America is turning against facial-recognition software • Hacker News Board

Re: America is turning against facial-recognition software

#141

Post by a1369209993 » Fri, May 24, 2019, 8:06 PM UTC

alexryan wrote: post #124

antisthenes wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What a poor analogy. My job doesn't have anything to do with being the sole arbiter of violence and defusing dangerous situations at the trust and expense of taxpayers and local citizens. If they don't want accountability as police officers, they can go find another job. > Don't blame them for looking for their interest. I can, I will and I will argue that it is my moral obligation to ensure that the public servants…

"giving superior officers licence to search them for punishable behaviour" seems like a legitimate concern. You seem to be assuming that the "superior officers" will have "the best interests of the public" as their sole motivation. In my experience that is rarely true of ladder climbers. By not dealing with this concern you could easily end up making things worse.

If "punishable behaviour" is appropiately limited to things like assault and evidence planting, then this is irrelevant, and superior officers should even be required to preform such searches.

If "punishable behaviour" includes things like slacking off to stop by dunkin donuts, the problem is with what qualifies as punishable behaviour, not the ability to search for it.

Re: America is turning against facial-recognition software

#142

Post by pistacchioman » Fri, May 24, 2019, 9:16 PM UTC

Frondo wrote: post #75

asdkhadsj wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pardon the ignorant question, but is there an accepted "standard" for pronouns when someone identifies themself as you did? Which is to say, if you say you're a "trans woman", am I able to infer that your desired gender pronoun is female?

I'm not trans but have several trans friends, and just wanted to add (as a non-trans person), make a best guess for how someone presents and if they correct you, do not joke about it. No jokes, no extra comments, Just say, "sorry, got it," and move on. It's a matter of respect and nothing more, and if you respect someone, it's easy to show it. Making a joke about something that's important (and possibly sensitive) to…

I don't think it's necessary to be so careful. If they can't take a joke I don't wanna hang out with them.

Re: America is turning against facial-recognition software

#143

Post by jfk13 » Fri, May 24, 2019, 10:29 PM UTC

chuckgreenman wrote: post #105

Loughla wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>We 100% benefit by moving the power up the chain from uneducated people to educated people. Most cops are college educated? >They will have biases, but not the same ones police have and far less racist or sexist ones. I honestly am going to need citations for that statement. >Your average engineer is far more intelligent and introspective than your average police though. Again, this is nothing more than a magical be…

Most cops are college educated, however, let's not kid ourselves, a BS in criminal justice is a little different than a BS in engineering.

At least the cop and the engineer have BS in common, apparently.

As an "engineer" myself, I don't think my peers are in general much better or wiser people than the rest of the world, and I'm not at all comfortable with implicitly handing them an ever-increasing level of power within our society.

Re: America is turning against facial-recognition software

#144

Post by mr_toad » Sat, May 25, 2019, 1:21 AM UTC

xena wrote: post #2

Good. This kind of software is a mirror to the data fed into it. People on the edges of society (that the people making the mirror might either intentionally or accidentally ignore) will get fucked over tremendously by this technology. We should put a complete ban on it. Even if it means gimping my photo organization programs.

> We should put a complete ban on it.

Both my phone and my PS4 use facial recognition for login. I don’t want that banned.

My camera can be set up to take a photo when it detects someone in the frame. Very useful for selfies. Are you going to ban that too.

Are you going to ban Tensorflow. Keras? SciKit-learn?

If I hand code my own neural net, are you going to ban that as well?

Re: America is turning against facial-recognition software

#145

Post by alexryan » Sat, May 25, 2019, 2:22 AM UTC

a1369209993 wrote: post #141

alexryan wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"giving superior officers licence to search them for punishable behaviour" seems like a legitimate concern. You seem to be assuming that the "superior officers" will have "the best interests of the public" as their sole motivation. In my experience that is rarely true of ladder climbers. By not dealing with this concern you could easily end up making things worse.

