How do we stop this? Can we sue Clearview through EFF with the grounds of violating copyright or some weird law? California/GDPR laws are great but they don't stop the data collection, merely allow the user to access it. We need to make companies like Clearview completely and unquestionably illegal. I am infuriated and don't know what we can do.
The file Clearview AI has been keeping on me
41–45 of 45 posts
Re: The file Clearview AI has been keeping on me
#42Until our way of governing ourselves doesn't change, everything scientists and engineers do can and will be converted into a weapon or tool of oppression. We should be more vigilant and we should demand better from our elected officials.
We should always demand this, yet not count on it happening. It would be nice to find ways to take these weapons and use them for self-defense as well. I wish I had a clue of what that would look like.
Traditionally, an average person had a tremendous amount of privacy simply by the virtue of being average. It wasn't worth the time/effort/resources to collect data on them. With ubiquitous sensors, it's now far more manageable or even trivial to collect data on people and use it no matter how unimportant or insignificant you are in respect to money/power.
People of great wealth and power also somewhat enjoy this privacy. Unless you're a public facing official or on the top of the wealthy list, you essentially can also disappear in crowds and enjoy a degree of anonymity. Some may recognize Gates or Bezos in a crowd but drop down to say Forbes 400 rank... #144 (picked at random) and you'll find.. (searching) Leonard Sterm.
Prior to that sentence I've never heard that name and certainly wouldn't recognize him in public even though he is estimated to be worth a modest $4.8B. I might (probably not) interact with them in the future and as an average person, I'm at a disadvantage because I can't recognize his net worth and public information which I could potentially leverage to my advantage in the same fashion someone wealthy/powerful may use their resources to leverage me.
Take this a step further and focus on business investors and participants promoting these technologies, pouring money into them. For example, I can't even name the people involved in Cambridge Analytica even though they were in the news and probably wouldn't recognize them either. Sure, I can dig around and find them but that wouldn't be useful in most situations.
For the most part, your average person doesn't have knowledge or resources to access and leverage such data that businesses are starting to use against the average consumer and worker rapidly and in ways that significantly impact their quality of life.
As such, I would propose leveraging these same identification and recognition approaches against those pulling the strings or in public government office positions who should be fighting for citizens rights and developing a targeted dataset for those folks and exposing it in a way your average citizen could use it. Perhaps as a phone app that can pass a few frames of sampled video back to a service that identifies these individuals and gives detailed public information about them. Make their anonymity suffer. Link it to public facing records of their history, etc. Develop network information for their families, friends, business associates.
Obviously, this is worthless against high profile individuals (celebrities, high government officials, etc.), but a lot of wealth and power hides in the shadows of the general public's eyes yet are pulling the strings on these cultural shifts us plebes are dealing with. Turn the tables and make the technology problematic for their daily lives as well--drag them out into the light for the public--maybe then you'll see more regulation and penalties for using these technologies surface. Just a thought.
Re: The file Clearview AI has been keeping on me
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
We should always demand this, yet not count on it happening. It would be nice to find ways to take these weapons and use them for self-defense as well. I wish I had a clue of what that would look like.
Well, the one edge of this sword is essentially being used by wealthy, businesses and those in power to gain additional information on average citizens to leverage for their own advantages and the expense of those folks happiness. Traditionally, an average person had a tremendous amount of privacy simply by the virtue of being average. It wasn't worth the time/effort/resources to collect data on them. With ubiquitous…
Then there are the challenges of getting people to pay attention and to care about the results.
Re: The file Clearview AI has been keeping on me
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
stop uploading your pics to internet then
Exactly! People think the Internet is like Disneyland but it's actually more like the bad parts of Bangkok. Somewhere between the inter-networked machines and peoples' minds some kind of magical thinking takes over. Why don't normal people understand that they are being actively fought by organized relentless enemies? In the old days cities had walls around them, I think we're barely getting to that point on the inte…
Stop blaming the users for what is systemic and legal faults - and in many cases really an issue not even of laws or of enforcement. Think revenge porn - nothing you can do to stop it, and only so much you can do to contain it once it's out there.
Re: The file Clearview AI has been keeping on me
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
Exactly! People think the Internet is like Disneyland but it's actually more like the bad parts of Bangkok. Somewhere between the inter-networked machines and peoples' minds some kind of magical thinking takes over. Why don't normal people understand that they are being actively fought by organized relentless enemies? In the old days cities had walls around them, I think we're barely getting to that point on the inte…
Or the digital world is an incredibly huge and complicated place that most people don't even begin to grasp. What is private and public is not obvious, and everything can quickly leak, be accidentally shared, ... And you lose control. Stop blaming the users for what is systemic and legal faults - and in many cases really an issue not even of laws or of enforcement. Think revenge porn - nothing you can do to stop it,…
There are things you can control and things you can't, eh?
I do blame the users. They buy a book of matches and proceed to burn their own house down. Either they're children or just incredibly stupid. That everybody else is doing it too changes nothing IMO.