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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

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 around the AI issue very seriously. In particular, they seemed to understand our concerns about how facial recognition technologies can magnify existing biases in our criminal justice system. This stands in stark contrast to the meeting I attended on Tuesday with Amazon's general counsel regarding their Rekognition service. There was a near complete rejection of the idea that mass deployment of surveillance technologies in today's largely unregulated environment posed any danger to civil society. 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.

benwerd 8y ago
> This stands in stark contrast to the meeting I attended on Tuesday with Amazon's general counsel regarding their Rekognition service. And I think that cuts to the core of this: this is an anti-Amazon move. Nonetheless, I do also think it's a pro-consumer, pro-civil liberties stance. It's also a recognition that the tide is turning with respect to consumers and privacy; here, Microsoft is getting ahead of this changing trend and establishing that they're on the right side of it. Amazon is going to find itself hurting on several levels next year, as legislation likely finds its way onto the books and the consumer tide changes further.
- JaRail 8y ago
  I'm not convinced the US will be passing much of anything in the next two-years. Passing pro-privacy regulation? Seems very unlikely to me. Microsoft should engage with Canada and the EU where technology/privacy regulation is gaining traction.
  - benwerd 8y ago
    I'm not so sure - I don't necessarily think it'll be federal straight away, but I think there's real possibility of state-by-state rules, which will eventually give way to federal.
    - halr9000 8y ago
      This is the best way anyways. 50 experiments will lead to a better outcome.
      - dj-wonk 8y ago
        50? That would be nice. For any given forward-thinking issue, I consider us lucky to have a handful of innovators at the state level. Now, when a crisis of some sort comes around, lawmakers from others states will start to pay attention. Ideally, at that point, they will evaluate and adapt other state experiments. In practice, it depends on the timing, committees, etc. Sorry to sound a bit cynical, but really my take-away message is this: if you care about an issue, get involved one way or the other in lobbying for your cause (I'm assuming here that HN people are well-informed, even if we have different policy prescriptions).
  - iseeyoubydesign 8y ago
    red tape ... legislation will be passed if regulation can be made. Amazon or tech in general wont be stopped , but it will have to pay the toll. This is something dems and repubs agree on. Im guessing MS is not looking to be the leader so why not just get some good press at the same time.
  - akiselev 8y ago
    The incoming California legislature is over 3/4ths Democratic so while the Federal gridlock may not make any progress, there could be some movement closer to home that at least gets the industry to prepare for the inevitable.
    - lvs 8y ago
- thelastidiot 8y ago
  Microsoft knows how to talk the enterprise talk. BTW, Amazon competes against Alibaba for their main business, not Microsoft.
  - jackhack 8y ago
    Just to clarify: Amazon's "main business" is AWS, not their online store. For many years their store operated at a loss. Don't get me wrong, amazon.com is a HUGE business, but it's not Bezos' breadwinner. https://www.zdnet.com/article/all-of-amazons-2017-operating-income-comes-from-aws/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/all-of-amazons-2017-operating-...
    - fjp 8y ago
      It only operated at a loss because they were plowing massive amounts of money into their delivery infrastructure. Revenue matters more than net income
      - sydd 8y ago
        Also because they are trying to estabilish monopoly. Amazon's long term plan is to kill every other big retailer.
        BurningFrog 8y ago
        To be fair, that's the hope of every company.
    - outoftheabyss 8y ago
      their main business is their online store, your linked article proves as much. If the online store was to disappear tomorrow the value of Amazon as a company would decrease much more than if it were AWS. It is proportionately more profitable but that doesn't make it the main business
    - nl 8y ago
      That's nonsense. AWS is a very large business, and much more profitable than selling physical goods online. But Amazon's overall revenue was $56.6B (Q3 2018[1]) and "only" $6.68B of that was AWS. By comparison, revenue from Amazon's advertising business is $2.5B - and no one is claiming that is their main line of business. Even the article you point to shows Amazon made a profit of $1.69B on North American ecommerce vs $1.35B profit from AWS. So yeah - AWS is a high margin business, but no where near their "main business". [1] https://www.cnbc.com/2018/10/25/amazon-earnings-q3-2018.html https://www.cnbc.com/2018/10/25/amazon-earnings-q3-2018.html
- bsenftner 8y ago