If "punishable behaviour" is appropiately limited to things like assault and evidence planting, then this is irrelevant, and superior officers should even be required to preform such searches. If "punishable behaviour" includes things like slacking off to stop by dunkin donuts, the problem is with what qualifies as punishable behaviour, not the ability to search for it.

You might be missing the point. Assuming that all the good guys are supervisors and all the bad guys are the supervised is an unwise assumption to make. The bad guys can simply become supervisors and weed out the good guys. Entire police departments have been corrupted in this fashion. If you over simplify the problem the solution is unlikely yield the desired result.

Re: America is turning against facial-recognition software

#146

Post by vangelis » Sat, May 25, 2019, 2:47 AM UTC

mr_toad wrote: post #144

xena wrote: post #2

Good. This kind of software is a mirror to the data fed into it. People on the edges of society (that the people making the mirror might either intentionally or accidentally ignore) will get fucked over tremendously by this technology. We should put a complete ban on it. Even if it means gimping my photo organization programs.

> We should put a complete ban on it. Both my phone and my PS4 use facial recognition for login. I don’t want that banned. My camera can be set up to take a photo when it detects someone in the frame. Very useful for selfies. Are you going to ban that too. Are you going to ban Tensorflow. Keras? SciKit-learn? If I hand code my own neural net, are you going to ban that as well?

I disagree with a complete ban, but we could ban wide-scale implementation of this. You are not a municipality.

Re: America is turning against facial-recognition software

#147

Post by a1369209993 » Sat, May 25, 2019, 9:12 AM UTC

alexryan wrote: post #145

a1369209993 wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If "punishable behaviour" is appropiately limited to things like assault and evidence planting, then this is irrelevant, and superior officers should even be required to preform such searches. If "punishable behaviour" includes things like slacking off to stop by dunkin donuts, the problem is with what qualifies as punishable behaviour, not the ability to search for it.

You might be missing the point. Assuming that all the good guys are supervisors and all the bad guys are the supervised is an unwise assumption to make. The bad guys can simply become supervisors and weed out the good guys. Entire police departments have been corrupted in this fashion. If you over simplify the problem the solution is unlikely yield the desired result.

No, I'm saying that even if all the supervisors are bad, the ability to search for punishable behaviour only helps them if there exists punishable behaviour for them to find.

I agree that this is a unreasonably high standard to hold people whose job doesn't have anything to do with being the sole arbiter of violence and defusing dangerous situations at the trust and expense of taxpayers and local citizens to.

If they don't want accountability as police officers, they can go find another job.

Edit: unless you meant not supervisors but the policymakers who define "punishable behaviour", in which case getting rid of body cams is about as helpful as rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

Re: America is turning against facial-recognition software

#148

Post by alexryan » Sat, May 25, 2019, 10:36 AM UTC

a1369209993 wrote: post #147

alexryan wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You might be missing the point. Assuming that all the good guys are supervisors and all the bad guys are the supervised is an unwise assumption to make. The bad guys can simply become supervisors and weed out the good guys. Entire police departments have been corrupted in this fashion. If you over simplify the problem the solution is unlikely yield the desired result.

No, I'm saying that even if all the supervisors are bad, the ability to search for punishable behaviour only helps them if there exists punishable behaviour for them to find. I agree that this is a unreasonably high standard to hold people whose job doesn't have anything to do with being the sole arbiter of violence and defusing dangerous situations at the trust and expense of taxpayers and local citizens to. If they…

No good person wants criminal police officers to not be held to account but simply passing laws is unlikely to have the desired effect. Many police departments in the united states are already highly corrupted at the highest levels. Its not as bad as it is in Mexico where the drug lords have actually taken over, but its getting close.

Re: America is turning against facial-recognition software

#149

Post by mensetmanusman » Sun, May 26, 2019, 9:16 PM UTC

toephu2 wrote: post #112

mensetmanusman wrote: post #96

This backlash is the silver lining to China’s shortsighted implementations of this technology to their world renowned police state.

This may be an unpopular opinion here but on the flip side have you been to China lately? Street crime (including petty thievery) has dropped immensely. Any city in China is much safer than Oakland.

There is always a silver lining to authoritarianism.