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Congress demands Jeff Bezos explain Amazon’s face recognition software
- ericpauley 8y agoWhy does congress always need the CEO? Surely there must be someone at amazon more qualified to talk about Rekognition than Bezos.
- krapp 8y agoCongress grilling a CEO makes it appear to their constituents that they're fighting on their behalf against a corrupt and otherwise unchecked corporate establishment - CEOs are easy targets and celebrities in their own right; just having "Jeff Bezos" in the headline draws readers, and attention to the lawmakers themselves. Congress grilling some random engineer, meanwhile, would make them look like abusive bureaucrats, if anyone cared, which no one would. These hearings are rarely if ever about fact-finding as opposed to politics and optics, and being seen "taking action" on "relevant" issues.
- dredmorbius 8y agoThe problems of information technogy and law enforcement are not a recent discovery, though this is much overlooked. Quoting: By moving in this direction, we could easily end up with the most effective, oppressive police state ever created. The old cliche that "knowledge is power" is especially valid in describing a society that holds extensive information about the movements and history of all its citizens. I can think of no organization or government that has proven itself to be sufficiently benevolent to be entrusted with the power that is derived from the volume of information available in such a system. "Some Caveats on the Contribution of Technology to Law Enforcement", Paul Baran. (1967) https://www.rand.org/pubs/papers/P3550.html https://www.rand.org/pubs/papers/P3550.html Emphasis in original.
- siruncledrew 8y agoAs if Bezos is going to roll up to a Congressional Hearing in a lab coat with a white board and explain the principles of deep learning and neutral networks. It's mostly just a dog and pony show.