Amazon shareholders reject facial recognition ban • Hacker News Board

Re: Amazon shareholders reject facial recognition ban

#201

Post by adrianN » Thu, May 23, 2019, 5:06 AM UTC

cle wrote: post #142

tw04 wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Flagging “America’s most wanted” in public places And what happens if we descend into military rule or a dictatorship? With "America's most wanted" fliers, the general public can just refuse to participate. With facial recognition, anyone deemed an "enemy of the state" can easily be tracked and eliminated. Always assume the worst and work your way back to the good when doing the cost-benefit analysis.

Laws have a tendency not to stop dictators. They are the law. In reality laws are only as powerful as their enforcement, and if there is no will to enforce, like what happens during transitions to dictatorships, then they’ll just be ignored.

And dictators have a tendency to use expensive infrastructure that was built before they came into power. Setting everything up so that switching from a free society to a mass surveillance and state control hellhole is as easy as editing a config file is not a good idea.

Re: Amazon shareholders reject facial recognition ban

#202

Post by fiblye » Thu, May 23, 2019, 5:10 AM UTC

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #194

baroffoos wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> security (home/building/car entry, detecting suspicious individuals, known terrorists, past offenders, restraining orders) So now we literally destroy the lives of anyone who has ever committed a crime in the past. Imagine a world where every single store refuses you entry because you stole something years ago.

So we pass a law to prohibit that.

Because corporations and governments always follow the laws they write and laws never get repealed and overridden.

The fourth amendment already has a bunch of exceptions to it, and the constitution is the highest legal framework in the land. Other laws mean diddly.

Re: Amazon shareholders reject facial recognition ban

#203

Post by sorryforthethro » Thu, May 23, 2019, 5:14 AM UTC

AtHeartEngineer wrote: post #177

spunker540 wrote: post #158

I feel like there are clearly ways in which facial recognition can improve a lot of systems -- ticketing (think airports, sporting events, concerts etc); automated stores (like the amazon cashierless stores); payment (imagine not needing a wallet because the combination of your face, gait, and voice is enough to verify you); security (home/building/car entry, detecting suspicious individuals, known terrorists, past o…

If you haven't already, I'd highly recommend reading 1984. I'm sure you read it in high school or whatever, but actually read it as an adult.

I wonder if the personality test Amazon has during the prelim-interview can detect if you've read such books in the past.

Re: Amazon shareholders reject facial recognition ban

#204

Post by headsoup » Thu, May 23, 2019, 5:16 AM UTC

onemoresoop wrote: post #196

travisporter wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“payment (imagine not needing a wallet because the combination of your face, gait, and voice is enough to verify you)“ If it can be done from a distance, this is bone chilling to me. A company could use this to literally extract money from someone’s bank account. I agree with the rest of your sentiment though.

Whats the big deal to not carry a wallet? It’s not the convenience I’d swap for privacy. If you imagine where this could go wrong it becomes easier to just stick to the wallet. Even to cash.

It seems to fall under the quiet assumption that technology advances and automation are inherently good, and that manual processes and analogue things are inefficient and undesirable.

We don't even do the whole 'should we' evaluation because it is assumed it will happen anyway somehow and we'll figure out the rules after the fact.

Re: Amazon shareholders reject facial recognition ban

#205

Post by fooblitzky » Thu, May 23, 2019, 5:16 AM UTC

jxramos wrote: post #193

What’s the backstory here? Did Amazon ban some facial recognition product it’s developed from being used in certain circumstances and the shareholders overturned that decision?

No, some shareholders brought forth a motion to ban the product at the shareholder's meeting, and it was voted down.

Re: Amazon shareholders reject facial recognition ban

#206

Post by visarga » Thu, May 23, 2019, 5:17 AM UTC

adrianN wrote: post #201

cle wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Laws have a tendency not to stop dictators. They are the law. In reality laws are only as powerful as their enforcement, and if there is no will to enforce, like what happens during transitions to dictatorships, then they’ll just be ignored.

And dictators have a tendency to use expensive infrastructure that was built before they came into power. Setting everything up so that switching from a free society to a mass surveillance and state control hellhole is as easy as editing a config file is not a good idea.

Yet it will still be as easy as deploying a docker container from the repo and hooking up the API.

Re: Amazon shareholders reject facial recognition ban

#207

Post by headsoup » Thu, May 23, 2019, 5:19 AM UTC

wavefunction wrote: post #161

spunker540 wrote: post #158

I feel like there are clearly ways in which facial recognition can improve a lot of systems -- ticketing (think airports, sporting events, concerts etc); automated stores (like the amazon cashierless stores); payment (imagine not needing a wallet because the combination of your face, gait, and voice is enough to verify you); security (home/building/car entry, detecting suspicious individuals, known terrorists, past o…

I would quibble with your basic premise of facial recognition improving these things or even if these things are worthy goals. At least from my personal and selfish interest I don't perceive any improvement offered for myself or society. From a perspective of a shareholder/interested-party looking to maximize X via Z then yeah it makes sense.

Indeed, convenience at all costs is a curse that's driving towards 1984. The destination of this absurdity is why even bother thinking if someone else can do it for you...

Re: Amazon shareholders reject facial recognition ban

#208

Post by hrktb » Thu, May 23, 2019, 5:21 AM UTC

spunker540 wrote: post #158

I feel like there are clearly ways in which facial recognition can improve a lot of systems -- ticketing (think airports, sporting events, concerts etc); automated stores (like the amazon cashierless stores); payment (imagine not needing a wallet because the combination of your face, gait, and voice is enough to verify you); security (home/building/car entry, detecting suspicious individuals, known terrorists, past o…

> I feel like there are clearly ways in which facial recognition can improve a lot of systems -- ticketing (think airports, sporting events, concerts etc); automated stores (like the amazon cashierless stores); payment (imagine not needing a wallet because the combination of your face, gait, and voice is enough to verify you); security (home/building/car entry, detecting suspicious individuals, known terrorists, past offenders, restraining orders)

I’m not even sure how facial recognition brings anything fundamentally different to the table in these examples: no airport will let you board only by facial recognition. Even payment is already super fast with contactless terminals, and credit card companies will never allow low fees billing by face recognition alone.

Every other low stake application already has a somewhat fast biometric option that didn’t take off because people just don’t want biometric databases of them (either by just being too lazy to opt in and give the info, either by clear opinion)

Re: Amazon shareholders reject facial recognition ban

#209

Post by KorematsuFred » Thu, May 23, 2019, 5:24 AM UTC

What is wrong with facial recognition ? The problem should be government using it to enforce laws. Even that is debatable. Most public spaces are currently under surveillance.

Re: Amazon shareholders reject facial recognition ban

#210

Post by ahelwer » Thu, May 23, 2019, 5:26 AM UTC

philwelch wrote: post #170

itwasntandy wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I agree with the aspiration, I don’t see how it’s possible to use facial recognition to flag “america’s Most wanted” or to look for missing children without mass surveillance though? It only works if it scans _everyone_ . Additionally what happens when the technology isn’t perfect and innocent people get mistakenly flagged as persons of interest? The other thing is once it’s installed and in operation, what’s t…

CCTV cameras are already ubiquitous. That ship has already sailed. And honestly, there was never an expectation of privacy in public in the first place.

CCTV cameras monitored by humans are COMPLETELY different from a facial recognition system recording the identities and movements of all people. There is no comparison.

There absolutely is an expectation of privacy in public. Being seen in public by a series of uncoordinated people is massively different from a PI tailing you and recording your actions. This form of privacy is generally termed "obscurity".