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google / project-gameface

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Instead of collaborating or supporting me, you guys stole my idea

ozramos opened this issue · comments

commented

About a year or 2 ago Lawrence Maloney @lmoroney asked me about my project Handsfree.js (https://github.com/ozramos/handsfree) and if it could be used for accessibility. I showed him that not only could it, but that I've already open sourced a gesture mapper and desktop controller, that is itself handsfree, using a block based interface called Midiblocks: https://github.com/ozramos/midiblocks and https://midiblocks.firebaseapp.com. The worst part is that after I asked him for support, he didn't respond...he just took all my notes and ghosted me

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I'm very upset with this team right now, because I started working on these efforts while homeless in 2018 to help someone at the shelter recovering from a stroke. I didn't even have my own computer and was using a library computer to develop this, until Google PAIR gave me a computer. Here is proof of me at the shelter after hanging out with them (there's a local office)

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I have been living in poverty for all of these years, to the point of professors sending me food boxes at my lowest points. And still I've been obsessively pushing out dozens of projects, tutorials, and examples: https://oz.super.site/handsfreejs (unfortunately I burned out last year from extreme stress and deleted my entire body of work, this is just the stuff I have. My repos also had thousands of stars)

My hands are shaking and I'm crying right now because for years and years and years I've lived in isolation and struggled severely, in and out of mental health hospitals, for no reason at all...you could have supported my work. You still can support my work and you don't...I don't understand why it's not like I haven't asked many of you directly for help

I am so obsessively passionate about my research and work that I pursued it fully and blindly, instead of wasting time making other people money building things that don't ultimately matter. I could have been working with you, I prototyped these tools years ago!

On the one hand I feel validated, on the other hand if I tell anyone outside of this repo any of this they'll put me back in the loony bin thinking I'm making all this up. I have literally had to have hospitals call a professor at Carnegie Mellon to verify my story because they thought I was making all this up ("this" being my journey in making this and they just thought I was "manic")

In the recently leaked memo from Google about "AI moats", there was a bit saying something like open source is a huge competitor to you and OpenAI because so many quote "regular people" are contributing ideas...there's nothing regular about the efforts of people like myself who furiously and passionately contribute

Despite my anger and disappointment, I do congratulate you on finally making progress on this. The video for the blog was genuinely beautiful and moving and I do have shame for having these negative emotions. I can't hold a job and will never make money for anything I have built, but I think seeing this project will ease my depression because now I know that my ideas are valid and it's just a matter of weathering the poverty

commented

I've closed the issue both literally and metaphorically, I think this and related projects are beautiful but I think you guys could be much more supportive and acknowledging of the open source community. Not simply liking a tweet or repo but really going hardcore and lifting people up

I posted this out of frustration because Laurence reached out while I was homeless and ghosted me after I asked why not just support my efforts since I had already made so much progress, and open sourced it all

This is one of the many examples and repos I showed him. Not only am I playing hands-free, I mapped the gestures handsfree and am controlling the desktop from the browser...it's handsfree end-to-end (except for literally turning the computer on) and this was in 2019-2020.

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commented

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Oz has closed this issue. But on his behalf, here's a word of coda — so that his voice might not be diminished.

I see some folks are praising Google for their high-mindedness in creating Project Gameface to help the disabled. It's a cruel tragedy that Google did this — factually — on the back of Oz Ramos, a homeless Iraq war veteran, who has PTSD, who created the working prototype on which the design of Project Gameface is based. Bluntly, Oz Ramos's Handsfree.js project, which he had been developing since 2018, was plagiarized by Google for its Project Gameface. Oz has a posse, you see. So, here are some receipts.

I'm a Professor of electronic art and computer science at Carnegie Mellon University, and I can affirm that Oz's story and allegation are true. I supported Oz's work on Handsfree.js through residencies at my lab, the STUDIO for @CreativeInquiry at CMU, in February 2019 and February 2021. I'm the professor that Oz refers to, above.

Oz was inspired to begin working on what became Handsfree.js in 2018, when he was staying at a homeless shelter. Oz met another resident at the shelter, who was recovering from a severe stroke that left them unable to communicate with their friends and family. From 2018 through 2023 — as a self-taught software developer with no college degree — Oz worked on Handsfree.js whenever his circumstances allowed. He tested it with other veterans. He made it work in the browser, and across multiple platforms. He connected it to toolkits for programming education, like p5.js from the @processing Foundation. He received support to continue developing the project from @glitchdotcom, @OpenSourceArts, and @PAIR-code (Google PAIR). He continued to work on it, even after his laptop was stolen. He did this while surviving on less than $12K per year, total, in Veteran Disability Benefits. Always, his vision was for Handsfree.js to build accessible interfaces for disabled people.

Lawrence Maloney @lmoroney contacted Oz more than a year ago. Lawrence extracted a full rundown of how Handsfree.js worked; learned about Oz's ambitions for his passion project; and learned about Oz's sidecar MidiBlocks project, which allows people to design their own game-controlling macros and shortcuts for Handsfree.js. You can see some of this work in the GIF below. Oz summoned the courage to ask Lawrence for a job or funding to develop the project further...and Lawrence cold ghosted him. Let's just say Oz was at a pretty low point after that.

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I've seen corporations steal the work of individual creators more times than I can count, but this case truly takes the prize for its unnecessary and grievous cruelty. This could have so easily been a happy story. Oz was already using Google's MediaPipe as the tracking library in Handsfree.js! Google could have brought in Oz as a contributing consultant, uplifting him as a remarkable and exemplary MediaPipe developer, in a collaborative process to develop a solution for Lance. For pennies. Instead — you callously crushed the spirit of a homeless vet.

What's done is done, the issue is closed. But I think an apology from the project team, and an official acknowledgement of Oz's contributions to the Gameface project, would still be very welcome.

Here are some more receipts for those interested.