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America is turning against facial-recognition software

economist.com

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Re: America is turning against facial-recognition software

#51

Post by grenoire »

lazyvoice wrote: post #31
grenoire wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't mean to defend surveillance as a gateway to safety by any means, in fact I believe in the exact opposite. Unfortunately, it's going to be integrated into our society whether we like it or not, and after that point it's only a matter of time before we come to accept losing our privacy; having ignored all the exceptional "casualties" and enjoying the add scrutiny it yields to law enforcement.

I suspect the integration and matter of time exist in recent history. The question I struggle with is, what ought a neutral-good aligned individual do about it?

I think neutral good as an alignment inherently comes with a disadvantage in making impact. You have to take certain levels of risks at certain extremes to be able to influence anything.

Re: America is turning against facial-recognition software

#53

Post by bryanrasmussen »

mc32 wrote: post #33
bryanrasmussen wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There have been numerous issues where corpora of peoples faces have been insufficiently stocked with a particular racial group, in such cases people's faces might not register as faces and therefore be shut out of whatever the facial recognition is supposed to implement. For example facial recognition at a high priced building, suddenly non-white people can't get in because you did not show a real face at the scanner…

>”corpora of peoples faces have been insufficiently stocked with a particular racial group, in such cases people's faces might not register as faces..” I’m not sure this is s good argument against the technology because there is a solution to this objection: they’ll improve it and ensure every face type is comparably recognized. It should be rejected on more basic principles.

there are of course examples of technologies that do not work for their stated purpose, but I think in general technologies do work pretty much for their stated purposes if people can use the technology correctly.

Generally the arguments against a technology is not that the technology does not work for its purpose, but that the way humans will use it is problematic.

Re: America is turning against facial-recognition software

#54

Post by mnw21cam »

lazyvoice wrote: post #28
diafygi wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just so I have good arguments when talking to someone about this specific point, can you or someone else please go into more detail on why this will happen?

For example, let's assume you live in Brunei where homosexuality is a capital crime. Facial-recognition (especially in concert with other pattern-recognition software) drastically reduces the man-power necessary to identify individuals for enforcement. If you're talking to someone who's more conservatively inclined I'd talk about how Iceland has managed to basically eliminate Down Syndrome. Prenatal pattern recogniti…

Okay, I see your Down Syndrome point, and raise you Autism/Asperger Syndrome. Alright, there isn't currently a test that would enable people with Autism/Asperger Syndrome to be systematically aborted, but it isn't so hard to imagine a future where it would be possible. Given the high proportion of people in this forum with these conditions, how do we feel about this?

Re: America is turning against facial-recognition software

#55

Post by vfc1 »

It's like nuclear power, technology is what we make of it.

Do we want to use it for criminal purposes only, effectively to almost make it impossible for someone to commit a violent crime and get away with it and make a much safer society?

I'm all for it, there are some nasty people out there, serial killers, pedophilians, drug cartels. This technology deployed at scale would make these crimes much harder to get away with.

As long as it's another way to ensure democratic laws are respected, I don't think that completely forbidding it makes sense.

I'm all for regulation, we don't want this technology to be abused.

Re: America is turning against facial-recognition software

#56

Post by acct1771 »

walshemj wrote: post #47
tobylane wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would you expect to be achieved by banning it? Intelligence services will continue with it, which is my major concern over its current use.

I think the concern is more widespread use by LEO and corporates who have far less oversight - and will effect several orders of magnitude more people.

You have vastly overestimated the oversight on intelligence agencies.

Re: America is turning against facial-recognition software

#57

Post by coding123 »

vfc1 wrote: post #55

It's like nuclear power, technology is what we make of it. Do we want to use it for criminal purposes only, effectively to almost make it impossible for someone to commit a violent crime and get away with it and make a much safer society? I'm all for it, there are some nasty people out there, serial killers, pedophilians, drug cartels. This technology deployed at scale would make these crimes much harder to get away…

Ski mask. You might catch/convict a guy with it, but soon after a lot of people are just going to wear them all the time.

Re: America is turning against facial-recognition software

#58

Post by phissk »

mnw21cam wrote: post #54
lazyvoice wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For example, let's assume you live in Brunei where homosexuality is a capital crime. Facial-recognition (especially in concert with other pattern-recognition software) drastically reduces the man-power necessary to identify individuals for enforcement. If you're talking to someone who's more conservatively inclined I'd talk about how Iceland has managed to basically eliminate Down Syndrome. Prenatal pattern recogniti…

Okay, I see your Down Syndrome point, and raise you Autism/Asperger Syndrome. Alright, there isn't currently a test that would enable people with Autism/Asperger Syndrome to be systematically aborted, but it isn't so hard to imagine a future where it would be possible. Given the high proportion of people in this forum with these conditions, how do we feel about this?

Please note that you're not aborting 'people' ... just a thing that might become a person.

You're giving (actual) people the opportunity to choose to have healthier families.

- Note that I say 'healthier families' specifically because willfully passing on genetic features that disadvantage your children burdens not just them but your entire family unit.

Re: America is turning against facial-recognition software

#59

Post by EugeneOZ »

hu3 wrote: post #46
EugeneOZ wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It will be less widespread and fewer engineers will push it forward.

This is how you get billion+ defense contracts. Because Intelligence Services always get what they want regardless of the price and we pay for it.

It will not give them access this tech on every consumer device with camera.

Re: America is turning against facial-recognition software

#60

Post by vfc1 »

coding123 wrote: post #57
vfc1 wrote: post #55

It's like nuclear power, technology is what we make of it. Do we want to use it for criminal purposes only, effectively to almost make it impossible for someone to commit a violent crime and get away with it and make a much safer society? I'm all for it, there are some nasty people out there, serial killers, pedophilians, drug cartels. This technology deployed at scale would make these crimes much harder to get away…

Ski mask. You might catch/convict a guy with it, but soon after a lot of people are just going to wear them all the time.

I don't know how effective is this technology to identify masked people, if at all.

But then again, how suspect is that to wear a ski mask? Everyone will notice.

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