Eye Contact Correction: Redirecting the eyes to look at the camera

This is unfortunate, and perhaps more pernicious than obvious deep fakes, is a video filter that lies to the recipients.

Several years ago during the pandemic, I enlisted a job coach to get me hired. One of her paramount concerns was my eye-contact with the camera. She said it's so important. Am I paying attention? Am I an honorable man who maintains eye contact when I'm in a conversation? If I look away, am I collecting my thoughts, or prevaricating?

Many supervisors, managers, and teachers will judge their employees by whether they can pay attention during meetings, or if they're distracted, in their phone's screen, looking at keyboard, glancing off at children or spouse. Even more important, if you're meeting your wife and she can't even maintain your attention, what kind of husband are you?

If you employ a gadget to lie about this, then I hope they fire you and find someone who'll be honest. I hope your wife sends you to sleep on the sofa.

> If you employ a gadget to lie about this

This has been enabled on iPhones, by default, for like 5 years now. You never even noticed.

Their implementation only does a small adjustment, which works so well that most people don't even know it's being done.

Sounds like the coach helped you maintain eye-contact with the camera. But if we get a tool to do this, then we're lying. Would you say the coach helped you lie?

I would go so far as to say the uncorrected gaze is a lie. When I’m on a videoconference, I am looking directly at whoever is speaking, but the camera’s physical placement tells the “lie” that I’m looking down at something else. This is because we haven’t figured out a good way of placing the camera literally wherever the eyes of the other party show up on the screen. So the camera is, by necessity, in the wrong position for video conferencing. But if we can fix it in software, then we can mitigate the “lie” somewhat.

This is especially true for my set up, where I have two screens side-by-side with the camera replaced right between them. I just stare at the camera because otherwise it looks like I’m looking way off to the left or right. If I do look at the people who are talking, what they see is me looking off at “something else.” That’s a lie! :)

That doesn't even make sense. The lie is that you're not doing the thing you are projecting as doing. You just said the coach helped the poster do the thing they projected as doing.

This is true, and unfortunate, but for the past 100 years, everyone has known that to make eye contact with a camera, you look into its lens. The instantaneous display of output is very recent, and if you ask a professional actress or news anchor what they do in the studio, they will tell you that they're trained to look into the camera lens, no matter what's on the monitors.

I contend that it's unproductive to train consumers otherwise. Yeah, we could look at the screen and have software correct it. Or, we may eventually integrate lenses into screens so that they're placed exactly right. But it seems kludgy to do this software fix. Just train people to look in the right place. (I hate iPhones and I'm unable/unwilling to do Facetime with them. Please use Meet or Teams.)

I'm gradually building skills that let me be aware of what's on the screen without having to stare into it. Having a relaxed, wide field of vision helps with many things. Glasses are counterproductive here.

If we never noticed it, do we even need it? I don't use FaceTime, but have never been bothered by where people are looking in any other video conferencing software.

edit: studio_seven said it better than I could. You're confused on what the perspective is with videoconferencing. There is no hardware with a camera in the middle of the screen; so you're always "looking away" to some degree.

No, I'm not confused at all. As I pointed out, the standard for 100 years: if you want eye contact, you look into the camera lens. The only thing that's changed recently is the availability of a direct, instantaneous monitor to distract us.

Furthermore, if this corrects only someone who's looking directly at the screen, it'd be tolerable. But does it also correct eyes looking at a keyboard, eyes looking at a smartphone screen, eyes looking at a wayward toddler? That's worse.

Also... ten cents per minute? That's highway robbery!

> You never even noticed

I have seen three cameras in use in nearly a decade. They were all in interviews. I'm not avoiding opportunities, either. Legitimately 4+ hours a day

Might be fair to say not many cared to see/be seen

That reminds me of a few months into the pandemic, one of the VPs at the company I was working at was presenting in a Zoom-based all-hands. I remember that he was very clearly looking directly into the eye of the camera as opposed to looking at his monitor's video feed like everyone else. I remember thinking that it felt a little bit weird and unnatural and very performative, like a politician, since he very obviously intentionally wanted to come across as more human by looking directly at the audience, although at the same time it was a fake look since he wasn't looking directly into the eyes of any one person, but a camera.

Perhaps other people didn't think about it as deeply as I did and maybe it did have the intended effect, but I remember I didn't see him or anyone else doing the same thing in any future all-hands.

The fact that your feathers are rustled is what make it all the more delicious and delightful that it exists.

All attempts by folks to subvert the freedom to direct one's attention where they want to are tyrannical in nature. If you can't detect it's happening, it effectively did not have a negative externality. The tree did not make a sound if no one heard it.