  Amazon's Rekognition is a joke: it is weak FR, does not have basic features, and is overly expensive. The only thing they have going for them is Amazon's PR. They fooled you into thinking their Yugo of a product is anything at all. Disclaimer: I work at a real FR company, and Rekognition is no where, a non-contender in quality, features and price. A joke.
  - kohanz 8y ago
    Which would make it even more potentially harmful in this context, if it is relied upon.
- daveheq 8y ago
  Why do we always wait until it's too late and the repurcussions almost unbearable to put in any common-sense preventions to abusive technology or practices?
  - jethro_tell 8y ago
    Because law makers are still trying to wrap their heads around the Internet. That means tech has to self regulate and we just haven't set ourselves up for that. I don't think that lack of diversity helps with that.
  - dj-wonk 8y ago
    It all comes down to your definition of "we". In short, this is either a collective preference problem (e.g. not enough people care or pay attention) or a collective action problem (if you believe that at least collective intent exists). More specifically, a common theme in public policy analysis is agenda setting. Unfortunately, in many situations, the agenda is so crowded with priorities that only crises cut through. For more context, see "The Public Policy Primer: Managing the Policy Process" (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8727263-the-public-policy-primer https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8727263-the-public-polic...)
  - Nasrudith 8y ago
    You can't meaningfully regulate for specific things before they exist for one. Trying to do so prematurely would result in nonsense that would only hold us all back. Not to mention matters of enforcibility. Facial recognition's biggest abuses are from the fox watching the hen-house. "Common sense" would lead to such absurdities like banning using it on cops because "everybody knows criminals could use it to track them" while using it on every protester because "they might be terrorists" despite both known truths being complete bullshit.
vorpalhex 8y ago
> 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 really need is a developers oath along the following: "Anything I build can and will be abused. I am responsible for my designs, for my products, and for the data I collect and store. If my technology is used for evil, I am responsible."
- bbddg 8y ago
  It's almost as if workers should own and control the means of production.
  - j4kp07 8y ago
    There is absolutely nothing stopping you and your friends from starting such a company. I won't be holding my breath as you start on your new venture.
    - dang 8y ago
      Personal attacks will get you banned on HN. Please don't post like this again. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
    - bbddg 8y ago
      Nothing holding anyone back except pesky things like paying rent and buying food.
  - ben_w 8y ago
    We do. In software, at least. The world has moved on a lot since 1848 — someone needs to promote genuinely new political ideas for our era, not rehash ones that came from the transition from agrarian-feudalism to industrial-capitalism.
pauloppenheim 8y ago
> 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. Which group?
- geephroh 8y ago
  My organization is Densho. We are a civil rights education and digital archive focusing on the history of the WWII Japanese American incarceration experience.
phkahler 8y ago
>> 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 call stalking if it were done by a human. If a store wants to recognize me as a prior visitor, that's fine because an actual employee might do the same. But when my presence (just my presence, not even my purchase history) is shared among more than one location, that's like someone following me around. Stalking. This tracking of people and creating databases about them is at its essence a form of automated cyber stalking and should be illegal. The "societal benefits" of this are nothing more than claiming what's good for corporations is good for society. It is not. Please stop pretending this shit is OK.
- markus_orlandis 8y ago
  That's a really good line in the sand, and relatively practical as well. Unfortunately, I don't think it will be put into the books with all the interests corporations would have in keeping it out.
  - DubiousPusher 8y ago
    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 it tops out somewhere. And after some time the clerk will forget many of those who stop coming in. But an AI with a database for recollection suffers from neither of those issues. But you might say the recall has nothing at all to do with what the AI is basically doing. We have to look at this much more wholistically.
    - phkahler 8y ago
talltimtom 8y ago
“This is a laudable first step” There is no such thing. “Why take a step away from the oncoming truck, that one strp won’t save my life?”
Maarten88 8y ago
