Has anybody experienced noticeable quality degradation lately with Be My AI or is it just me?

By Laszlo, 26 January, 2024

Forum
iOS and iPadOS

Hi everybody reading this,
I am a massive Be My AI user. Since Be My Eyes version 5.2.2 came out (and that was in early December) I began to notice a marked degradation in the quality of image descriptions. It was noticeable even on the day of the update.
Initial image descriptions are still rather good and usable. But there is a considerable randomness in which details or elements of the picture the initial description mentions or omits. Some slight randomness was always present in the wording, but not in the elements/details mentioned or omitted. With a human analogy it is a bit like as if the initial descriptions became more "lazy" or "sloppy" recently.
But the real issue manifests when I ask follow-up questions, which I do very frequently. Since 5.2.2 more often than not Be My AI replies in the lines of "I am sorry but the image lacks sufficient resolution / is not sharp enough / is not of adequate quality (and the like) to answer your question". Most recently It tries to orient me helpfully towards what corrections it would need while taking the picture. I follow them meticulously, but I get the same type of response "I am sorry, but still no good". And also on the third / fourth etc. try until I give up. I don't claim that such thing hadn't occured before 5.2.2, but it was rather rare, while since 5.2.2 it happens most of the time.
My phone is the same and my photography skills also: they are quite good. Furthermore I almost always use a neat trick to take the best possible photos with Be My AI: I turn on voice control and when Be My AI screen is open I just say "tap take picture" to take the photo and initiate the description. I recommend this to everyone by the way, as this prevents the unavoidable slight movement of the phone when we double tap on "take picture" and that little movement indeed harms image quality.
In mid December I contacted Be My Eyes support about this and furnished ample amount of examples too. Just before Christmas I got their reply thanking me my "very detailed and thoughtful" feedback. They told me that they could not promise me a detailed reply on the issue, but they would take that seriously and discuss it in the development team.
Now Be My Eyes is at 5.3.2 and the degradation seems to still persist and what's more the most recent update seems to make it even worse slightly.
Has anybody noticed something similar along these lines or is it me who is particularly unlucky witht this somehow?
I kindly ask anyone with similar experiences to also contact Be My Eyes support.

Options

Comments

By Michael on Tuesday, January 23, 2024 - 01:34

In a word, I have as well but not only that, I am getting much more, "I'm sorry but I cannot answer that question" more and more. It feels like they have cranked up their content moderation to the next extreme. Just to provide an example,
I was out in the sun for a bit too long and felt like I got a sun burn. When I took shots of my bare leg to ask be my Eye whether the skin has gotten redder or to ask whether there was some sort of a burn there, I kept getting, "I'm sorry but I cannot answer that question". When I asked why, I was given the response that I can only answer questions appropriate and do not target a particular body part. What kind of a response is that?
Any other and more creative ways of asking the question all resulted in the same answer.
Moreover, as of this morning IE, the last update to be my eyes, I can no longer even see be my eyes now in the share sheet so it appears that the folks at be my eyes have affectively deprecated share sheet access for by my AI.

By peter on Tuesday, January 23, 2024 - 01:34

I have seen a lot of anecdotal evidence in the press recently about GPT 4 getting more "lazy" lately in general. I don't know if that is what you might be experiencing in terms of Be My Eyes not giving as good responses as it once did or that you might expect.

Here is an article that discusses the problem and the fix that is being tested:
https://mashable.com/article/chatgpt-laziness-openai-upgrade-gpt-4-turbo

Again, I don't know if that is related to what you are seeing in Be My Eyes, but it could be the issue.

--Pete

By Ashleigh Piccinino on Tuesday, January 23, 2024 - 01:34

Hello,
I don't really like the way our technology's going with this stupid AI stuff ... it's going to take over your world if you're not careful ... just think of the movie iRobot and all those. I'd get a human reader to confirm what you're noticing with the app, and please please don't let it's light shine down on you ... literally. Thank the Gods for Be My Eyes to not tell the person about their sunburn. I mean, if the picture were of a part just a little higher up ... well, you get my meaning I hope. That's just private info, and Be My AI/Be My Eyes should not have that close of access to you. That's just sick!
Ashleigh Piccinino

By Gokul on Tuesday, January 23, 2024 - 01:34

I have been betaing the app for almost 8 months now, and the most informative descriptions I got was in the initial phase. And yes, there has been a noticeable deterioration of quality recently.
and as much as I don't want to kickstart another debate, as of now I'd prefer using AI to check whether I got a Sunburn in my leg rather than asking random humans to check it out. I mean, at the end of the day, the amoumt of information I give these apps as an intividual is based on my own preferences, and if I am somebody who is quite concerned by my privacy, I of course have the freedom to limit it. But just because I am concerned about my privacy is no reason to limit others choices as to how much information to give or not.

