Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Amazon shareholders demand it stop selling facial recognition to governments

independent.co.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 128 posts

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

#71

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…

> At border crossings, I can see this could be very reasonable.

Note that it's also least necessary at border crossings. As a non-US citizen I'm already required to give my fingerprints and retinal scan to border control agents.

Like you say it's the "walking down the street" problem - for me at least perhaps more accurately described as the "done at many orders of magnitude more scale, in circumstances where you have no option to opt out". If I don't like border control practices, I have the option of not crossing a border (at whatever cost to me that implies, but I have _some_ agency there). When this is deployed on streets, shopping centers, trainstations, and other similar places - I've lost any agency in being able to choose not to be involved/identified.

(Note too, that the USA defines "border areas" where I'm legally able to be stopped and fingerprinted/retina scanned as "anywhere within 100 miles of a border" which includes pretty much all of California and New York, and anywhere within 100 miles of each coast or the north/south borders.)

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

#72

Post by bigiain »

jopsen wrote: post #35
_jal wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Governments are just people, led by politicians ... empowered to do things we lock up, tase, beat, sick dogs on, and/or kill other people for doing. Kind of an important distinction to make. If you have reason to think exhorting your peer-proles to 'pick qualified and capable people' will lead to better outcomes now than it has in the past, certainly, please continue. Some of us, however, don't see that happening a…

Big corporations can also make your life miserable... And they aren't exactly as accountable as our governments.

And their being accountable to shareholders is the avenue of accountability these groups are trying to use. Might not work, but surely it's worth a try?

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

#73

Post by jpalomaki »

There's growing number of investors who are looking also at the non-financial side of business (social responsibility, environmental issues etc). Companies who ignore these things exclude themselves from the portfolios of these investors.

Some banks and investors are saying the don't want to be involved with certain types of legitimate activities. Here's one example: "Deutsche Bank avoids entering into, or continuing, any kind of business relationship with entities with clear, direct links to the following types of Controversial Weapons business [...]" [1]

I'm not saying face recognition is same thing as antipersonnel mines, but things can change over the years, especially under pressure from public.

[1] https://www.db.com/newsroom_news/2018/deutsche-bank-upgrades...

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

#74

Post by remarkEon »

jpalomaki wrote: post #73

There's growing number of investors who are looking also at the non-financial side of business (social responsibility, environmental issues etc). Companies who ignore these things exclude themselves from the portfolios of these investors. Some banks and investors are saying the don't want to be involved with certain types of legitimate activities. Here's one example: "Deutsche Bank avoids entering into, or continuing…

>Companies who ignore these things exclude themselves from the portfolios of these investors.

Sounds good to me. It seems very unwise to run your business based whatever pet project "socially conscious" investors are supporting this week.

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

#75

Post by tejtm »

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…

Morals have not worked work enough with advertising who's technology is only a hair's breadth away. The sea change you allude to will have to begin further down the food chain.

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

#76

Post by bdhess »

losteric wrote: post #70
jiggliemon wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Facial recognition isn't exclusively a domestic surveillance technology. For example, it could be deployed at national borders, with satellite imagery captured in combat zones, and so on.

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

#77

Post by remarkEon »

bigiain wrote: post #71
sonnyblarney wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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…

> At border crossings, I can see this could be very reasonable. Note that it's also least necessary at border crossings. As a non-US citizen I'm already required to give my fingerprints and retinal scan to border control agents. Like you say it's the "walking down the street" problem - for me at least perhaps more accurately described as the "done at many orders of magnitude more scale, in circumstances where you hav…

>Note that it's also least necessary at border crossings.

Says you. It could replace the fingerprint and retinal scan for all we know, plus you don't have to actually physically interact with the person crossing. I don't think it will, but it seems perfectly reasonable to deploy this technology at the border. I see no issue with the definition of "border areas" either. Seems reasonable to assume that if someone has recently crossed illegally, that, assuming they haven't gotten picked up by vehicle yet, they are likely to be found within less than 100 miles.

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

#78

Post by bdhess »

bigiain wrote: post #71
sonnyblarney wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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…

> At border crossings, I can see this could be very reasonable. Note that it's also least necessary at border crossings. As a non-US citizen I'm already required to give my fingerprints and retinal scan to border control agents. Like you say it's the "walking down the street" problem - for me at least perhaps more accurately described as the "done at many orders of magnitude more scale, in circumstances where you hav…

> Note that it's also least necessary at border crossings. As a non-US citizen I'm already required to give my fingerprints and retinal scan to border control agents.

I think your argument assumes that the US government has already captured either a fingerprint or retina scan of all of its persons of interest. I don't think that's a safe assumption.

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

#79

Post by r00fus »

FooHentai wrote: post #69

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?

PRISM?
Post reply on HN