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Facial Recognition Is the Perfect Tool for Oppression
- crocal 8y agoThere is another problem with such technology that is missing from this long article. Facial recognition et al. also excludes those with physical disabilities. For example, some people have facial injuries that make it impossible and/or painful for them to look “straight” in a mirror. A reason why, for instance, I abhorre the 3D movies is that I can’t take my wife in movies because she lost binocular vision. We are creating a society where technology is used to filter out people that can’t conform to a given physical standard. I find it revolting and we hackers should fight to our last breath against it. Edit: typo
- undreren 8y agoMovies in 3D might not be accessible to everyone, but that doesn't mean it should be accessible noone. I agree to your general point, but not this specific one.
- crocal 8y agoI understand what you mean. I should have explained that my temper flares when 3D is the only option offered, or when the 2D option is given at impossible hours.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- undreren 8y agoAs I commented on the other reply, I wasn't aware that this was a problem. Personally, I really dislike 3D movies and wouldn't go to one unless invited.
- ahje 8y agoWhile you're absolutely right in a general sense, the local theatres here (and most likely elsewhere too) simply don't license the 2D-version of some movies, thus preventing myself and other people who only see in 2D for whatever reason from watching those movies.
- undreren 8y agoThat was not a problem, I was aware of. That seems pretty annoying.
- jasonlotito 8y agoI've honestly never seen that. I've always seen options for both. Where do you live where the only theaters show 3D only?
- BurritoAlPastor 8y agoThat's actually quite unusual. As of last year, 3D tickets accounted for less than a third of the tickets sold for 3D movies: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/behind-screen/is-golden-age-3d-officially-1025843 https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/behind-screen/is-golden-ag... (They cite about one-third 3D, but they're counting box gross, and 3D tickets are usually about... +20% price?) Speaking anecdotally from when I worked in a theater, somewhere around one in five people either can't watch 3D movies (motion sickness or similar) or simply don't benefit (no depth perception). Parties of four or more would almost always go to a 2D showing, because of the likelihood that somebody would veto 3D.
- emiliobumachar 8y agoPlease excuse my ignorance. Is 3D a worse experience for people with monocular vision, beyond having to wear the glasses for no benefit? I would imagine it just automatically degrades to 2D.
- swsieber 8y agoI have the same question! If it doesn't degrade quickly (edit: nicely), I bet you could do a crowdfunded campaign to produce glasses that show the same eye (side?) to both eyes. I'd support it.
- crocal 8y agoI understand your curiosity and I gave an attempt at answer above. Your idea is intriguing. I will think about it...
- crocal 8y agoI will try to convey what only disabled people can convey to the best of my abilities. First, with one image you lose a lot of luminosity with the glasses on. Without the glasses, off course, it is unwatchable. Furthermore, and more subtle, many people like my partner have /partial/ paralysis, so they have trained their brain in a certain way to compensate for the fact that they have partial binocular vision. The 3D effect don’t tolerate that since they rely on two images precisely engineered to trick your binocular vision « brain algorithm ». All this put together make 3D movies a «no-go » for people with monocular or partial binocular vision. Edit: Typo and better explanation of the « trick »
- Majestic121 8y agoI don't really get your point, a lot of existing things are "no-go" for people with disabilities. Skiing is impossible if you can't use your legs. Going to the movie is pretty much a no-go if you're blind (I know audiodescription exists for some movies) There should be options for people with disabilities of course, and AFAIK 2D movies still exists and are not going to die anytime soon. But what are you debating for ? Do you want a global ban on 3D because it can not be enjoyed by everyone ?
- bsenftner 8y agoPerhaps the facial recognition written in undergraduate or even graduate classes does not handle physical disabilities (I think you're talking about non-standard faces, in this context.) Actual professional FR systems must handle conventional appearances, as well as individuals with birth defect deformities, significant facial scarring from injury such as fire, facial tattoos and jewelry, as well as outright attempts to disguise. When talking society population, the proportion of people with non-conventional appearances is significant. BTW, I'm lead engineer of a leading FR system.