> He also denied that Amazon had any responsibility for the negative impacts of their AI/ML technologies I find it downright scary when corporations take shortsighted and immoral positions like that. It is historically very clear there are consequences to our work as engineers and companies developing and supplying technology. It is very important to know that we share responsibility for how our work is used starting from the moment we reasonably understand how it is being used. I mean, there are engineers who designed and built the gas chambers in the second world war. Were they responsible for the murders that were committed with it? Or is only the one turning the wheels responsible? Or the one who was in command? Or his boss higher up? I think everyone who knew was partly responsible, including the engineers. It also has also been proven that is is really easy to coerce people (including engineers) into doing immoral things. It is easy to deny any responsibility when it is someone else telling/ordering you to do things. But it does not clear you of responsibility for your actions. I think Microsoft is doing the right thing now, they have come to realize their technology can easily be abused in ways they did not foresee (this probably already happened), and they try to take responsibility by speaking out and lobbying to get legislation in place to avoid abuse, but without destroying the market opportunity. Tragically, I expect several things: - There will be no government legislation / "red tape", certainly not from the current US government. - The race to the bottom they are afraid of will happen anyway, and Microsoft gets to choose whether they want to be part of it or not. Their morals (now out in the open) will work against their chances of market success. - What Microsoft asks for is still far to weak. They want to take the moral high-ground, but they also want to sell their stuff. For instance, they ask for clear signage in stores that facial recognition is being used, so that customers can choose not to enter the store. Do they really think this will provide good privacy protection? Business will simply strong-arm consumers into consent by denying service if they don't, just like they did with the old EU privacy directive (cookie law). - In the EU, GDPR is already providing consumer protection against facial recognition, mostly better that what Microsoft is asking for. Business in EU are now effectively prohibited from using it, but US based startups will use their lead to "disrupt" the market and introduce it here anyway.
- pmontra 8y ago
  > US based startups will use their lead to "disrupt" the market and introduce it here anyway. How exactly? Maybe lobbying for relaxing the law? I think that maybe shopping centers and similar businesses could lobby for facial recognition. I hope both of them don't succeed.
badrabbit 8y ago
Yay for MS and boo Amazon. I agree. But the root cause of the problem is legal. No matter how you try to analyse this,it's a social problem and society is governed by laws through government not by corporate policies through megacorps. America's democracy is not agile. It cannot adopt to rapid changes in society and advancements in technology. America desperately needs legal reform starting from the constitution. For this issue in particular,why aren't lawmakers passing laws in favor of the public? I don't want this to be up to Microsoft feeling like a good "corporate citizen" today,the government is supposed to be for the people,by the people and of the people. You what concerns me and should scare every american? What if everyone is running around trying to fix the symptoms while ignoring the elephant in the room,a disease at the heart of american democracy. What if by the time people get around to try and fix the disease(root cause) it's too late?
DavidSJ 8y ago
If you’re willing to share, why were you meeting with Amazon’s general counsel?
- geephroh 8y ago
  My group is part of a coalition organized by the Washington chapter of the ACLU. We have been engaging both Microsoft and Amazon about their surveillance technologies and AI/ML offerings. ACLU-WA, in collaboration with the Northern CA chapter of the ACLU were largely responsible for the well-publicized test of Amazon’s Rekognition using photos of members of Congress against criminal mugshot databases.[1] [1] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/07/amazons-rekognition-messes-up-matches-28-lawmakers-to-mugshots/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/07/amazons-rekognit...
steelframe 8y ago
> 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. As someone who's worked in the tech sector in the Seattle area for over a decade, I could have told you that would happen. One of Amazon's core values is minimizing expense -- it's baked into their DNA. It doesn't matter what the issue is. If it costs Amazon money, they HATE it.
- janesvilleseo 8y ago
  Class action lawsuits can cost a lot of money. If the system is found to be biased there may be grounds to sue. Lots of potential problems can arise. I wonder how they bake those into their DNA?
  - steelframe 8y ago
    The employees have a term for that: "Frupid."
pizzazzaro 8y ago
Note that aws runs on the Xen hypervisor, which has a new critical security hole pop up reliably every six months. Taking matters into our own hands becomes an option.

