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There are very, very few moral applications of facial recognition. Logging into your phone/laptop or assisting people with prosopagnosia, I guess. Everything el

There are very, very few moral applications of facial recognition. Logging into your phone/laptop or assisting people with prosopagnosia, I guess. Everything else basically enables mass surveillance. It is frankly astonishing, and an exemplar of technologist naivete, that so much effort was (and continues to be) dumped into developing this technology.

joombaga 7y ago
I googled it. pros·o·pag·no·sia /ˌpräsəpaɡˈnōZH(ē)ə/ noun PSYCHIATRY a neurological condition characterized by the inability to recognize the faces of familiar people.
- oil25 7y ago
  "The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat" by neurologist Oliver Sacks is a fascinating story about visual agnosia - it was also my first introduction to artificial intelligence.
  - acastroe 7y ago
    That's interesting, my Intro to AI professor also had us read this in college (UCI). Is this common introductory material for the field?
  - plandis 7y ago
    That whole book is fascinating!
joemag 7y ago
Flagging “America’s most wanted” in public places like train stations or airports. Looking for missing children. Having home automation react differently to different family members. Those are all usages I am personally totally ok with.
- tw04 7y ago
  >Flagging “America’s most wanted” in public places And what happens if we descend into military rule or a dictatorship? With "America's most wanted" fliers, the general public can just refuse to participate. With facial recognition, anyone deemed an "enemy of the state" can easily be tracked and eliminated. Always assume the worst and work your way back to the good when doing the cost-benefit analysis.
  - cle 7y ago
    Laws have a tendency not to stop dictators. They are the law. In reality laws are only as powerful as their enforcement, and if there is no will to enforce, like what happens during transitions to dictatorships, then they’ll just be ignored.
    - Jaepa 7y ago
      Yes, but that is kind of the point. The lack of checks and balances tend to lead to totalitarianism.
      - judge2020 7y ago
        So in what way will facial recognition and "criminal spotted on 5th avenue" either dissuade or encourage totalitarianism/removing checks and balances?. If a Gov't falls into totalitarianism, a facial recognition ban (both internally within AMZN as well as on a national/local level) won't stop them from requiring AMZN to provide them facial recognition behind-the-scenes.
        roenxi 7y ago
        I agree with the general point that it isn't a good method of stopping a government falling into totalitarianism. However it is helpful if there is general consensus against facial recognition because it makes it a bit easier to identify the authoritarian-leading parts of government because they can't hide behind 'it is just usual practice'. There are other, better, arguments in favor of personal liberty to use against facial recognition by law enforcement. Efficient, highly automated systems crush people who just happen to get caught up in them.
jrochkind1 7y ago
Some of the developers may be naive, as people often willfully are for the preservation of their paychecks. The governments and corporations funding the development know exactly what they're doing.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
edanm 7y ago
> There are very, very few moral applications of facial recognition. I mean, we don't even have the technology yet, we don't have almost any real entrepreneurship around how to use it... are you sure there are no good, moral use cases to discover? I'm afraid that this position is as naive as the flip side - techno optimists who assumed that an 'open internet' is an ultimate good, and there are no bad uses for it. There's definitely more nuance than "it's 95% bad".
aurelianito 7y ago
There are lots of applications. For instance, I would love to have an app that gives me contextual information about the people I am talking with. Specifically about the things that he/she already told me, as their name. I don't see anything inmoral un this.
plandis 7y ago
It’s entirely possible I’m being naive about this I think that’s a fair criticism. I do also think that it’s equally naive to attempt to block any single company from developing this technology. As long as there is profits to be made company’s will develop facial recognition technology. This is why I mentioned regulating it’s use. In general, once the proverbial genie is out of the bottle I don’t think you can put it back in in today’s world.

joombaga 7y ago

I googled it. pros·o·pag·no·sia /ˌpräsəpaɡˈnōZH(ē)ə/ noun PSYCHIATRY a neurological condition characterized by the inability to recognize the faces of familiar people.

oil25 7y ago
"The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat" by neurologist Oliver Sacks is a fascinating story about visual agnosia - it was also my first introduction to artificial intelligence.
- acastroe 7y ago
  That's interesting, my Intro to AI professor also had us read this in college (UCI). Is this common introductory material for the field?
- plandis 7y ago
  That whole book is fascinating!

joemag 7y ago

Flagging “America’s most wanted” in public places like train stations or airports. Looking for missing children. Having home automation react differently to different family members. Those are all usages I am personally totally ok with.

tw04 7y ago
>Flagging “America’s most wanted” in public places And what happens if we descend into military rule or a dictatorship? With "America's most wanted" fliers, the general public can just refuse to participate. With facial recognition, anyone deemed an "enemy of the state" can easily be tracked and eliminated. Always assume the worst and work your way back to the good when doing the cost-benefit analysis.
- cle 7y ago
  Laws have a tendency not to stop dictators. They are the law. In reality laws are only as powerful as their enforcement, and if there is no will to enforce, like what happens during transitions to dictatorships, then they’ll just be ignored.
  - Jaepa 7y ago
    Yes, but that is kind of the point. The lack of checks and balances tend to lead to totalitarianism.
    - judge2020 7y ago
      So in what way will facial recognition and "criminal spotted on 5th avenue" either dissuade or encourage totalitarianism/removing checks and balances?. If a Gov't falls into totalitarianism, a facial recognition ban (both internally within AMZN as well as on a national/local level) won't stop them from requiring AMZN to provide them facial recognition behind-the-scenes.
      - roenxi 7y ago
        I agree with the general point that it isn't a good method of stopping a government falling into totalitarianism. However it is helpful if there is general consensus against facial recognition because it makes it a bit easier to identify the authoritarian-leading parts of government because they can't hide behind 'it is just usual practice'. There are other, better, arguments in favor of personal liberty to use against facial recognition by law enforcement. Efficient, highly automated systems crush people who just happen to get caught up in them.

jrochkind1 7y ago

Some of the developers may be naive, as people often willfully are for the preservation of their paychecks. The governments and corporations funding the development know exactly what they're doing.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

edanm 7y ago

> There are very, very few moral applications of facial recognition. I mean, we don't even have the technology yet, we don't have almost any real entrepreneurship around how to use it... are you sure there are no good, moral use cases to discover? I'm afraid that this position is as naive as the flip side - techno optimists who assumed that an 'open internet' is an ultimate good, and there are no bad uses for it. There's definitely more nuance than "it's 95% bad".

aurelianito 7y ago

There are lots of applications. For instance, I would love to have an app that gives me contextual information about the people I am talking with. Specifically about the things that he/she already told me, as their name. I don't see anything inmoral un this.

plandis 7y ago

It’s entirely possible I’m being naive about this I think that’s a fair criticism. I do also think that it’s equally naive to attempt to block any single company from developing this technology. As long as there is profits to be made company’s will develop facial recognition technology. This is why I mentioned regulating it’s use. In general, once the proverbial genie is out of the bottle I don’t think you can put it back in in today’s world.