This concept is literally used in the Ghost in the Shell manga, often for comedic purposes. There's one funny set of panels where a character is shown in a video-chat window as neat-and-tidy and wearing a nice business suit, but is shown in a subsequent panel as videochatting while she's on the toilet in messy hair and a tank-top.

Every time I hit HN I can't help but be amazed at how sad the future is getting

You have it reversed. If it is already true that being more symmetrical, imposing and pleasing is advantageous for negotiations, then the future in which we have the tools to counter that bias is getting less sad.

These tools are not for countering that bias.

They are for reinforcing it.

You can make a similar argument that the wide availability of soaps and deodorants reinforces biases about how people should smell. While that's true, the fact that anyone can easily match those biases reduces the opportunity to discriminate and makes those biases less of an issue.

You can make that argument, yes. I can deconstruct it by arguing that not everyone can easily match those biases - I bet there are still plenty of places on Earth where soap is surprisingly difficult to come by.

That side issue does not have much to do with the video issues under discussion, though.

I shudder at the thought of a world in which always-on lies about your appearance become standard practice.

Have physical reality and truth really become irrelevant?

They have been for quite some time: Cosmetic Surgery.

I remember watching a TV show years ago about a woman who had had lots of plastic surgery, found the man of her dreams, and was now pregnant. She was afraid the baby would come out looking totally different than she did, because she had physically changed herself so much, and her husband would leave her over the deceit.

I see what you're saying.

At the same time, with cosmetic surgery, you are changing physical reality. Someone has sliced up your body and reconfigured it to be more what you want.

So it's not necessarily a "lie", as such.

Like I said, though, I see what you're getting at, and it's a valid point.

Since this has gotten to the point where we need to be precise with the language: they are not the tools for eliminating the existence of bias. They are tools for countering the effect of bias in particular instances.

I think you missed your parent's point. Let's examine a related case: fashion models. The industry has been manipulating images for years, to make models skinnier, whiter, removing blemishes, etc. In your language, these are tools for eliminating the effect of bias for the models. The impact that's had on our society is well studied: biases have been disastrously reinforced.

This isn't imprecision of language.

Thank you for elucidating my point so well and concisely.

Ha! People who wear power suits, makeup, expensive haircuts and shoes are already doing all this. Technology just means you don't have to spend time in the stylist's chair to accomplish it any more!

Until you have to, you know, actually meet someone in person.

I've done entire contracts without ever meeting in person.

And what percentage of the population do you believe that is true for? Remember, we're talking about people interviewing in general here, not the small percentage of software devs who work 100% remotely on contract.

Not to mention you'll just come off as a huge weirdo as soon as you're found out.

So, it works for those that do long-distance negotiation. So what? Finding a case that doesn't work so good, is just straw-man stuff.

It's not a straw man when your case applies to a tiny fraction of the human population and mine applies to the rest. Context matters, I was responding to this:

>Ha! People who wear power suits, makeup, expensive haircuts and shoes are already doing all this. Technology just means you don't have to spend time in the stylist's chair to accomplish it any more!

Did you forget what you wrote?

Did you forget the entire topic? What other uses for this technology. Which online representation modification is.