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A crashed advertisement reveals logs of a facial recognition system

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Re: A crashed advertisement reveals logs of a facial recognition system

#381

Post by tps5 »

I don't see any evidence that this is a "facial recognition system."

It's likely hard to legislate against software that attempts to detect if there is a person, what their expression is, and guesses at their gender.

You could imagine that job being done by a person (just noting how many people stopped at the advertisement, and what their expression was). I don't think there's really a way to make that illegal.

I suppose I think it's something that people should be aware of, though.

Re: A crashed advertisement reveals logs of a facial recognition system

#382

Post by 794CD01 »

baldfat wrote: post #359
_-_T_-_ wrote: post #251

(Supposedly) Lee Gambles comment on Reddit - "Hi. I am the original taker of the photo. There is a screen that normally shows peppes pizza advertisements in front of peppes pizza in Oslo S. The advertisements had crashed revealing what was running underneath the ads. As I approached the screen to take a picture, the screen began scrolling with my generic information - That I am young male (sorry my profile picture wa…

It is still a BIG ethical issue for some people. Myself I see this as just the natural progression we are headed. If we don't have rules about this kind of technology it will very much be "Minority Report" in a decade.

How is it an ethical issue for strangers to look at your face when you are out in public?

Re: A crashed advertisement reveals logs of a facial recognition system

#383

Post by 794CD01 »

asher_ wrote: post #136
_kb wrote: post #15

You'd be surprised / scared / outraged if you knew how common this is. Any time you've been in a public place for the past few years, you've likely been watched, analysed and optimised for. Advertising in the physical world is just as scummy as it's online equivalent. Check out the video here http://sightcorp.com/ for an ultra creepy overview. You can even try their live demo: https://face-api.sightcorp.com/demo_basi…

Why is this scummy exactly? If a salesperson was to try to sell to you in a store, they would take into account how you appear and act to tailor the sale. There's nothing wrong with that. Why is it suddenly bad if a machine does it?

Most humans today are prejudiced against nonorganic life due to not growing up interacting with anyone but other meatbags.

There's a huge double standard in place that makes it somehow wrong for computers to do what humans have been doing without objection for decades or millenia.

Re: A crashed advertisement reveals logs of a facial recognition system

#384

Post by 794CD01 »

pasta wrote: post #152
asher_ wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is this scummy exactly? If a salesperson was to try to sell to you in a store, they would take into account how you appear and act to tailor the sale. There's nothing wrong with that. Why is it suddenly bad if a machine does it?

Because a machine has much more capabilities than one salesperson. The salesperson doesn't know in what shops you have been before. The salesperson might also not know you talked to his colleague the day before. This is about trust and privacy. You can't trust what they do with your data.

So if the salesman has an eidetic memory it becomes unethical? How about just an above-average one?

Re: A crashed advertisement reveals logs of a facial recognition system

#386

Post by ioquatix »

rtkwe wrote: post #97
hackuser wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Couldn't you just identify the user by their logon?

It's been a while but I don't think the old iMacs at my elementary school had individual user logins at the system level. For things like the reading test program there was a login I think but not for the whole machine.

Bingo!

Re: A crashed advertisement reveals logs of a facial recognition system

#387

Post by mk-61 »

gedrap wrote: post #285

To be honest, I am fairly surprised at the reaction here on HN. It's not really surprising to see such system, it would be more surprising if such system did not exist because offline ads is a huge business and the technology is here. This goes together with conversion tracking at physical shops, etc. I am equally surprised by the comments about how come engineers implement such systems, how they find it ethical, etc…

I think, such reaction is just because article is less "techy" than it could be, but more about "moral" aspect.

OTOH, what is so interesting in simple face recognition, innit? That future became a past quite fast, meanwhile teh human rights never get old. (smile.jpg)

Re: A crashed advertisement reveals logs of a facial recognition system

#388

Post by arximboldi »

ffriend wrote: post #323
arximboldi wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope. You can do controlled user-testing sessions with that system with specific people that have consented and are potentially compensated in some way. You will most probably also get more useful information out of that. But being recorded "en masse" in a shop for that purpose I would think is invasive. I would totally avoid that shop if I knew that system was in place. Also, I am not convinced that statistics lead…

But isn't A/B testing doing the same thing? If it's different, what's the key difference between analyzing facial expression in a shop and analyzing user interaction on a site (given that both have a warning about data collection)?

The former has very weak (if any) consent, is indiscriminate, easy to abuse, and creates unnecessary conflict (e.g. i really like those pants sold in that shop but I don't like to be tracked, ok i'll go in just this time...).

In A/B testing there is a clear context and purpose, and is normally negotiated between actual humans.

There might be middle grounds (A/B testing can be done online and use facial recognition and in relatively large scale) but for me it has to be opt-in (as in, you have to fill a form to join) not opt-out (as in, leave this webpage/shop if you don't want my tracking). This is more challenging to the organization proposing the tracking, because they need to provide some value in exchange so people actually sign up for that. But in the long term being founded on the principle of consensual mutually benefiting relationships can only be good for your organization/brand, right? As in: at last a company that treats people like humans!

Re: A crashed advertisement reveals logs of a facial recognition system

#389

Post by z2600 »

fps wrote: post #367
rpeden wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. This isn't new. It's everywhere . The cameras retailers use with their surveillance systems are coming with facial recognition built in now. [1] And lots of retailers, banks, etc, are using systems that track people's visits across multiple locations. [2] You'll see a lot of these systems being sold as fraud/loss prevention solutions. The reason for this is that it's a relatively easy sell this way - customer…

Just yesterday I was hearing news of how most of the retail giants and lots of smaller retail stores are going out of business due to competition from ecommerce. If that means the end of practices like this, then good riddance.

But, aren't ecommerce sites collecting this information and more from your browsing? I don't think it's possible to say one is much better than the other, just that we expect tracking online, not in the real world.

Re: A crashed advertisement reveals logs of a facial recognition system

#390

Post by mk-61 »

baldfat wrote: post #359
_-_T_-_ wrote: post #251

(Supposedly) Lee Gambles comment on Reddit - "Hi. I am the original taker of the photo. There is a screen that normally shows peppes pizza advertisements in front of peppes pizza in Oslo S. The advertisements had crashed revealing what was running underneath the ads. As I approached the screen to take a picture, the screen began scrolling with my generic information - That I am young male (sorry my profile picture wa…

It is still a BIG ethical issue for some people. Myself I see this as just the natural progression we are headed. If we don't have rules about this kind of technology it will very much be "Minority Report" in a decade.

For me is way more bigger ethical issue is what millions sharing in social networks, on their own will.
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