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> Amazon, where I work, is currently allowing police departments around the country to purchase its facial recognition product, Rekognition, and I and other emp

> Amazon, where I work, is currently allowing police departments around the country to purchase its facial recognition product, Rekognition, and I and other employees demand that we stop immediately. Ok, nod, nod... > The letter also contained demands to kick Palantir, the software firm that powers much of ICE's deportation and tracking program, off Amazon Web Services and to institute employee oversight for ethical decisions. Nope, lost me. These should not be lumped together for a myriad of reasons. First, you are diluting your original goal. Second, you risk AWS being seen as non-neutral based on the whims of employees' feelings about a company (as opposed to something illegal). Third, you cannot be consistent with this approach (e.g. all the gov cloud stuff). Fourth, there is a clear delineation between computing services like AWS and targeted software efforts like facial recognition systems, like the difference between a phone company and a weapons manufacturer. Fifth, AWS is not value added enough nor can it see enough of what's going on with its customers for this to be any more than virtue signalling. If you want to ban companies you disagree with from AWS, I disagree with it, but at least separate the requests. The Google employees you are following in the footsteps of are not demanding that Android calling be disabled for certain companies or Google search be restricted from use by them. Maybe Amazon should also not ship any products to that company too?

dragontamer 8y ago
The real issue is that the leader of ICE / Military / etc. etc. change power roughly... every 4 years. Police is a local issue, and may change closer to every 2 years (although local municipalities may have a Sheriff, or a Commission, or may rely upon a Mayor to make those decisions). We already have a mechanism for choosing the leader of these various institutions. And whatever powers we give to these institutions, we have to recognize that they will change leadership as quickly as a single election. Ultimately, it should be a political issue... first and foremost. We may not have the best political system possible, but its the best that we all can agree to. As such, we should rely upon the culture of this country to provide us the leaders who we would be proud to give these powers to.
- sdenton4 8y ago
  So people have been separated from their children should just wait for the American people to maaaaaaybe kick out the jackboots in two to four years? Naw, dawg, when things get ugly, you have to resist where you can. I'm guessing you can't agree, but there's a fair number of people who think we're in a Germany 1937 situation. We have a president who in all likelihood enlisted Russian interference in the election, who shares plenty of rhetorical similarity to actual fascists. We have a Congress that is moving as fast as it can to stack the judiciary, which in turn will hear future election cases. Things are getting grim. I've lived and worked in places where these processes have played out - like Hungary - and anyone who says it can't happen here is kidding themselves.
  - andun 8y ago
    Those people were caught committing a crime. And it's not the kind of crime one could commit by mistake, they were entering a country illegally.
    - mynameisvlad 8y ago
      It's not as black and white as you make it seem. Being in the country unlawfully is not a crime, it's a civil infraction. Entering unlawfully (through something other than a border) is a crime, when it happens, but the subsequent stay is once again a civil infraction. Most unlawful residents did not enter unlawfully, they overstayed on visas or in some other way went from a legal stay to an unlawful one. These people would not be committing a crime.
    - Frondo 8y ago
      Interestingly, andun is a new account and seems to be a holocaust denier, based on at least one of their other comments ("purported holocaust death camps"). Engage accordingly.
      - andun 8y ago
        Shut it down!!!!
paulcole 8y ago
> Second, you risk AWS being seen as non-neutral based on the whims of employees' feelings about a company (as opposed to something illegal). There are plenty of legal things that I think it’s fine with being non-neutral on. A private company SHOULD be non-neutral based on the whims of the employees! Who else steers their ship?
- Simon_says 8y ago
  Presumably the shareholders via a board of directors and CEO?
  - paulcole 8y ago
    OK, invite the shareholders to Seattle to sit down and start working on AWS.
    - Simon_says 8y ago
      We're busy. But we're willing to pay people to go to Seattle and do it.
- kodablah 8y ago
  I think you're making a general statement, which I agree with in general, and I'm making one based on the nuances of this situation. It matters what you are non-neutral about and it matters if you provide a platform or not. Many see great value in neutral platforms. It should just be clear that picking and choosing winners in this way can harm that appearance of neutrality that may cause other [potential] users of your platform to be concerned about which side of the collective bed the employees will wake up on and kick you off. You can either be consistent or be seen as a risky proposition, especially in foundational contexts where lock-in applies.
- vorpalhex 8y ago
