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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

#201

Post by crawfordcomeaux »

phkahler wrote: post #188
DubiousPusher wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really?! I don't think it is a good line in the sand. Because even though we can draw lines around how an AI might act like a human in a certain case, recognize you as a frequenter of a store, when we connect that AI to the rest of the computer capabilities out there it quickly becomes something a human couldn't do. A convencience store clerk might remember several dozen, even several hundered frequent customers but…

>> when we connect that AI to the rest of the computer capabilities out there it quickly becomes something a human couldn't do. Connecting the AI face recognizer to the cloud or any other system is exactly where the line needs to be.

Disagree. This is a technology that can be secretly or openly deployed in businesses for the sake of emotional exploitation via dynamic displays targeting specific emotional states. I'm against turning the world into anymore of an emotional hunting ground than it naturally is.

http://eqradio.csail.mi.edu

Re: Facial recognition: It’s time for action

#202

Post by tcarn »

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…

I really hope the politicians in the US champion a GDPR law here. Unfortunately I'm not optimistic.

Re: Facial recognition: It’s time for action

#203

Post by int_19h »

Yhippa wrote: post #164
jessriedel wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Companies calling for more regulation is a ubiquitous phenomenon. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture More regulation generally gives an advantage to larger companies over smaller ones since it creates barriers to entry; compliance costs usually increase sublinearly with revenue. (E.g., it's a lot easier for Microsoft to hire a dedicated lawyer than it is for a garage start-up.) This idea that "companies…

I'm glad you called out regulatory capture. The cynic in me wonders if Microsoft is so far behind in some AI aspects like this that they're taking this approach to slow down Amazon's and Google's forays into selling this tech to businesses and government.

The real cynic would say that Microsoft knows that this stuff is coming in legislation anyway (because too many people are too pissed off by now), and those who are on the bandwagon early - and actively helping to push it forward - will be rewarded with positive PR, while also helping to sink competition that's not so fast on the uptake.

Re: Facial recognition: It’s time for action

#204

Post by AlexCoventry »

samstave wrote: post #108

Facial recognition should be expressly illegal. Period. As should license plate surveillance. And for those that think that license plate surveillance should be legal, what you do not know is that municipalities are mandating that private corporations install license tracking cameras on their facilities and report back to the municipality who is driving by that address. Menlo park is just one such municipality.

It's a computation. Laws against it are unenforceable in general, absent draconian restrictions on computing devices.

Re: Facial recognition: It’s time for action

#205

Post by int_19h »

colordrops wrote: post #9

I don't understand how this could be realistically regulated. It's passive technology and its use can't be detected. It's like trying to stop people from thinking.

Its use can be detected by people who implement it, and if it's actually illegal, then you'll get whistleblowers every now and then. It's not perfect as far as enforcement goes, but most things aren't.

Re: Facial recognition: It’s time for action

#206

Post by int_19h »

matchagaucho wrote: post #130

There are already several anti-bias and discrimination laws on the books. Why does facial recognition warrant additional regulation? Numerous processes already capture gender, race, and age. Facial recognition seems like a better/faster tool for capturing these data points. But the requirement to comply with existing laws is unchanged. Any further regulation will only limit the development of facial technology to a f…

> There are already several anti-bias and discrimination laws on the books. Why does facial recognition warrant additional regulation?

Mainly because many companies doing it are arguing that when their models produce biased results, it's not their fault, it's just "computer thinks that way". So far as I know, this approach hasn't been properly tested in court, but it might just fly, if courts decide that you need to have intent to discriminate (and that training on real-world datasets, that are always implicitly biased, does not constitute such intent).

Re: Facial recognition: It’s time for action

#207

Post by godelski »

kromem wrote: post #170
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…

Except with a warrant, it's entirely legal (and has been for a long time) currently for a surveillance team to physically stalk you in areas with an expectation of privacy (TEMPEST, wiretaps, etc), and in public areas they don't even need a warrant (actually, in public areas, it's legal for anyone to stalk you - just ask celebrities about their paparazzi stalkers). As best I can tell, from a surveillance standpoint w…

I think this needs to be changed. What is a public space has changed drastically. What you can do with technology has changed this drastically too. Like where do you draw the line of what someone can do without a warrant?

Follow you?

Video tape you?

Video tape an entire public area constantly?

Have Arial footage of an entire city?

All these things exist and are being done. There's good uses for all of them too. But where do we draw the line? Do the good uses outweigh the bad? Personally I'm not convinced. And that's before we include the internet as a public place, which I really don't think people internalize it like that.

Re: Facial recognition: It’s time for action

#208

Post by DavidSJ »

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…

If you’re willing to share, why were you meeting with Amazon’s general counsel?

Re: Facial recognition: It’s time for action

#209

Post by BurningFrog »

sydd wrote: post #180
fjp wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It only operated at a loss because they were plowing massive amounts of money into their delivery infrastructure. Revenue matters more than net income

Also because they are trying to estabilish monopoly. Amazon's long term plan is to kill every other big retailer.

To be fair, that's the hope of every company.

Re: Facial recognition: It’s time for action

#210

Post by crawfordcomeaux »

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…

I think it's time to acknowledge the impact of culture in our oaths. It IS how we're all naively programming ourselves and others, so we might as well address it.

If my tech is used to do harm, the responsibility to heal is shared between myself, the cultures involved in leading to harm, the perpetrators of the harm, those harmed, those witnessing harm, and those in denial of responsibility. I'll do my part while encouraging and believing in others' willingness to grow together.

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