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Amazon Rekognition updates face detection, analysis and recognition capabilities

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Re: Amazon Rekognition updates face detection, analysis and recognition capabilities

#2
Woo, better facial recognition for all kinds of nefarious purposes!

Edit: Dead serious, how will Rekognition positively affect the common person? All I see is a myriad of possible ways government, corporations and individuals have abused camera footage today, and emboldened with better technology these problems are likely to get much worse.

Re: Amazon Rekognition updates face detection, analysis and recognition capabilities

#4
post #2

Woo, better facial recognition for all kinds of nefarious purposes! Edit: Dead serious, how will Rekognition positively affect the common person? All I see is a myriad of possible ways government, corporations and individuals have abused camera footage today, and emboldened with better technology these problems are likely to get much worse.

all this FUD around facial recognition being bad for everyone feels eerily similar to the FUD that strong encryption is good for terrorists

Re: Amazon Rekognition updates face detection, analysis and recognition capabilities

#5
post #2

Woo, better facial recognition for all kinds of nefarious purposes! Edit: Dead serious, how will Rekognition positively affect the common person? All I see is a myriad of possible ways government, corporations and individuals have abused camera footage today, and emboldened with better technology these problems are likely to get much worse.

Seems like a stretch to invent hypotheticals for how a common person might benefit. I am curious what the usage stats are for it and what reflections that has on society.

Re: Amazon Rekognition updates face detection, analysis and recognition capabilities

#6
I played around with Rekognition a few months ago and frankly wasn’t that impressed with what it could do. As far as I can remember it could sort of compare if the same person was in two photos (definitely false negatives with various photos of myself I compared), basic OCR of text off images, and not very accurate recognition of certain things/objects.

Re: Amazon Rekognition updates face detection, analysis and recognition capabilities

#7
post #2

Woo, better facial recognition for all kinds of nefarious purposes! Edit: Dead serious, how will Rekognition positively affect the common person? All I see is a myriad of possible ways government, corporations and individuals have abused camera footage today, and emboldened with better technology these problems are likely to get much worse.

all this FUD around facial recognition being bad for everyone feels eerily similar to the FUD that strong encryption is good for terrorists

FUD aside, I'm with the GP on a question that you might have an answer for: How will Rekognition positively affect the common person?

Re: Amazon Rekognition updates face detection, analysis and recognition capabilities

#8
post #2

Woo, better facial recognition for all kinds of nefarious purposes! Edit: Dead serious, how will Rekognition positively affect the common person? All I see is a myriad of possible ways government, corporations and individuals have abused camera footage today, and emboldened with better technology these problems are likely to get much worse.

Off the top of my head, there will be positive usecases in assistive technology for the visually impaired. Also, if the computer knows where I am looking, it may enable some productivity tools.

That said, I agree with you that these potential positive uses do not outweigh the negative ones you allude to.

Re: Amazon Rekognition updates face detection, analysis and recognition capabilities

#9
post #2

Woo, better facial recognition for all kinds of nefarious purposes! Edit: Dead serious, how will Rekognition positively affect the common person? All I see is a myriad of possible ways government, corporations and individuals have abused camera footage today, and emboldened with better technology these problems are likely to get much worse.

I'm sure it will be used for nefarious things too however,

Programs involving photography, yes the big dogs have their own solutions already but this lowers the bar for us hobbyists.

Photo affects (Blurring the background and not the face), sorting images by labels (search for trees and get your photos with trees), searching by people.

Potentially things traffic monitoring, foot traffic in a mall, security systems (record a photo of all customers in the case of theft), automating tracking objects in videos.

Re: Amazon Rekognition updates face detection, analysis and recognition capabilities

#10
I went to a concert the other night, and they where scanning driver licenses and running facial recognition on everyone entering. It was very disconcerting. It is clear to me that we need new laws to protect against the misuse of this technology. Laws that apply to everyone without exceptions for law enforcement. If we don't I fear we are headed towards a 1984 type of future.
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