- Doxin 8y ago> I abhorre the 3D movies So do I. Give your local movie theater a call and ask if they have 2d glasses. My local theater does and it's a godsent. (it's basically just 3d glasses except with the left lens twice)
- crocal 8y agoA reason why HN rocks is that you can learn things like this. I will follow your advice!
- pitt1980 8y agotext recognition is a better tool, in this age, physical location isn't that important text recognition, lets the oppressor know who is thinking what, and who they're trying to communicate it with or makes nearly all communication impossible
- swirepe 8y ago> in this age, physical location isn't that important Everyone else seems to think that information is important. What's your address?
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- falcolas 8y agoDon't forget to figure out where they go to eat, where they work, where their lover(s) lives, where their children go school, where they go shopping, where they get a haircut, and whether they jaywalk. All for the last 12 months. I'm sure we can find something in there to persecute them for. "If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him."
- PeterisP 8y agoThe argument to ban or regulate "facial recognition technology" seems futile. It's not (necessarily) some highly complicated secret software available to a limited number of organizations that could keep it under wraps - currently, any decent CS undergraduate student could make a passable facial recognition system as a study project if they really wanted to, using only generic, freely available image processing / machine learning resources (i.e. nothing specific to facial recognition that could be regulated or restricted). Sure, it won't be as good as state-of-art systems, and it will take enough time so they likely won't bother unless someone wants it bad enough to pay for a bunch of weeks of work, but it'll be sufficient for all the bad outcomes described in the article. The barrier of entry is just too low. If a few pictures of your face are floating online, many people can make a system that will somewhat accurately try to detect your face; the best the regulation can do is to specify that organizations will not use facial recognition even if they trivially could.
- shbm 8y agoI absolutely agree with this. I myself implemented the Facenet paper with minor modifications as an undergrad project which started the face recognition revolution. If one has proper data, a neat prototype can be developed even on a decent i5 system in under a couple of hours. You don't even need GPUs because of pertained model. The tech in this domain is really cheap and readily available out there.
- philipov 8y agoThe point of legislation isn't to prevent people from doing something, but to create some consequences and make it so you can't be too brazen about it. For example, speed limits don't stop people from speeding, but they do reduce it. Those who speed will be more vigilant around corners watching for cops and this has some improvement on safety. Arguing that you shouldn't have speed limits just because it's too easy for anyone to speed so you can't have 100% enforcement misses the point.
- dsfyu404ed 8y agoSpeed limits are a bad example. Unless you've got Orwellian enforcement most people go however fast they feel is reasonable for the conditions (which just so happens to usually not be that much more than the speed limit) and enforcement is basically a lottery with a large negative reward. I agree with your point though.
- bsenftner 8y agoWhat a load of horse shit. The factual statements are overwhelmed by the ambiguous fear, Fear FEAR metaphors in this clearly manipulative, telling the ignorant how to think article. The gist of his whole point is "feature creep" and a collection of unrelated other technologies he's throwing into his reasons because they sound scary. Idiotic.
- bsenftner 8y agoSo, you're letting your emotional reasoning tell you I'm wrong? The article is fear propaganda.
- jankotek 8y ago90% of people already walk around with phone that broadcasts their unique ID (wifi MAC).
- vinceguidry 8y agoOppression always fails in the long run because the conditions that spawn the oppression always eventually pass, and oppressive regime has to keep justifying itself. For instance, slavery was long on the way out of the US by the time of the Civil War. As we kept expanding west-ward, the new states had exactly zero economic incentive to turn people into livestock. The South could get away with political shenanigans only as long as it could maintain its voting bloc. Expansion made that impossible, and the only solution became a war. If the war hadn't happened though, we would have seen a managed transition. Legislation tailored at reining in slavery would have slowly made the practice increasingly untenable and the economic aspect would have gotten managed out over time. In fact, it was already happening. To generalize, oppression seeks out a local maximum, eventually society finds a higher peak, and the oppression only lasts as long as it takes for the rest of society to build a wide enough bridge so that people on the lower hill can just walk over to the bigger hill. Or, you know, a war.
- dsfyu404ed 8y agoOk, but I sure as shit don't want to live through the 20-80yr it takes to get from oppression to something else.
