With us+ and Vibe Check we are not expressing broad pessimism in response to this tech. Maybe we can find some place for it, if we build it consensually and reflect on it together? Maybe there is someone out there who could use the feedback from a machine instead of a human, or someone who needs help identifying face expressions? We try to create a space for that reflection.

Replicating research gives me insight that I can’t get from using a toolkit, reading a paper, or studying historical precedents and theory. It helps put me in the mindset of a researcher. I have to solve some of the same problems, sit with an assumption of the validity of the categories and data in question for an extended duration. I get to let the data stare back at me. Every dataset has a first row, and there are always one or two faces I see over and over while debugging code.