Amazon defeated Rekognition shareholder revolt by a large margin
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Re: Amazon defeated Rekognition shareholder revolt by a large margin
#2The solution to this is not "regulate Amazon's facial recognition". It's just "regulate all facial recognition".
While that's obviously challenging, targeting Amazon specifically doesn't actually improve the status quo in a lasting way.
Re: Amazon defeated Rekognition shareholder revolt by a large margin
#3Even a proposal "requesting a report on the impact of government use of certain technologies" lost 94k to 239k. Source in the same SEC filing mentioned in the article.
Re: Amazon defeated Rekognition shareholder revolt by a large margin
#4> The tech firm had said it was aware of civil rights concerns but had not received any reports of law enforcement clients misusing its Rekognition tool.
This really depends on their definition of "misuse", which can be molded to suit their financial goals. Eventually reports of questionable law enforcement use will come in, and I have serious doubts that any large corporation would willingly cut off sales to a large set of existing government clients. This area desperately needs regulation.
Re: Amazon defeated Rekognition shareholder revolt by a large margin
#5The solution to this is not "regulate Amazon's facial recognition". It's just "regulate all facial recognition". While that's obviously challenging, targeting Amazon specifically doesn't actually improve the status quo in a lasting way.
It's likely coming. https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/22/18635848/facial-recogniti...
Re: Amazon defeated Rekognition shareholder revolt by a large margin
#6I’m not sure how I feel about facial recognition. On one hand, I think code is just information and no piece of information should be illegal to possess. I also think we need to protect our rights with math and code not laws.
But I’m not sure that would help against the very real and dystopian future that seems just around the corner. Facial recognition is probably the key cornerstone of said future and I’m not sure what we should do.
Banning facial recognition also feels wrong to me, and violates the aforementioned axiom about information.
Moreover, many cities are already blanketed in thousands of government cameras and facial recognition doesn’t seem like anymore an abridgement of our privacy than the cameras alone.
Maybe we should just ban police cameras on streets? But the ship has probably already sailed on that one.
Re: Amazon defeated Rekognition shareholder revolt by a large margin
#7The solution to this is not "regulate Amazon's facial recognition". It's just "regulate all facial recognition". While that's obviously challenging, targeting Amazon specifically doesn't actually improve the status quo in a lasting way.
Agreed, where do a I sign up. With the proliferation of license plate readers and other surveillance cameras in the last 5 years it's a matter of time before this creeps out to full algorithmic 'risk scores' for when you have encounters with enforcement. For some that may mean just getting shot [0], while they think someone risky might be in the vehicle, based on association. Or other harassment.
[0] https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-no-charges-lapd...
Re: Amazon defeated Rekognition shareholder revolt by a large margin
#8> The tech firm had said it was aware of civil rights concerns but had not received any reports of law enforcement clients misusing its Rekognition tool. This really depends on their definition of "misuse", which can be molded to suit their financial goals. Eventually reports of questionable law enforcement use will come in, and I have serious doubts that any large corporation would willingly cut off sales to a large…
They’ll just raise the bar to “well, no enforcement personnel went to jail, so we’re in the clear”
Re: Amazon defeated Rekognition shareholder revolt by a large margin
#9I’m not sure how I feel about facial recognition. On one hand, I think code is just information and no piece of information should be illegal to possess. I also think we need to protect our rights with math and code not laws. But I’m not sure that would help against the very real and dystopian future that seems just around the corner. Facial recognition is probably the key cornerstone of said future and I’m not sure…
Human rights are not a mathematical or computer science concept, they are in fact a law concept. I know it's tempting for computer people on hackernews to want to solve problems with the tools of their own domain - but law is exactly the place where rights need to be protected, not code.
Re: Amazon defeated Rekognition shareholder revolt by a large margin
#10SuperRecognizers plus facial recognition bans makes me think of Dune-style people as computers. Instead of a computer running the program we just have the guys in Room 901 do it.