- maxxxxx 8y agoIt's true that oppression fails in the long run but it's also true that we all die in the long run. There are plenty of examples where oppression lasted long enough to make the lives of generations of people miserable. So we shouldn't just say "This too shall pass"
- vinceguidry 8y agoIf the alternative is fighting a war, there's a good case to be made for managed transition.
- maxxxxx 8y agoI may not sure how this comment helps with the current situation where people think that tools like facial recognition will lead into oppression. Are you saying we shouldn't worry because that oppression will fail in another 50-100 years? Let's just make sure the end of that oppression is well managed ?
- bsenftner 8y agoThis article is a masterpiece of misdirection. It says it's top highlight is "We believe facial recognition technology is the most uniquely dangerous surveillance mechanism ever invented." And then they wave their fear hands around non-facial recognition technologies and discuss their real fear: feature creep of surveillance technologies. The article is a masterpiece of misdirection because we are very aware that the written word in the form of explainer articles for the uninformed IS ACTUALLY THE PERFECT TOOL FOR OPPRESSION. Unless you're one of the emotionally manipulated, you realize we live in a new age where the ignorant and intellectually lazy are "farmed and harvested" for their ignorant votes, to control the laws and economies of entire nation states. This article is one such ignorance embedding article putting fear into people's heads so they can be controlled.
- self_awareness 8y agoI don't get this "we must ban something" approach. In the group of 100 people, even if 99 people will ban something, 1 person will still use it. Isn't it better to find how you can defend against something (face recognition in this example) instead of convincing the people to "ban it"? I mean, let's ban all wars, ban low income and ban evil. What sort of thinking is this?
- inanutshellus 8y agoWell. We're governed by laws. At least... theoretically. So if we make it illegal to scan peoples' faces then, theoretically, an oppressive government can't use it against its populace. On the flip side, you have the "good guy problem" that we normal "good" people will happily give up our rights in order to help catch bad guys. But really... it's not a MAC address or an IP address. It's your face. What "defense" is there to facial recognition software? Even if you stay off of facebook, your friends and family will still post photos of you there and reference you and talk about you. "No man is an island" has never been more apparent.
- self_awareness 8y agoTheory is good for books, but for life we need practical solutions. An automated system that scans friends galleries to find my face in their galleries maybe would be helpful. Then I would see who uses my face in what context, so I can react; maybe send a polite request to remove me from the picture, set it as private, or simply remove the picture from the gallery? Or maybe an approach based on spreading disinformation would be enough, so I could produce fake photos of my face with other randomly chosen faces from all over the internet, so that face-gathering systems will store fake relations between me and some random people? There are lots of methods we can use to defend ourselves. The "ban something" approach works only for parties that are willing to cooperate. But it's not the cooperative parties that we should be afraid of, it's the uncooperative ones.
- fixermark 8y agoIt ultimately boils down to who owns the signal. You would love to have a system that scanned the world's photos and notified you automatically about people commenting on you. You don't necessarily want the government to have that same system.
- dostres 8y agoI built a face recognition algorithm to sell to police, immigration and pretty much who ever wants it. It took 6 months and is state of the art. Which is to say, not as good as a human, but getting close. If you’re worried about privacy then maybe you should take the tracking device out of your pocket. The concept of using the power of the state to limit the power of the state seems flawed to me. Especially an oppressive state.
- amelius 8y agoSee also China's social credit system.
- fixermark 8y agoIt's what humans have used throughout human history. "Oh, that guy? Don't trade with that guy; he's an asshole." ;) Now we're just scaling it up with fast-communicating hardware.
- mc32 8y agoThe issue is scale and inability to escape. So, while your group would know about “thief”, another group would not, allowing this “thief” to decide to reform with this group, or just as likely to yet burn another bridge. But at least this “thief” had an opportunity to reform. You will see this in history when say a lawyer or whoever else from that time got recorded in history, moves to a new town to escape a bad rep., often unfairly cast due to personal dispute.
- auslander 8y agoNew trends in fashion: Hoodies, sunglasses, camouflage face paint. Second option, can a camera sensor be damaged by laser pointer? I have no hope for legal restrictions, it will always be defeated by 'security' arguments.