4 ms·

I see this as an extension of the Facebook <moderating/censoring> discussion, which is really a broader question of what moral obligations do corporations have

by hpoe 6y ago

I see this as an extension of the Facebook <moderating/censoring> discussion, which is really a broader question of what moral obligations do corporations have beyond following the law and trying to provide the optimal product to their consumers? Also there seemed to be no substantive discussion prior this about the police using Rekognition until it became a hot button issue. What will the widespread effects be if corporations start allowing their decisions to be governed by <outrage of the mob/principled consumer pressure>? Finally I wonder how they will implement this, I mean after all I can sign up and start using any AWS service with just a credit card what's to stop police departments from simply using a corporate card and signing up for a different account? Also does this apply to just local PDs or does it extend to the FBI, NSA, CIA, or other 3 letter government agencies? Disclaimer: The purpose of these comments are intended to be observational not advocational.

moron4hire 6y ago
Well, considering that corporations are people now, I would say they have all the same moral obligation as people.
albntomat0 6y ago
Similarly, I would argue that we don't want to be reliant on corporations to determine what the lines are themselves, as they should not be de-facto moral authorities. Determining what is acceptable needs to come from our society as a whole, through reasoned debate and proper functioning of government.
- tdfx 6y ago
  > through reasoned debate and proper functioning of government. Yikes. Is there a fallback option?
  - albntomat0 6y ago
    The other options seem to be the benevolence of Bezos or Twitter condemnation, so not really.
    - kmonsen 6y ago
      Still better in some cases than relying in government taking action :-( Note that this is a one way relationship, corporations must comply with laws, but can also do other things.
      - albntomat0 6y ago
        I'd say "better" as in "more likely", but I'm still not a fan of a handful of SV folks being the moral decision makers for the world as the general order of things. I'll gladly accept additional benevolence from them though! Just not as the sole power in the area.
      - bigiain 6y ago
        > corporations must comply with laws Sadly, global corporations seem to be mostly able to choose which laws they want to comply with by shifting jurisdictions at will... "Oh no, for _tax purposes_ we're an Irish company! For privacy purposes we're European. For Intellectual Property purposes we're a Delaware C Corp. And, ummm, that department that doesn't exist is officially deputised by the Saudi Royal Family."
  - bigiain 6y ago
    Ultimately, the French option from the late 1700s...
- bigiain 6y ago
  It'd be kinda nice if we trusted the police to act as "moral authorities" instead of trampling the public's rights and privacy (and necks) with wilful abandon whenever they feel like it...
  - albntomat0 6y ago
    We can only get to that point via systemic processes to ensure the proper people end up in the positions of power, with proper accountability acting in the limits of a shared morality Hoping that police/tech companies/miltiary/etc are moral isn't an actionable plan.
    - genoapol 6y ago
      I find that I don't shoot random innocent people mostly because I'm not a homicidal maniac but also because I will probably lose my house and everything I've worked for my whole life possibly including my freedom. People in the armed forces need to be put in the same boat I'm in.
banads 6y ago
>what moral obligations do corporations have beyond following the law and trying to provide the optimal product to their consumers? Corporations have no such morals. They are profit seeking social constructs. Breaking the law is often a profitable cost of doing business, as is making an ever increasingly shitty product when there is little to no competition.
- darkerside 6y ago
  Moral obligations, almost by definition, do not exist. That goes for anyone, not just corporations. They are the things you should do even though there is no reason to do them. Arguing corporations have no morals is being pedantic. The question is clearly, what moral obligations _should_ they have?
  - banads 6y ago
    >Moral obligations, almost by definition, do not exist ... >The question is clearly, what moral obligations _should_ they have? I'm confused. If moral obligations do not exist as you claim, why should we pretend they should exist?
    - darkerside 6y ago
      Because it's in the common interest. The social contract doesn't "exist". It's an abstraction that people have agreed upon, in many forms, because it benefits the whole. What things we codify end up as government regulation. What things we don't are moral obligations.
boomboomsubban 6y ago
>what moral obligations do corporations have beyond following the law and trying to provide the optimal product to their consumers? This question just does not work when you consider how much companies spend lobbying.
chishaku 6y ago
> there seemed to be no substantive discussion Just because you don't know about it doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Try google "aclu facial recognition", "eff facial recognition". congress.gov returns 132 bills introduced in the last two sessions going back to 2017. If you read the titles, it's clear many of them are related to transparency and respecting rights to privacy. https://www.congress.gov/search?searchResultViewType=expanded&q=%7B%22congress%22%3A%5B%22116%22%2C115%5D%2C%22source%22%3A%22all%22%2C%22search%22%3A%22facial+recognition%22%7D https://www.congress.gov/search?searchResultViewType=expande...
- hpoe 6y ago
  I don't mean to imply that there wasn't discussion or advocacy around the issue but rather it was not an issue that was high in public awareness or concern.
  - ncallaway 6y ago
    I don't really see how this interpretation of what you wrote makes sense. "Also there seemed to be no substantive discussion prior this about the police using Rekognition until it became a hot button issue." If you didn't mean that it wasn't an issue that was high in public awareness or concern wouldn't it be tautological that it wasn't high in public awareness or concern until it was a hot button issue? Like, the definition of it becoming a hot button issue is that it's high in public awareness or concern. Am I misinterpreting something? Did you mean something else and I just got it wrong?
  - dagnabbit 6y ago
    Please borrow some integrity and own your words. You wrote that there was no substantive discussion. Now that you have been proven completely wrong about that, you are pretending that there wasn't mass-market discussion instead, which is different. Lame.
monsonjeremy 6y ago
I think it's an absurd assertion to say "there was no substantive discussion prior to this about police using Rekognition". Seems to me that people are now becoming aware of the problem with this, and Amazon has implemented a one-year (not permanent moratorium) in order to allow for more discussion and legislation around the issue. There are much bigger implications than the facebook issue if you are misidentifying criminals as a result of bad facial recognition, so you can't really equivocate the two. Also, to call this "mob outrage" or "principled consumer pressure" is delegitimizing the entire thing. Do you really genuinely think this happens any other way? Seems like when a lot of people start to have a problem with something, it makes sense to have a moratorium and investigate improvements/solutions.
kmonsen 6y ago
I don't think there is any obligation to do more than follow the law. I believe Amazon is here trying to go one step above and do what it believes is right. Clearly corporations are allowed to put more stringent requirements on itself if it believes that is right.
bigiain 6y ago
> what's to stop police departments from simply using a corporate card and signing up for a different account? Surely there's better oversight in police management to prevent that? Well, you know, except in Australia where the cops lied to the public about using clearview: https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2020-04-14/clearview-ai-facial-recognition-tech-australian-federal-police/12146894 https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2020-04-14/clearview-ai-... Or New Zealand: https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/416913/police-stocktake-surveillance-tech-after-clearview-ai-facial-recognition-trial https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/416913/police-stocktake-... Or the UK: https://globalnews.ca/news/6969069/london-police-clearview-ai-review-facial-recognition-technology/ https://globalnews.ca/news/6969069/london-police-clearview-a... And I'm sure all the 600+ US law enforcement agencies here went through proper approval channels and oversight: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/18/technology/clearview-privacy-facial-recognition.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/18/technology/clearview-priv... :sigh:
ardy42 6y ago
> Finally I wonder how they will implement this, I mean after all I can sign up and start using any AWS service with just a credit card what's to stop police departments from simply using a corporate card and signing up for a different account? Maybe they could work some kind of penalty into the contract? Something like "if you're working on behalf of a police department, you are forbidden from using our facial recognition services. If you sign up despite this term, we will cancel your account and retroactively bill you $100,000 or your usage at a rate 1000x normal, whichever is greater."
dagnabbit 6y ago
> Also there seemed to be no substantive discussion prior this about the police using Rekognition until it became a hot button issue. There was substantial discussion on this topic. Your ignorance of such discussion is not the same as the discussion not existing.