  Can AWS be non-neutral? Sure, legally and even ethically, that's fine. If AWS is non-neutral, will that hurt their ability to attract clients? Absolutely. I'm the first one in line to abolish ICE, but if AWS starts kicking people they don't like off of AWS I'll also be the first one to stop using it. Sure, we agree on ICE, what about companies that make violent video games? Companies that make firearm accessories?
sjg007 8y ago
Lest we forget IBM's role in the Holocaust. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_the_Holocaust https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_the_Holocaust
- M_Bakhtiari 8y ago
  Not American, what's the link between ICE and the Holocaust?
  - andun 8y ago
    Sometimes it would snow in the purported holocaust death camps.
- hossbeast 8y ago
  OP should have brought this up.
andun 8y ago
It baffles me that some people seemingly want their country to fill with illegal immigrants and they also don't want to give the police/ICE/whatever the necessary tools to be able to dispatch them. Fantasy world indeed. I guess it's the result of being a wealthy programmer in the upper part of San Francisco: they won't affect your job security and you won't have to deal with or even see them
- w0m 8y ago
  There's a clear and stark difference between > want their country to fill with illegal immigrants and selling facial recognition software to local police departments in main. It's disingenuous to conflate unlike positions. That's not to say I agree with one or or the other, but lets at least pretend to be honest about the comparisons.
- sascha_sl 8y ago
  Well some countries also don't want legal immigrants. https://fuckoffgoogle.de/ https://fuckoffgoogle.de/ Pretty good if you want some perspective.
- zjaffee 8y ago
  Unless you are a Native American, which make up less than 1% of the population, you came to this country as an immigrant. The vast majority of modern immigrants are coming to the country for a similar reason why people did 100 years ago. Immigration doesn't hurt anything, even if it was the case that it lowered the cost of labor (which it isn't), that would result in a bigger economy with more jobs and employment, which would then result in wages rising again. Automation and outsourcing are the primary things that have lowered the wages of American workers as it reduced demand for low skill and other manual labor work, not immigrants seeking a better life.
  - mmmmmmmmm 8y ago
    > Unless you are a Native American, which make up less than 1% of the population, you came to this country as an immigrant. This might be the dumbest thing I've read all day. Roughly 87% of Americans were born in the US and thus are Native Americans. The vast majority of American citizens did not come here as immigrants. How are you so stupid?
losteric 8y ago
The letter sounds like something written by a small number of radical employees, because it was. Most of those "450 signatures" never saw the letter prior to distribution. There were some pragmatic debates without consensus, many bringing up your concerns, then silence, then this gets sent out of nowhere. If the signatories had been consulted prior to distribution, I wouldn't be surprised if the number fell to... maybe 10? This really reflects our political sphere. Partisans ignoring even the input of allies, blindly charging forward with irrational demands, and alienating rather than convincing the moderate majority. They operate as if this is a movie, where the hero makes a grand statement and instantly win support...
kadendogthing 8y ago
>Second, you risk AWS being seen as non-neutral based on the whims of employees' feelings about a company God forbid workers have say in how their work is used, instead of just being robots. Smart enough to build the technology, but apparently not qualified enough to have input on limiting its nefarious and anti-social uses at the hand of an executive branch the employees probably don't favor.
- tomnipotent 8y ago
  Should a conservative bakery be allowed to refuse service based on religious beliefs?
  - kadendogthing 8y ago
    We codify against pointless discrimination against protected classes of people for a reason. Some things are no longer worth debating and serve no purpose but to actively harm people. So no, they shouldn't be allowed to do that. Can you explain how discriminating against minority members of society is somehow logically relatable to selling a technological product that immediately expands the governments surface area of an easily abusable power? Because I don't know where bakeries not selling doughnuts to gay people, purely based on personal perspectives, really comes into play with not selling a technological platform that enables governments and its officials to more easily abuse and greatly expand the power they currently have. From the article: >On stage, he acknowledged that big tech’s products might be misused, even exploited, by autocrats. But rather than meaningfully explain how Amazon will act to prevent the bad uses of its own technology, Bezos suggested we wait for society’s “immune response.” >Law enforcement has already started using facial recognition with virtually no public oversight or debate or restrictions on use from Amazon.
    - alexanderwept 8y ago
      >We codify against pointless discrimination against protected classes of people for a reason. Some things are no longer worth debating and serve no purpose but to actively harm people. So no, they shouldn't be allowed to do that. But where do we draw a bright line? Sure, maybe we want religious people baking cakes for gay weddings. But should Muslim bakers be forced to draw likenesses of the Prophet Muhammad if a customer requests it? Should a bikini wax establishment that only works on women be forced to wax the intimate areas of a pre-op transwoman?

