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Why Sam Altman wants to scan two billion eyes

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Re: Why Sam Altman wants to scan two billion eyes

#81
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> United Nations World Food Program partnered with the firm Palantir Woah. Why in the world would they be willing to partner with Palantir? They're amongst the scummiest of scumbag companies.

I agree but also feel like entities like the UN are pretty much the entire customer base for Palantir. Or at least, they're not a huge jump from, say, the DoD, whatever your beliefs about either are.

> United Nations World Food Program

I just assumed that, if nothing else, that program would want to avoid anything that reflects badly on them.

Re: Why Sam Altman wants to scan two billion eyes

#82
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A few years ago most people would have said the same about fingerprint reading or face scanning, and yet we're living in a world where it is completely standard now

> we're living in a world where it is completely standard now No it isn't. Ew. If an employer asked to fingerprint me I'd tell them where to stick their scanner. You know what is "completely standard" now? Governments and corporations leaking terabytes of private information, with barely a shred of accountability. We need to be pulling this in the exact opposite direction, not normalizing it; and not adding retina sc…

> If an employer asked to fingerprint me I'd tell them where to stick their scanner.

There are some situations where this may be ok. Working for the police themselves as an example. ;)

Re: Why Sam Altman wants to scan two billion eyes

#83
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not that crazy - corruption and malfeasance are primary risks to your effective yield when trying to distribute aid like that. Middle-men and middle-women inevitably appear, one to one authentication is one way to keep them away.

> Middle-men and middle-women inevitably appear ... So, Palantir is the middle-er... person in this context?

Something about 'the devil you know', I guess. Don't blame me, I'm not in charge of the world.

Re: Why Sam Altman wants to scan two billion eyes

#84
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To what end, though? I can't claim you are wrong, but I just don't see the benefit without resorting to ludicrous movie plots that largely don't hold up outside of entertainment value.

The entirety of "big data" is built on get data->???->profit. That's what's always been behind the push for ai, the hope that these ML programs can extract gold from the ocean.

Big data is built on "get data -> increase sales -> profit". The entire discipline is built over the idea of extending a few well known experiences from the 90's and 00's.

Almost the entire thing is bullshit, of course, but the entire pipeline was always well specified.

Re: Why Sam Altman wants to scan two billion eyes

#85
post #8

> The capture of biometric data has become common in contexts of migration, where iris-scanning is a precondition to receiving humanitarian aid. In 2019, the United Nations World Food Program partnered with the firm Palantir to optimize these operations, which today affect 160 million people in 120 countries. Haha what in the hell

Not that crazy - corruption and malfeasance are primary risks to your effective yield when trying to distribute aid like that. Middle-men and middle-women inevitably appear, one to one authentication is one way to keep them away.

but i hope you can appreciate the ugliness of a situation were a shady for-profit org decides if you get someting to eat and is incentivised to err on the side of fraud-prevention

Re: Why Sam Altman wants to scan two billion eyes

#87
post #11

> The company that developed this for Altman is called Tools for Humanity. Worldcoin, meanwhile, operates as a registered foundation in the Cayman Islands, a tax haven. Thanks, all I had to know. Unsurprising. > EL PAÍS has attempted to obtain the tax status of Tools for Humanity through various channels, without obtaining a response. Unsurprising. Yet another currency scam which can be safely added to the current bl…

still a lot of rubes to hustle for alt-coins

Re: Why Sam Altman wants to scan two billion eyes

#88
post #53

Everyone is upset at the eye scanning but honestly I have no idea how this could actually be exploited for evil. Like is he going to turn around and sell personal data on the world's poorest people? What would anyone do with that? I still can't get past the fantasy economics of crypto. Bitcoin and Eth caught lightning in a bottle and fueled a wild speculative frenzy that made some people a lot of money but they have…

There are narratives about, for example, a genocidal government using the iris scans to trace social media posts back to the people who make them.
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