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Amazon shareholders demand it stop selling facial recognition to governments

independent.co.uk

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Re: Amazon shareholders demand it stop selling facial recognition to governments

#61

Post by jiggliemon »

salawat wrote: post #53
newscracker wrote: post #31

After Facebook, Amazon is the other company I wouldn't trust to not do evil. Even if many more shareholders join in on this, I don't see Jess Bezos caring about these things. The Amazon stock won't suffer even if he publicly says he won't listen to such shareholders. On the contrary, the stock may just shoot up. The larger question on this topic is, "If the big technology companies do not sell the technology to the g…

The problem comes down to the engineers and researchers involved. As an INDUSTRY, we have some very important decisions to make, one of which is, "will we work on this type of system knowing full well what it will be used for?" Yes, everyone has their price, but the fact remains that the tools are nigh useless without the expertise of the knowledgeable people to integrate and fine tune the final product. If there is…

In a lot of these scientific do or don’t debates - people tend to disqualify that there’s a consequence to not building the technology.

In the H-Bomb example, what would happen if Oppenheimer didn’t help develop the bomb? Russia most certainly still would have. And the world would be a different place today.

China, Russia, shit - North Korea are all working on super shady projects that you not I would want any part of. However that doesn’t stop the technology from being developed - and in some dire cases - not making the technology domestically puts us at a disadvantage.

This isn’t me saying that Amazon should continue providing Facial Recognition software to the Government. This is just saying never doing evil isn’t always the best solution - on a global scale.

Re: Amazon shareholders demand it stop selling facial recognition to governments

#62

Post by anonu »

This is a perfect example of social governance: stockholders feeling empowered to control how a company operates. We need to see more of this type of governance. Ultimately, shareholders should just vote with their dollars. Sell a stock you dont like or dont invest in the first place.

Re: Amazon shareholders demand it stop selling facial recognition to governments

#63

Post by bigiain »

_rpd wrote: post #14
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They even wrote a sternly worded letter Privately delivered to Amazon by the ACLU. Until one of the signatories, who is also a major Amazon shareholder, goes public with their disgruntlement this should merit no further attention.

CNN[1] says that it is "Nearly 20 groups of Amazon shareholders ... which include the Social Equity Group and Northwest Coalition for Responsible Investment." [1] http://money.cnn.com/2018/06/18/technology/amazon-facial-rec...

I don't know who those groups are - but they're exactly the sort of name I'd choose for my single-share-holding activist organisation...

(It's a more-than-impulse-buy price of ~$1700 right now - but if I were the sort of person who bought single company shares to push my personal causes at shareholder meetings, I'd probably have bought in at a few hundred bucks 5 or more years back...)

Re: Amazon shareholders demand it stop selling facial recognition to governments

#64

Post by hedora »

I get that people are upset with government abuses (I am too!), but stepping back for a minute, I think it is much more concerning that we’re building a world where a few tech companies get to decide what computing may or may not be used for.

The fact that even the government is hitting headwinds gives me an extremely negative outlook for where the cloud is headed with respect for individual rights.

Re: Amazon shareholders demand it stop selling facial recognition to governments

#65

Post by RcouF1uZ4gsC »

salawat wrote: post #53
newscracker wrote: post #31

After Facebook, Amazon is the other company I wouldn't trust to not do evil. Even if many more shareholders join in on this, I don't see Jess Bezos caring about these things. The Amazon stock won't suffer even if he publicly says he won't listen to such shareholders. On the contrary, the stock may just shoot up. The larger question on this topic is, "If the big technology companies do not sell the technology to the g…

The problem comes down to the engineers and researchers involved. As an INDUSTRY, we have some very important decisions to make, one of which is, "will we work on this type of system knowing full well what it will be used for?" Yes, everyone has their price, but the fact remains that the tools are nigh useless without the expertise of the knowledgeable people to integrate and fine tune the final product. If there is…

The same thing can be said about specific technologies.

1) Is it OK to work on facial recognition at all, knowing it will be abused.

2) How about machine learning in general. It is certainly being abused. Some people are worried about an AI destruction of humanity. Should all AI research be banned.

3) What about open source ML libraries? Having TensorFlow open source, certainly makes it much easier for bad actors to develop ML to do bad stuff.

4) What about open source in general. Having Linux as an open source, free software certainly enabled a lot of people to efficiently run computer systems that can be used for bad things. I am sure, that many of the surveillance systems used by the US, China, and Russia run some variant of Linux.

