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Facial recognition: It’s time for action

blogs.microsoft.com

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Re: Facial recognition: It’s time for action

#191

Post by phkahler »

ukulele wrote: post #153
phkahler wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> This is a laudable first step in advocacy for real regulation of a technology... Perhaps I'm jaded, but I don't agree at all. They're trying to get it regulated so they can be creepy without fear. One of the first "good" uses listed was finding 3000 children. "Think of the children" is a common rallying cry for evil. Nothing else mentioned was really relevant. The line IMHO needs to be drawn at anything that you'd…

> "Think of the children" is a common rallying cry for evil. I'm not familiar with this line of reasoning -- can you elaborate, or are there any good examples?

Sorry, it's a not for evil. It's usually for government over reach and expansion of power and control. Children, terrorism, and drugs - they say we need to give up our rights for those things.

Re: Facial recognition: It’s time for action

#192

Post by bo1024 »

Paperweight wrote: post #178
PaulKeeble wrote: post #26

Biometrics are creeping into everyday life. One of my local gyms this week switched to requiring fingerprints or you were barred from access. Another local gym uses facial recognition for entrance, although you can choose to have a member card instead if you ask for it directly, they don't list it as an option. Thankfully in the EU we have GDPR. It considers biometrics as a similar sensitivity to medical data, so unl…

Biometrics are the future equivalent of using the same password everywhere.

I think the main concern with biometrics is surveillance. Not as much the security problems associated with using the same password everywhere.

Re: Facial recognition: It’s time for action

#194

Post by mimerme »

Enabling third-party testing and comparisons.New laws should also require that providers of commercial facial recognition services enable third parties engaged in independent testing to conduct and publish reasonable tests of their facial recognition services for accuracy and unfair bias. A sensible approach is to require tech companies that make their facial recognition services accessible using the internet also make available an application programming interface or other technical capability suitable for this purpose.

Does anyone else find this interesting? Is Microsoft trying to keep their facial recognition algorithm on top by comparing their's to others'?

Re: Facial recognition: It’s time for action

#195

Post by daveheq »

benwerd wrote: post #16
geephroh wrote: post #11

This is a laudable first step in advocacy for real regulation of a technology that already has huge impacts on privacy and civil society. I was in the room for one of the meetings with Microsoft's senior leadership as a representative of a Seattle-based civil liberties group. While our coalition would like to see MS go further, it was quite clear that they take their commitment to corporate responsibility and ethics…

> This stands in stark contrast to the meeting I attended on Tuesday with Amazon's general counsel regarding their Rekognition service. And I think that cuts to the core of this: this is an anti-Amazon move. Nonetheless, I do also think it's a pro-consumer, pro-civil liberties stance. It's also a recognition that the tide is turning with respect to consumers and privacy; here, Microsoft is getting ahead of this chang…

Why do we always wait until it's too late and the repurcussions almost unbearable to put in any common-sense preventions to abusive technology or practices?

Re: Facial recognition: It’s time for action

#196

Post by arkades »

BowBun wrote: post #65
vorpalhex wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> He also denied that Amazon had any responsibility for the negative impacts of their AI/ML technologies, or role to play in industry efforts to self-regulate. For a period of time, there was a lot of chatter about all developers having some kind of professional oath, like doctors. Many of the approaches that were taken have issues (preclude working on smart weapons program or legal surveillance). I wonder if what we…

I don't know if the oath comparison works out so well for development. Let us not forget that each physician is directly responsible for a life every time they see someone. They also have a more direct effect on the success or failure of the procedure as they tend to produce a large portion of the work. I'd argue few companies ever reach this level of risk, and those that do are so large that the individual contribut…

> I don't know if the oath comparison works out so well for development. Let us not forget that each physician is directly responsible for a life every time they see someone

I commit every single day of my professional life as a physician to do my best for my patients, and to do the absolute least harm possible. And over the entire course of my lifetime, I will not achieve the scale of harm - or benefit - that a developer can achieve with a few months or years of concentrated effort.

Re: Facial recognition: It’s time for action

#197

Post by [deleted] »

BowBun wrote: post #65
vorpalhex wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> He also denied that Amazon had any responsibility for the negative impacts of their AI/ML technologies, or role to play in industry efforts to self-regulate. For a period of time, there was a lot of chatter about all developers having some kind of professional oath, like doctors. Many of the approaches that were taken have issues (preclude working on smart weapons program or legal surveillance). I wonder if what we…

I don't know if the oath comparison works out so well for development. Let us not forget that each physician is directly responsible for a life every time they see someone. They also have a more direct effect on the success or failure of the procedure as they tend to produce a large portion of the work. I'd argue few companies ever reach this level of risk, and those that do are so large that the individual contribut…

[deleted]

Re: Facial recognition: It’s time for action

#198

Post by [deleted] »

vorpalhex wrote: post #53
geephroh wrote: post #11

This is a laudable first step in advocacy for real regulation of a technology that already has huge impacts on privacy and civil society. I was in the room for one of the meetings with Microsoft's senior leadership as a representative of a Seattle-based civil liberties group. While our coalition would like to see MS go further, it was quite clear that they take their commitment to corporate responsibility and ethics…

> He also denied that Amazon had any responsibility for the negative impacts of their AI/ML technologies, or role to play in industry efforts to self-regulate. For a period of time, there was a lot of chatter about all developers having some kind of professional oath, like doctors. Many of the approaches that were taken have issues (preclude working on smart weapons program or legal surveillance). I wonder if what we…

[deleted]

Re: Facial recognition: It’s time for action

#199

Post by int_19h »

vorpalhex wrote: post #53
geephroh wrote: post #11

This is a laudable first step in advocacy for real regulation of a technology that already has huge impacts on privacy and civil society. I was in the room for one of the meetings with Microsoft's senior leadership as a representative of a Seattle-based civil liberties group. While our coalition would like to see MS go further, it was quite clear that they take their commitment to corporate responsibility and ethics…

> He also denied that Amazon had any responsibility for the negative impacts of their AI/ML technologies, or role to play in industry efforts to self-regulate. For a period of time, there was a lot of chatter about all developers having some kind of professional oath, like doctors. Many of the approaches that were taken have issues (preclude working on smart weapons program or legal surveillance). I wonder if what we…

That is insanely broad and vague. You can be responsible for knowingly designing a system for abuse, or if you give it to someone you know, or have reasonable cause to suspect, will abuse it. But what you're saying here is that if you ship anything at all, and someone somewhere finds a way to use it for some nefarious purpose, then you're responsible. That's not how things work with anything else; why should they work that way with software?

That aside, in US specifically, there's already something that is more narrowly tailored to our current reality. They aren't accepting new signatures because of how many there were, but you can still make the same pledge (and e.g. share it publicly to have some skin in the game):

http://neveragain.tech/

Re: Facial recognition: It’s time for action

#200

Post by jethro_tell »

daveheq wrote: post #195
benwerd wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This stands in stark contrast to the meeting I attended on Tuesday with Amazon's general counsel regarding their Rekognition service. And I think that cuts to the core of this: this is an anti-Amazon move. Nonetheless, I do also think it's a pro-consumer, pro-civil liberties stance. It's also a recognition that the tide is turning with respect to consumers and privacy; here, Microsoft is getting ahead of this chang…

Why do we always wait until it's too late and the repurcussions almost unbearable to put in any common-sense preventions to abusive technology or practices?

Because law makers are still trying to wrap their heads around the Internet. That means tech has to self regulate and we just haven't set ourselves up for that. I don't think that lack of diversity helps with that.
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