dragontamer 8y ago

The real issue is that the leader of ICE / Military / etc. etc. change power roughly... every 4 years. Police is a local issue, and may change closer to every 2 years (although local municipalities may have a Sheriff, or a Commission, or may rely upon a Mayor to make those decisions). We already have a mechanism for choosing the leader of these various institutions. And whatever powers we give to these institutions, we have to recognize that they will change leadership as quickly as a single election. Ultimately, it should be a political issue... first and foremost. We may not have the best political system possible, but its the best that we all can agree to. As such, we should rely upon the culture of this country to provide us the leaders who we would be proud to give these powers to.

sdenton4 8y ago
So people have been separated from their children should just wait for the American people to maaaaaaybe kick out the jackboots in two to four years? Naw, dawg, when things get ugly, you have to resist where you can. I'm guessing you can't agree, but there's a fair number of people who think we're in a Germany 1937 situation. We have a president who in all likelihood enlisted Russian interference in the election, who shares plenty of rhetorical similarity to actual fascists. We have a Congress that is moving as fast as it can to stack the judiciary, which in turn will hear future election cases. Things are getting grim. I've lived and worked in places where these processes have played out - like Hungary - and anyone who says it can't happen here is kidding themselves.
- andun 8y ago
  Those people were caught committing a crime. And it's not the kind of crime one could commit by mistake, they were entering a country illegally.
  - mynameisvlad 8y ago
    It's not as black and white as you make it seem. Being in the country unlawfully is not a crime, it's a civil infraction. Entering unlawfully (through something other than a border) is a crime, when it happens, but the subsequent stay is once again a civil infraction. Most unlawful residents did not enter unlawfully, they overstayed on visas or in some other way went from a legal stay to an unlawful one. These people would not be committing a crime.
  - Frondo 8y ago
    Interestingly, andun is a new account and seems to be a holocaust denier, based on at least one of their other comments ("purported holocaust death camps"). Engage accordingly.
    - andun 8y ago
      Shut it down!!!!

paulcole 8y ago

> Second, you risk AWS being seen as non-neutral based on the whims of employees' feelings about a company (as opposed to something illegal). There are plenty of legal things that I think it’s fine with being non-neutral on. A private company SHOULD be non-neutral based on the whims of the employees! Who else steers their ship?

Simon_says 8y ago
Presumably the shareholders via a board of directors and CEO?
- paulcole 8y ago
  OK, invite the shareholders to Seattle to sit down and start working on AWS.
  - Simon_says 8y ago
    We're busy. But we're willing to pay people to go to Seattle and do it.
kodablah 8y ago
I think you're making a general statement, which I agree with in general, and I'm making one based on the nuances of this situation. It matters what you are non-neutral about and it matters if you provide a platform or not. Many see great value in neutral platforms. It should just be clear that picking and choosing winners in this way can harm that appearance of neutrality that may cause other [potential] users of your platform to be concerned about which side of the collective bed the employees will wake up on and kick you off. You can either be consistent or be seen as a risky proposition, especially in foundational contexts where lock-in applies.
vorpalhex 8y ago
Can AWS be non-neutral? Sure, legally and even ethically, that's fine. If AWS is non-neutral, will that hurt their ability to attract clients? Absolutely. I'm the first one in line to abolish ICE, but if AWS starts kicking people they don't like off of AWS I'll also be the first one to stop using it. Sure, we agree on ICE, what about companies that make violent video games? Companies that make firearm accessories?

sjg007 8y ago

Lest we forget IBM's role in the Holocaust. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_the_Holocaust https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_the_Holocaust

