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PaperclipPerfector  13d ago (text post)   2946 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for March 16, 2025

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

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On saturday I was out with my wife and she asked me if I could identify a bird that was close. I didn't know, so I picked up my phone, took a picture, used the Google Lens AI search (not sure how to call that feature) selected the bird in the picture, and it IDed the bird immediately, I had the answer within seconds. That felt close to the experience that ads make the latest "AI features" on phones to be. It has to be said though that this was probably the most perfect use of that feature I've had; I've had this phone for 9 months I think and there was never a better use for it.

Google lens is amazing. I was up in the Tokyo Tower recently and zoomed into far away buildings and could immediately ID them and what they are. Feels like a superpower.

That reminds me of https://xkcd.com/1425/

Google lens is pretty cool. I use it a lot to translate other languages writing to English a lot. Very useful for streetsigns and storefronts etc. AI searching of images is pretty good too like described above. Most modern phones will also transcribe your voicemails and send them to you as a text; I think you have to set this up, I don't remember it being default. Modern phone cameras are also very good at correcting the mistakes of amateurs, which I appreciate.

My wife uses it for identifying plants. Every spring we have a bunch of stuff start sprouting up in the garden and she's not sure what's a weed that needs to be plucked and what's a flower that survived/seeded from last year that we might as well keep. But the phone knows, even when they're tiny little sprouts with a couple of leaves.

It's good enough to tell similar but distinct varieties of flowers apart too. It can tell a Mr Lincoln from a Papa Meilland or a Don Juan, and most florists can't do that.

It's good enough to tell similar but distinct varieties of flowers apart too.

In my experience, Google Lens generally can't, but apps like Flora Incognita (which instructs you to take images of the leaves, the flower, the stem, the bark, ect.) can. Flora Incognita also tells you a certainty percentage, which is really helpful.

In my garden, Google Lens has an almost comical inability to distinguish my carrots from yarrow - and it won't warn you that it's less than 50% sure. If you only feed it flower pictures, flora Incognita has trouble as well, but tells you it's less than 40% sure until you take pictures of the leaves and stem.

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