This is not the toilet I was looking for

(Paywall-free popularization like this is what I do for a living. To support me, see the end of this post)

Never mind FACE recognition. Ass recognition is where it’s at.

This is not the toilet I was looking for /img/darth-vader-on-toilet.jpg

“A Stanford team has developed a ‘smart toilet’ that analyses the users' urine and faeces using Artificial Intelligence (AI) to monitor for diseases, infections or even certain cancers, such as colorectal or urologic cancers."

“Interestingly, to authenticate your waste with you, the smart toilet scans your ‘anal print’. because it turns out it is unique".

Comment continues at [The Quint](https://www.thequint.com/tech-and-auto/ worried-about-facial-recognition-big-tech-wants-your-anal-prints-too).

Never mind FACE recognition

Ass recognition is where it’s at. Especially if, eventually, those “smart toilets” are installed in airports, stations, and public places in general.

Privacy jokes aside:

  • that specific toilet is not a joke, as you can read in Nature Biomedical Engineering: “A personalized view of excreta” (2020
  • a toilet like could surely have some meaningful applications. But it is not THE real “smart toilet” the world is desperately looking for:
This is not the toilet I was looking for /img/clean-water-and-you-shit-in-it.jpg

Don’t get too excited, or scared, about that thing from Stanford. Stay focused. THE really smart toilet that the Silicon Valleys of the world should deliver yesterday, if they cared about actual innovation, is this.

Who writes this, why, and how to help

I am Marco Fioretti, tech writer and aspiring polymath doing human-digital research and popularization.
I do it because YOUR civil rights and the quality of YOUR life depend every year more on how software is used AROUND you.

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