By Brian on Tuesday, January 23, 2024 - 01:34

I cannot say whether or not the quality or detail has diminished since Be my AI became accessible to the general public. I do get times where I get the "File Not Found", "Error 404", etc etc.

Nevertheless when it works, it works well for me. Perhaps too many users are bogging down the AI?

All hail our AI Overlords! 🤖

By Ashleigh Piccinino on Tuesday, January 23, 2024 - 01:34

Hello,
don't you think that Optimus Prime, one of my favorite transformers, would be good as the main voice for the AI Be My Eyes uses? Also, write im in for president, too hahaha! I'm, of course, indding about the write-in vote, but I think he'd do a damn good job don't you?

By Laszlo on Tuesday, January 23, 2024 - 01:34

Share option is still there for me and works in the latest update which I got yesterday (i.e. 26 January 2024) and is version 5.3.2. Please note that the "Describe with Be My Eyes" entry (not "with Be My AI" - had it got renamed?) may be the very last item on the share sheet (which may contain lots of items) and some focus issue may have prevented you from finding it.
I note here also that the description I get through sharing an image seems deterministic, i.e. I get the same description word by word when sharing the same image multiple times. Nevertheless it generates the description and doesn't cache it, as the waiting time is about the same.

By Ashleigh Piccinino on Tuesday, January 23, 2024 - 01:34

Hello,
I just heard about the feature where you can describe something with Be My Eyes through the AI thing. I like it, and like I was saying, it's AI so not and never will be you describing something/just imagine doing that all over the place without having help doing it? I'm pretty sure Be My AI needs help too, so that's why the human volunteers.

By Troy on Tuesday, January 23, 2024 - 01:34

I would like to also point out that be my eyes may not have control over all of the AI feature.

By SSWFTW on Tuesday, January 23, 2024 - 01:34

I am getting the same kind of descriptions as when I started using the feature. If anything I would say the descriptions have become a bit more organized in how they are given.
I would also echo what one or two other people say, be my eyes descriptions are subject to what chat GPT allows for. When be my eyes stopped being able to recognize facial features it was not due to the application but due to what chat GPT. Be my eyes from my understanding is just the conduit

By Enes Deniz on Tuesday, January 23, 2024 - 01:34

I'm sure about that because this is what distinguished FYE (formerly From Your Eyes), an app to which I contributed so much and about which I made several posts on AppleVis, from Be My Eyes. FYE has its own AI for image processing, but I don't know and care that much about its current situation. This is why FYE can describe videos as well by the way.

By Ashleigh Piccinino on Tuesday, January 23, 2024 - 01:34

Hello,
I'm not a programmer, and I don't want to be. however, it seems that, just like SIRI and all those smart speakers/devices, Alexa included, this Chat GPT--whatever those letters mean--needs to learn your ways and habits. That's all I'll say here as I'm not into programmng/never want to be.

By Lee on Tuesday, January 23, 2024 - 01:34

Guys, Something odd is going on with GPT apps. up until 3 days ago I got a description of a scene with a dog in it. The description said Labrador which was correct. Now, it just says dog and when asked what kind of dog it says I'm not allowed to say or something on those lines. Stupid I'm afraid.

By Brian on Tuesday, January 23, 2024 - 01:34

If we ever get to a point where the image description is on our devices without the need for a network connection, I imagine it would work a lot faster. Of course, I am not talking about over the air updates, etc, just the 'functionality' of the AI itself. 🤷🏼‍♂️

By Enes Deniz on Tuesday, January 23, 2024 - 01:34

You can probably do that on a computer with a sufficient number of GPU's, but it, even if feasible, would drain the battery and system resources so much if done on a mobile device, and could cause overheating.

By Brad on Tuesday, January 23, 2024 - 01:34

Apple will probably improve upon their image recognition to be like GPT or better.

I'm on the beta of BeMyEyes but don't use it at the moment that much so haven't noticed any diffirence. It's not the app that's having issues, it's chat gpt itself.