benwerd 8y ago

> This stands in stark contrast to the meeting I attended on Tuesday with Amazon's general counsel regarding their Rekognition service. And I think that cuts to the core of this: this is an anti-Amazon move. Nonetheless, I do also think it's a pro-consumer, pro-civil liberties stance. It's also a recognition that the tide is turning with respect to consumers and privacy; here, Microsoft is getting ahead of this changing trend and establishing that they're on the right side of it. Amazon is going to find itself hurting on several levels next year, as legislation likely finds its way onto the books and the consumer tide changes further.

JaRail 8y ago
I'm not convinced the US will be passing much of anything in the next two-years. Passing pro-privacy regulation? Seems very unlikely to me. Microsoft should engage with Canada and the EU where technology/privacy regulation is gaining traction.
- benwerd 8y ago
  I'm not so sure - I don't necessarily think it'll be federal straight away, but I think there's real possibility of state-by-state rules, which will eventually give way to federal.
  - halr9000 8y ago
    This is the best way anyways. 50 experiments will lead to a better outcome.
    - dj-wonk 8y ago
      50? That would be nice. For any given forward-thinking issue, I consider us lucky to have a handful of innovators at the state level. Now, when a crisis of some sort comes around, lawmakers from others states will start to pay attention. Ideally, at that point, they will evaluate and adapt other state experiments. In practice, it depends on the timing, committees, etc. Sorry to sound a bit cynical, but really my take-away message is this: if you care about an issue, get involved one way or the other in lobbying for your cause (I'm assuming here that HN people are well-informed, even if we have different policy prescriptions).
- iseeyoubydesign 8y ago
  red tape ... legislation will be passed if regulation can be made. Amazon or tech in general wont be stopped , but it will have to pay the toll. This is something dems and repubs agree on. Im guessing MS is not looking to be the leader so why not just get some good press at the same time.
- akiselev 8y ago
  The incoming California legislature is over 3/4ths Democratic so while the Federal gridlock may not make any progress, there could be some movement closer to home that at least gets the industry to prepare for the inevitable.
  - lvs 8y ago
thelastidiot 8y ago
Microsoft knows how to talk the enterprise talk. BTW, Amazon competes against Alibaba for their main business, not Microsoft.
- jackhack 8y ago
  Just to clarify: Amazon's "main business" is AWS, not their online store. For many years their store operated at a loss. Don't get me wrong, amazon.com is a HUGE business, but it's not Bezos' breadwinner. https://www.zdnet.com/article/all-of-amazons-2017-operating-income-comes-from-aws/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/all-of-amazons-2017-operating-...
  - fjp 8y ago
    It only operated at a loss because they were plowing massive amounts of money into their delivery infrastructure. Revenue matters more than net income
    - sydd 8y ago
      Also because they are trying to estabilish monopoly. Amazon's long term plan is to kill every other big retailer.
      - BurningFrog 8y ago
        To be fair, that's the hope of every company.
  - outoftheabyss 8y ago
    their main business is their online store, your linked article proves as much. If the online store was to disappear tomorrow the value of Amazon as a company would decrease much more than if it were AWS. It is proportionately more profitable but that doesn't make it the main business
  - nl 8y ago
    That's nonsense. AWS is a very large business, and much more profitable than selling physical goods online. But Amazon's overall revenue was $56.6B (Q3 2018[1]) and "only" $6.68B of that was AWS. By comparison, revenue from Amazon's advertising business is $2.5B - and no one is claiming that is their main line of business. Even the article you point to shows Amazon made a profit of $1.69B on North American ecommerce vs $1.35B profit from AWS. So yeah - AWS is a high margin business, but no where near their "main business". [1] https://www.cnbc.com/2018/10/25/amazon-earnings-q3-2018.html https://www.cnbc.com/2018/10/25/amazon-earnings-q3-2018.html
bsenftner 8y ago
Amazon's Rekognition is a joke: it is weak FR, does not have basic features, and is overly expensive. The only thing they have going for them is Amazon's PR. They fooled you into thinking their Yugo of a product is anything at all. Disclaimer: I work at a real FR company, and Rekognition is no where, a non-contender in quality, features and price. A joke.
- kohanz 8y ago
  Which would make it even more potentially harmful in this context, if it is relied upon.
daveheq 8y ago
Why do we always wait until it's too late and the repurcussions almost unbearable to put in any common-sense preventions to abusive technology or practices?
- jethro_tell 8y ago
  Because law makers are still trying to wrap their heads around the Internet. That means tech has to self regulate and we just haven't set ourselves up for that. I don't think that lack of diversity helps with that.
- dj-wonk 8y ago
  It all comes down to your definition of "we". In short, this is either a collective preference problem (e.g. not enough people care or pay attention) or a collective action problem (if you believe that at least collective intent exists). More specifically, a common theme in public policy analysis is agenda setting. Unfortunately, in many situations, the agenda is so crowded with priorities that only crises cut through. For more context, see "The Public Policy Primer: Managing the Policy Process" (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8727263-the-public-policy-primer https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8727263-the-public-polic...)
- Nasrudith 8y ago
  You can't meaningfully regulate for specific things before they exist for one. Trying to do so prematurely would result in nonsense that would only hold us all back. Not to mention matters of enforcibility. Facial recognition's biggest abuses are from the fox watching the hen-house. "Common sense" would lead to such absurdities like banning using it on cops because "everybody knows criminals could use it to track them" while using it on every protester because "they might be terrorists" despite both known truths being complete bullshit.

