Lucky’s Status Report for March 26, 2022

This week I did the following tasks:

• I continued to work on the detection script
  • I had to make reconsiderations and adjustments to the code I have written / been working on given the concerns explained in the next following section titled “Things I ran into worth considering”
• Raised my concerns and spoke to my team about the design choices

 

Things I ran into worth considering:

• User item customization
  • Cons:
    • Can reduce accuracy of system
    • Can institute ethical issues
  • Pros:
    • Enables users to customize to their store needs
    • Faster system that does not go through a large set of products that aren’t even available in store
    • A system that has all of the store’s available products
  • Possible solutions:
    • Allow store owners to capture new images from their live feed i.e. add new items to dataset from live feed
      • Cons:
        • Can add ethical issues
          • Misuse: unsolicited images taken of customers i.e. pervasive / private images
          • If images are added globally
            • Need additional infrastructure to protect against things such as predatory images that intentionally mismatch, inappropriate images, etc.
        • Requires a separate local data storage abstraction / subsystem if images are not uploaded globally
        • Will most likely add complexity that could be avoided with different design choice
        • Can reduce accuracy of system
    • Have a universal set of items we have tested and pre uploaded data on our side controlled by us, then allow local systems to select from those pre-validated items
      • Cons:
        • We may not have all items that a store needs
        • We will have a large data need that may have more items then users even use i.e. what if our customer base is mostly produce, but we have numerous items in home improvement => inefficient data storage
        • We have to add the necessary back end infrastructure and integration with the detection system to handle that => may be something to consider after mvp
      • Pros:
        • No
        • No security concerns of uploaded items / images from users
        • No accuracy concerns of uploaded items / images from users
        • No ethical concerns of uploaded items / images from users

 

In terms of schedule, depending on how testing goes upon completion of this second phase of object detection, I think I should be good on schedule. If testing goes unfavorably, I will have to step up some on my pacing.

 

What’s Next:

• Now that we have solidified an approach for the item customization, I am going to move forward with those design choices in mind and finish the object detection version that I am working on