This is the same thought that is used to justify not letting cashiers sit while they bag groceries. Those who think this love the taste of boots in their mouth.

I hope that they fire those who refuse to get with the times on AI and embrace ludditism, and I hope your wife considers her future with you after the economic ruin that such practices will bring upon your family.

News anchor yes, actor/actress no. They look off to the side.

If I'm looking at a camera lens I'm not making eye contact. This isn't about broadcasting it's about videoconferences.

Ah yes, that's true - unless the character is "breaking the fourth wall" like Clarissa Darling, they'll be avoiding the direct gaze of the viewer for sure.

Another example, though, would be vocalists in a video; usually they'll be singing right at the viewer and making a connection there, unless they're just too cool and aloof.

No, you don't understand the definition of "eye contact". Contact, by definition, is when my eyes meet yours directly. It takes two to tango, and to maintain eye contact, it is necessary for both of us to cooperate.

The camera is the eye. Anyone seeing video of me is seeing me through the eyes of a camera. Therefore, to "make eye contact" I look into the camera, not into arbitrary pixels. In videoconferencing, it's wholly irrelevant where my audience's eyes are located, whether they're even visible. In videoconferencing, our cameras are the eyes, and that's how to make eye contact, because when I see you on the screen looking into the camera, your eyes are directed towards mine seeing the screen.

For over a hundred years, any subject of a camera has known that if you look into that camera lens, then your gaze will be perceived as "eye contact" to any viewers. Where do you look when you're taking a selfie? Or a wedding photographer is taking your photo? Do you look in the photographer's eyes? Do you stare at his flashbulb? That's fucking nuts!

Why is this so hard to understand?

If AI is directed to help us lie about a particular, very human, interaction cue, then is it any surprise we're a world full of autists and Asperger babies?

Really weird non-sequiturs here!

So if you enjoy freedoms like ignoring your boss or zoning out during meetings where you should be paying attention, or missing a lecture by your instructor, and you believe there aren't any negative externalities from your failure to pay attention, then I don't know what to tell you.

Now the WFH revolution is already horrifying managers, because it is much more difficult to determine when employees are engaged and productive, vs. when they're trying to fake it, or tuned out. If this AI filter wants to remove one of those cues, that's going to continue horrifying businesses everywhere, and they'll double-down on RTO calls. I've also heard horror stories of hiring remote workers, who will fake interviews, rent their identities, deepfake their video, consult AI offscreen to answer interview questions, subcontract to their illegal buddies, and generally use every trick in the book to hoodwink corporations who make the mistake of not having an in-person relationship with their workforce.

My job coach taught me the value of eye contact, and by extension, the value of paying attention to another human being who is engaged in a discussion with me. That is extremely important. In any online interaction, due to reduced cues and limited feedback, any human cue we can maintain is a valuable one.

My lack of eye contact, I believe, is mostly because it can unnerve me to have someone looking intently at me, and I look away from them in order to collect my thoughts, and maintain my train of thought. It's a habit but it's not necessarily effective. It turns out that most of us can indeed carry on a conversation, and not get distracted, when we're looking into someone's eyes.

And the value to the other party is that they know that they have our attention! That is a gift! I have no idea how tasting boots is relevant here. Every job I've had, has been a mutual gift, and a pleasure to serve my employer, and I've always felt valued for that service, despite the unequal power differential.

It is so weird that you want us to "get with the times on AI" when eye contact is such a basic, very human, and valuable habit of successful people. If AI could facilitate a human connection, I'd be all ears, but in this case, for this article, AI is subverting the signal, encouraging laziness, and simply lying, to "save face", as it were.

I don't even know how to respond to this. Your rants particularly near the end are borderline aggressive. This is not important. Have a good one.

> zoning out during meetings where you should be paying attention

Also zoning out during the meetings where your presence is required but unnecessary. If you don't pay attention to a university lecture, that's a skill issue on your part.

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The role of the worker is to extract as much value for their employer as possible; any productivity is a secondary byproduct.

I would contend that, where an employee/student is disengaged in a videoconference and demonstrating that, that is a good feedback signal to the leadership that the followers are indeed disengaged and perhaps the leadership is doing something wrong.

Because I was in exactly that position as a teaching assistant, and we dealt with students all the time who had cameras turned off, AFK, distracted, lost.

If AI is going to mask those important feedback signals and lie to the leadership, then the leadership will become ever more ineffective, and the workers will all pay the price. Good job.

The workers previously would've faked the signals to pretend to be engaged organically to brown nose the boss. Same lie, now automated to free the worker for better tasks, such as napping or bugfixes.