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Amazon employees protest sale of facial recognition tech to law enforcement

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Re: Amazon employees protest sale of facial recognition tech to law enforcement

#91

Post by eeZah7Ux »

pandem wrote: post #74
gasull wrote: post #54

I'm dismayed at the comments here of "if Amazon/Microsoft/Google don't work for ICE, someone else will". That argument doesn't fly. If you stop helping ICE, they will have to get worse software from likely more expensive vendors (less market competition for the contract). Which will make ICE less efficient in its goal to criminalize, separate and deport immigrants.

If ICE has to get worse software that just means you and everyone else need to pay more in taxes. The government has the means to get what it wants usually

That argument can be used to justify supporting any atrocity.

IBM and other companies helping the nazis used that argument.

Re: Amazon employees protest sale of facial recognition tech to law enforcement

#92

Post by Zigurd »

toomanybeersies wrote: post #3

How is selling to law enforcement any worse than selling facial recognition tech to companies that are also use it to invade my privacy and use the technology to try and squeeze money out of me? Where do you draw the line on ethical usage? In my mind, if you're concerned about the ethics of facial recognition tech, you shouldn't be working in that field at all. It's fundamentally anti-privacy.

"How is selling to law enforcement any worse than selling facial recognition tech to...?" is the template of whataboutism. Start somewhere. Go ahead and criticize where they started, but do so by telling us what you think will be more effective start.

Otherwise the message is "don't oppose the surveillance state."

Re: Amazon employees protest sale of facial recognition tech to law enforcement

#93

Post by learc83 »

mc32 wrote: post #33
us0r wrote: post #30

Amazon is about to effectively receive a sole source DOD contract for 10 billion for "cloud services". They have been supplying AWS to intelligence agencies for years. Why outrage over this and not that?

Because politics. It’s an election year and people are manoeuvering for position. Obama had children in these detention camps, Feinstein and just about any democrat in government more than ten years has had tough stances on illegal immigration, but, now of course with Trump it’s different. Snowden, Assange both shed light on massive surveillance and the outrage lasted a week. Now Assange and Snowden are seen in a les…

Under Obama, occasionally we had a few children seperated from their parents and placed in detention camps. In the last 6 weeks we had over 2000 children seperated.

There was a change in policy from: we don't generally presecute parents with children, to: prosecute all parents with children.

You don't think that change could have had anything to do with people's outrage?

Re: Amazon employees protest sale of facial recognition tech to law enforcement

#94

Post by stryk »

throwaway37585 wrote: post #11
stryk wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Say the government doesn't have it. They can just ask/force/coerce/pressure the tech company that does for your data. Or steal it from them.

But it’s more difficult.

Is it? I don't think it would be. In fact, extortion and coercion are fairly easy because there are no rules (this I can attest to from both sides of the equation). The easiest weakness to exploit is always going to be the humans involved, especially in a legitimate business. The only true way to protect data like this is to have it not exist in the first place. Once the data is created - forget it, you might as well assume if Big Bro really wants it, they're going to get it -- because they will, if they don't already have it. It's not a case of if, but when.

Re: Amazon employees protest sale of facial recognition tech to law enforcement

#95

Post by freedomben »

confounded wrote: post #56
freedomben wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This really aligns with my thoughts too. I was sad to see Google pull out, because I know that with the ideology of many of the people there, the whistle is far more likely to be blown when things go too far. Having worked for big defense contractors, that whistle is not likely to get used there. I get nervous as hell thinking about AI and ML in the hands of governments, but it's gonna happen anyway . I'd rather it b…

> ... the whistle is far more likely to be blown when things go too far In your admiration for a Google employees, you’re projecting your own beleifs and norms. The whistle was blown; Project Maven is too far . > I get nervous as hell thinking about AI and ML in the hands of governments Me too, but a cleaner way to deal with it might be to demand better transparency and accountability from the government. Beleif that…

It's definitely fair to point out that Google and their employees aren't likely to be the perfect representation of what I would hope for, but all I really meant to convey was that as an institution I trust them more than I do the big defense contractors. TBF, it's not a high bar to leap.

Re: Amazon employees protest sale of facial recognition tech to law enforcement

#96

Post by confounded »

bb88 wrote: post #78
confounded wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure if the parent expressed anything approaching either anger or hate. > ... that protection will require facial recognition software. Why? Lots of things are effective, but life in a free country means that we don’t do some of them. We could put cameras in every home, make them illegal to disable. Ban encryption. Censor the web. Ban cars that can’t be remotely disabled. Free societies are free because there is…

If you were an honest debater, you would have discussed the pros and cons of facial recognition software instead of labeling my position as somehow inherently evil without argument.

No need to assume I’m out to get you.

Are there benefits of facial recognition cameras for law enforcement which can’t be said of other mass surveillance techniques?

Are there specific pros you want to be acknowledged?

Re: Amazon employees protest sale of facial recognition tech to law enforcement

#97

Post by pavel_lishin »

pandem wrote: post #74
gasull wrote: post #54

I'm dismayed at the comments here of "if Amazon/Microsoft/Google don't work for ICE, someone else will". That argument doesn't fly. If you stop helping ICE, they will have to get worse software from likely more expensive vendors (less market competition for the contract). Which will make ICE less efficient in its goal to criminalize, separate and deport immigrants.

If ICE has to get worse software that just means you and everyone else need to pay more in taxes. The government has the means to get what it wants usually

That's only a problem if "minimize taxes" is the only metric you care about.

Re: Amazon employees protest sale of facial recognition tech to law enforcement

#98

Post by freedomben »

carlmr wrote: post #68
freedomben wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This really aligns with my thoughts too. I was sad to see Google pull out, because I know that with the ideology of many of the people there, the whistle is far more likely to be blown when things go too far. Having worked for big defense contractors, that whistle is not likely to get used there. I get nervous as hell thinking about AI and ML in the hands of governments, but it's gonna happen anyway . I'd rather it b…

But isn't Maven and Rekognition people at these companies blowing the whistle? If they just did what was asked of them, then there would be no difference to other companies. The reason we're hearing about this right now is that a lot of whistles are blown. The question is whether this will be effective in any way.

That's a very good point. The logical conclusion of what I said is that at some point the whistle gets blown (or already has as you've pointed out) at which point Google backs off and Northrop (or another defense co) takes over, and we're right back here.

Re: Amazon employees protest sale of facial recognition tech to law enforcement

#99

Post by rumcajz »

confounded wrote: post #42

Seeing, in the press, actual technologists' opinions on what is and isn't a good use for their technologies is extremely refreshing, and something that that many on HN have grumbled about for a long time. Along with the similar actions at Google and Microsoft[0,1], I hope that this represents a bit more of the decision-making power of tech companies coming back towards technologists, and away from the money-men. [0]:…

It would be nice if this spread beyond the US. Although it's kind of hard to imagine workers having any voice in countries like Russia or China.

Re: Amazon employees protest sale of facial recognition tech to law enforcement

#100

Post by kevin_b_er »

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #47

I have a feeling that one of these cloud companies is going to have a mass firing of employees that are protesting against government contracts. People underestimate just how much money the US government spends. Just DoD spending is more than 600 Billion per year. Microsoft and Google have annual revenue of 100 Billion. The $10 Billion Pentagon cloud contract immediately gives a huge boost to any cloud provider. As c…

They will learn Bezos considers workers fungible too.
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