vorpalhex 8y ago

> 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 really need is a developers oath along the following: "Anything I build can and will be abused. I am responsible for my designs, for my products, and for the data I collect and store. If my technology is used for evil, I am responsible."

bbddg 8y ago
It's almost as if workers should own and control the means of production.
- j4kp07 8y ago
  There is absolutely nothing stopping you and your friends from starting such a company. I won't be holding my breath as you start on your new venture.
  - dang 8y ago
    Personal attacks will get you banned on HN. Please don't post like this again. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - bbddg 8y ago
    Nothing holding anyone back except pesky things like paying rent and buying food.
- ben_w 8y ago
  We do. In software, at least. The world has moved on a lot since 1848 — someone needs to promote genuinely new political ideas for our era, not rehash ones that came from the transition from agrarian-feudalism to industrial-capitalism.

pauloppenheim 8y ago

> 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. Which group?

geephroh 8y ago
My organization is Densho. We are a civil rights education and digital archive focusing on the history of the WWII Japanese American incarceration experience.

phkahler 8y ago

>> 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 call stalking if it were done by a human. If a store wants to recognize me as a prior visitor, that's fine because an actual employee might do the same. But when my presence (just my presence, not even my purchase history) is shared among more than one location, that's like someone following me around. Stalking. This tracking of people and creating databases about them is at its essence a form of automated cyber stalking and should be illegal. The "societal benefits" of this are nothing more than claiming what's good for corporations is good for society. It is not. Please stop pretending this shit is OK.

markus_orlandis 8y ago
That's a really good line in the sand, and relatively practical as well. Unfortunately, I don't think it will be put into the books with all the interests corporations would have in keeping it out.
- DubiousPusher 8y ago
  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 it tops out somewhere. And after some time the clerk will forget many of those who stop coming in. But an AI with a database for recollection suffers from neither of those issues. But you might say the recall has nothing at all to do with what the AI is basically doing. We have to look at this much more wholistically.
  - phkahler 8y ago

talltimtom 8y ago

“This is a laudable first step” There is no such thing. “Why take a step away from the oncoming truck, that one strp won’t save my life?”

