not to work with. My best soft topics interview was done with a panel ranging from developer through HR. They asked me about instances of conflict resolution and non conflict resolution that I had experienced. Having the panel meant that many people, caught phrases that I used and asked me in Greater detail that I think would not have happened normally.

It's also important to know the limits of somebody's expertise. There are a lot of topics that your candidit just won't know. But this information is mostly represented by what is missing from the resume. You can ask ask for anything that is missing from the resume, just expect the answer no. For topics they do list on the resume, have somebody who understands that topic discuss it with them. Either the interviewer should stump the candidate, or the other way around. This helps you understand how the interviewer handles somebody else's knowledge gaps, or their own. You can also accomplish this by asking them to give a presentation on the topic of their choice with open invitation to your company. This however can be very time expensive.

I had a company recently asked me do I know how to use an advanced IDE, or terminal IDE. Although my answers were yes, I feel that I miss understood their goals. What they were more concerned about, was whether I knew how to set up my IDE for a large , existing, code base. I think that this is an important skill to have, and I think that the question can be made more clear.

</comment><comment><USER37> You're doing it wrong.

If you want good candidates - don't have HR screen anybody, don't spend 1.5 hours, that's way too long, and if you don't know what questions to ask, you're not fit to be doing this.

In other words - if you have to ask, you're doing it wrong. The company should hire a senior developer who already knows.

<comment><USER38> Wow: "If you have to ask, you're doing it wrong." This is a ridiculous statement.

First, pedantically, they're the same words you used initially so they're not really "other words."

Second, someone at OP's org thought they should be included in the process and OP is asking for tips on how they can maximize the value they generate. This is exactly the situation I'd love to see if I were OP's manager.</comment></comment>


Republicans Who Don't Understand Encryption Introduce Bill to Break It - <AUTHOR> https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/y3z3z7/republican-encryption-bill-privacy-signal <comment><USER2> Perhaps it's time to legislate that pi = 3 again.

This bullshit has happened more recently elsewhere:

[https://www.zdnet.com/article/the-laws-of-australia-will- tru...](https://www.zdnet.com/article/the-laws-of-australia-will-trump-the- laws-of-mathematics-turnbull/)

And why does it appear to be conservative politicians, more often than not, who have no idea when it comes to science?

</comment><comment><USER3> Unrelated to the topic (because I'd likely just be preaching to the choir): Vice really needs to step up their proofreading. Just skimming part of the article I saw at least two obvious typos.

> "the billions of people that out protects everyday"

> "Andrew Crocker, a senioor staff attorney"

</comment><comment><USER4> Isn't the fight against encryption a bipartisan effort?

<comment><USER5> > Three Republican senators, who have never showed that they understand how > encryption works, have now introduced a bill...

I don't see anything about democrats.</comment></comment>


50 Excellent AJAX Tutorials  - <AUTHOR> http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2008/10/16/50-excellent-ajax-tutorials/ <comment><USER2> I'm getting tired of these AJAX tutorials that keep popping up on HN. There's really not much to see here, move along folks!

</comment><comment><USER3> A list of 5 Ajax tutorials would be much more useful. When it comes to S vs. N, I prefer S.</comment>