Basically, if you are writing software, especially open source, somewhere along the line, somebody will do something bad with it.

Re: Amazon shareholders demand it stop selling facial recognition to governments

#66

Post by bigiain »

tomelders wrote: post #54
FartyMcFarter wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure. But let's be clear - it is good to have as many software developers as possible steering away from unethical work.

Yeah but... that means the people who do take on this work will be the zealots who never doubt what they're doing. That's not to say that non-zealots should take on this work to keep the zealots out. I'm just saying that we're screwed so long as there are no laws prohibiting governments for doing this sort of stuff, because there will always be devs willing to use their powers for evil.

Those zealots would do it anyway.

If there's any correlation between non-zealot-developers and highly-effective-developers (which there may not be, but the optimist in me hope there is), then the world might be a better place as a result of this...

(Note, I have been _tempted_ to take on work that fascinates be on a technical level, that I disagree with on an ethical level. I've never crossed my own personal ethical line there, but - without judging - I can see why the temptation succeeds for some people...)

Re: Amazon shareholders demand it stop selling facial recognition to governments

#67

Post by zaptheimpaler »

bcheung wrote: post #44

This seems like it is approaching the problem from the wrong angle. This should be addressed at the government law level. The problem is where do you draw the line? Any technology can be used for evil. Do you next ask companies that sell cameras not to sell to the government? Then ban computers? Laws that concern themselves with targeting and surveilling people encompass any technology. Facial recognition is not a ha…

I agree with this in principle, but in the US the intelligence/police don't really seem to be accountable to the people.

They regularly conduct surveillance on huge scales and no one even knows about it until we get lucky with a leak like Snowden. Who knows how many dozens of other secrets like that they still have. The CIA/FBI etc. have a history of doing this kind of thing for decades, at least since WW2. Then it gets declassified 50 years later when no one cares.

Surveillance is a case where its good for the government, but bad for the people the government is meant to represent. Bottom line is they will never police themselves on this issue. So going after the people making it like Amazon may be a better idea.

Re: Amazon shareholders demand it stop selling facial recognition to governments

#68

Post by bigiain »

sonnyblarney wrote: post #50
FartyMcFarter wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure. But let's be clear - it is good to have as many software developers as possible steering away from unethical work.

"it is good to have as many software developers as possible steering away from unethical work." Is it unethical to track down violent activists? Is it unethical to check for people crossing the border illegally? And this thing about the tech being used to single out 'people of colour' I think we can dismiss that out of hand - the tech won't be used for that ... though the application of the tech may disproportionatel…

You're right - there's _lots_ of grey area here, and some people's ethics are different from mine (and mine are probably different from yours, at least at the boundaries. _Most_ people agree on basic human rights, they just all define them differently sometimes...)

While I agree we need new laws, I also recognise that laws by necessity change slower than fashions, so there's always a period (often a long period) where laws trail behind what's going on in society. It's during those periods where approaches like "it is good to have as many software developers as possible steering away from unethical work." might help.

Re: Amazon shareholders demand it stop selling facial recognition to governments

#69

Post by FooHentai »

In the past 24 hour cycle of news I have seen:

- Microsoft catching heat for their deal to allow ICE to use their capabilities

- Amazon catching heat for their deal to allow government to use facial recognition

- A photo of Satya Nadella, Jeff Bezos and Trump sitting next to each other and shaking hands

What's the play here?

Re: Amazon shareholders demand it stop selling facial recognition to governments

#70

Post by losteric »

jiggliemon wrote: post #61
salawat wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem comes down to the engineers and researchers involved. As an INDUSTRY, we have some very important decisions to make, one of which is, "will we work on this type of system knowing full well what it will be used for?" Yes, everyone has their price, but the fact remains that the tools are nigh useless without the expertise of the knowledgeable people to integrate and fine tune the final product. If there is…

In a lot of these scientific do or don’t debates - people tend to disqualify that there’s a consequence to not building the technology. In the H-Bomb example, what would happen if Oppenheimer didn’t help develop the bomb? Russia most certainly still would have. And the world would be a different place today. China, Russia, shit - North Korea are all working on super shady projects that you not I would want any part o…

Developing an offensive weapon is different than working on domestic surveillance technology.

Personally, I prefer a world where China has big-brother technology that the US does not.

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