Maarten88 8y ago

> He also denied that Amazon had any responsibility for the negative impacts of their AI/ML technologies I find it downright scary when corporations take shortsighted and immoral positions like that. It is historically very clear there are consequences to our work as engineers and companies developing and supplying technology. It is very important to know that we share responsibility for how our work is used starting from the moment we reasonably understand how it is being used. I mean, there are engineers who designed and built the gas chambers in the second world war. Were they responsible for the murders that were committed with it? Or is only the one turning the wheels responsible? Or the one who was in command? Or his boss higher up? I think everyone who knew was partly responsible, including the engineers. It also has also been proven that is is really easy to coerce people (including engineers) into doing immoral things. It is easy to deny any responsibility when it is someone else telling/ordering you to do things. But it does not clear you of responsibility for your actions. I think Microsoft is doing the right thing now, they have come to realize their technology can easily be abused in ways they did not foresee (this probably already happened), and they try to take responsibility by speaking out and lobbying to get legislation in place to avoid abuse, but without destroying the market opportunity. Tragically, I expect several things: - There will be no government legislation / "red tape", certainly not from the current US government. - The race to the bottom they are afraid of will happen anyway, and Microsoft gets to choose whether they want to be part of it or not. Their morals (now out in the open) will work against their chances of market success. - What Microsoft asks for is still far to weak. They want to take the moral high-ground, but they also want to sell their stuff. For instance, they ask for clear signage in stores that facial recognition is being used, so that customers can choose not to enter the store. Do they really think this will provide good privacy protection? Business will simply strong-arm consumers into consent by denying service if they don't, just like they did with the old EU privacy directive (cookie law). - In the EU, GDPR is already providing consumer protection against facial recognition, mostly better that what Microsoft is asking for. Business in EU are now effectively prohibited from using it, but US based startups will use their lead to "disrupt" the market and introduce it here anyway.

pmontra 8y ago
> US based startups will use their lead to "disrupt" the market and introduce it here anyway. How exactly? Maybe lobbying for relaxing the law? I think that maybe shopping centers and similar businesses could lobby for facial recognition. I hope both of them don't succeed.

badrabbit 8y ago

Yay for MS and boo Amazon. I agree. But the root cause of the problem is legal. No matter how you try to analyse this,it's a social problem and society is governed by laws through government not by corporate policies through megacorps. America's democracy is not agile. It cannot adopt to rapid changes in society and advancements in technology. America desperately needs legal reform starting from the constitution. For this issue in particular,why aren't lawmakers passing laws in favor of the public? I don't want this to be up to Microsoft feeling like a good "corporate citizen" today,the government is supposed to be for the people,by the people and of the people. You what concerns me and should scare every american? What if everyone is running around trying to fix the symptoms while ignoring the elephant in the room,a disease at the heart of american democracy. What if by the time people get around to try and fix the disease(root cause) it's too late?

DavidSJ 8y ago

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

geephroh 8y ago
My group is part of a coalition organized by the Washington chapter of the ACLU. We have been engaging both Microsoft and Amazon about their surveillance technologies and AI/ML offerings. ACLU-WA, in collaboration with the Northern CA chapter of the ACLU were largely responsible for the well-publicized test of Amazon’s Rekognition using photos of members of Congress against criminal mugshot databases.[1] [1] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/07/amazons-rekognition-messes-up-matches-28-lawmakers-to-mugshots/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/07/amazons-rekognit...

steelframe 8y ago

> 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. As someone who's worked in the tech sector in the Seattle area for over a decade, I could have told you that would happen. One of Amazon's core values is minimizing expense -- it's baked into their DNA. It doesn't matter what the issue is. If it costs Amazon money, they HATE it.

janesvilleseo 8y ago
Class action lawsuits can cost a lot of money. If the system is found to be biased there may be grounds to sue. Lots of potential problems can arise. I wonder how they bake those into their DNA?
- steelframe 8y ago
  The employees have a term for that: "Frupid."

pizzazzaro 8y ago

Note that aws runs on the Xen hypervisor, which has a new critical security hole pop up reliably every six months. Taking matters into our own hands becomes an option.