M_Bakhtiari 8y ago
Not American, what's the link between ICE and the Holocaust?
- andun 8y ago
  Sometimes it would snow in the purported holocaust death camps.
hossbeast 8y ago
OP should have brought this up.

andun 8y ago

It baffles me that some people seemingly want their country to fill with illegal immigrants and they also don't want to give the police/ICE/whatever the necessary tools to be able to dispatch them. Fantasy world indeed. I guess it's the result of being a wealthy programmer in the upper part of San Francisco: they won't affect your job security and you won't have to deal with or even see them

w0m 8y ago
There's a clear and stark difference between > want their country to fill with illegal immigrants and selling facial recognition software to local police departments in main. It's disingenuous to conflate unlike positions. That's not to say I agree with one or or the other, but lets at least pretend to be honest about the comparisons.
sascha_sl 8y ago
Well some countries also don't want legal immigrants. https://fuckoffgoogle.de/ https://fuckoffgoogle.de/ Pretty good if you want some perspective.
zjaffee 8y ago
Unless you are a Native American, which make up less than 1% of the population, you came to this country as an immigrant. The vast majority of modern immigrants are coming to the country for a similar reason why people did 100 years ago. Immigration doesn't hurt anything, even if it was the case that it lowered the cost of labor (which it isn't), that would result in a bigger economy with more jobs and employment, which would then result in wages rising again. Automation and outsourcing are the primary things that have lowered the wages of American workers as it reduced demand for low skill and other manual labor work, not immigrants seeking a better life.
- mmmmmmmmm 8y ago
  > Unless you are a Native American, which make up less than 1% of the population, you came to this country as an immigrant. This might be the dumbest thing I've read all day. Roughly 87% of Americans were born in the US and thus are Native Americans. The vast majority of American citizens did not come here as immigrants. How are you so stupid?

losteric 8y ago

The letter sounds like something written by a small number of radical employees, because it was. Most of those "450 signatures" never saw the letter prior to distribution. There were some pragmatic debates without consensus, many bringing up your concerns, then silence, then this gets sent out of nowhere. If the signatories had been consulted prior to distribution, I wouldn't be surprised if the number fell to... maybe 10? This really reflects our political sphere. Partisans ignoring even the input of allies, blindly charging forward with irrational demands, and alienating rather than convincing the moderate majority. They operate as if this is a movie, where the hero makes a grand statement and instantly win support...

kadendogthing 8y ago

>Second, you risk AWS being seen as non-neutral based on the whims of employees' feelings about a company God forbid workers have say in how their work is used, instead of just being robots. Smart enough to build the technology, but apparently not qualified enough to have input on limiting its nefarious and anti-social uses at the hand of an executive branch the employees probably don't favor.

tomnipotent 8y ago
Should a conservative bakery be allowed to refuse service based on religious beliefs?
- kadendogthing 8y ago
  We codify against pointless discrimination against protected classes of people for a reason. Some things are no longer worth debating and serve no purpose but to actively harm people. So no, they shouldn't be allowed to do that. Can you explain how discriminating against minority members of society is somehow logically relatable to selling a technological product that immediately expands the governments surface area of an easily abusable power? Because I don't know where bakeries not selling doughnuts to gay people, purely based on personal perspectives, really comes into play with not selling a technological platform that enables governments and its officials to more easily abuse and greatly expand the power they currently have. From the article: >On stage, he acknowledged that big tech’s products might be misused, even exploited, by autocrats. But rather than meaningfully explain how Amazon will act to prevent the bad uses of its own technology, Bezos suggested we wait for society’s “immune response.” >Law enforcement has already started using facial recognition with virtually no public oversight or debate or restrictions on use from Amazon.
  - alexanderwept 8y ago
    >We codify against pointless discrimination against protected classes of people for a reason. Some things are no longer worth debating and serve no purpose but to actively harm people. So no, they shouldn't be allowed to do that. But where do we draw a bright line? Sure, maybe we want religious people baking cakes for gay weddings. But should Muslim bakers be forced to draw likenesses of the Prophet Muhammad if a customer requests it? Should a bikini wax establishment that only works on women be forced to wax the intimate areas of a pre-op transwoman?