by hpoe 6y ago

moron4hire 6y ago

Well, considering that corporations are people now, I would say they have all the same moral obligation as people.

albntomat0 6y ago

Similarly, I would argue that we don't want to be reliant on corporations to determine what the lines are themselves, as they should not be de-facto moral authorities. Determining what is acceptable needs to come from our society as a whole, through reasoned debate and proper functioning of government.

tdfx 6y ago
> through reasoned debate and proper functioning of government. Yikes. Is there a fallback option?
- albntomat0 6y ago
  The other options seem to be the benevolence of Bezos or Twitter condemnation, so not really.
  - kmonsen 6y ago
    Still better in some cases than relying in government taking action :-( Note that this is a one way relationship, corporations must comply with laws, but can also do other things.
    - albntomat0 6y ago
      I'd say "better" as in "more likely", but I'm still not a fan of a handful of SV folks being the moral decision makers for the world as the general order of things. I'll gladly accept additional benevolence from them though! Just not as the sole power in the area.
    - bigiain 6y ago
      > corporations must comply with laws Sadly, global corporations seem to be mostly able to choose which laws they want to comply with by shifting jurisdictions at will... "Oh no, for _tax purposes_ we're an Irish company! For privacy purposes we're European. For Intellectual Property purposes we're a Delaware C Corp. And, ummm, that department that doesn't exist is officially deputised by the Saudi Royal Family."
- bigiain 6y ago
  Ultimately, the French option from the late 1700s...
bigiain 6y ago
It'd be kinda nice if we trusted the police to act as "moral authorities" instead of trampling the public's rights and privacy (and necks) with wilful abandon whenever they feel like it...
- albntomat0 6y ago
  We can only get to that point via systemic processes to ensure the proper people end up in the positions of power, with proper accountability acting in the limits of a shared morality Hoping that police/tech companies/miltiary/etc are moral isn't an actionable plan.
  - genoapol 6y ago
    I find that I don't shoot random innocent people mostly because I'm not a homicidal maniac but also because I will probably lose my house and everything I've worked for my whole life possibly including my freedom. People in the armed forces need to be put in the same boat I'm in.

banads 6y ago

>what moral obligations do corporations have beyond following the law and trying to provide the optimal product to their consumers? Corporations have no such morals. They are profit seeking social constructs. Breaking the law is often a profitable cost of doing business, as is making an ever increasingly shitty product when there is little to no competition.

darkerside 6y ago
Moral obligations, almost by definition, do not exist. That goes for anyone, not just corporations. They are the things you should do even though there is no reason to do them. Arguing corporations have no morals is being pedantic. The question is clearly, what moral obligations _should_ they have?
- banads 6y ago
  >Moral obligations, almost by definition, do not exist ... >The question is clearly, what moral obligations _should_ they have? I'm confused. If moral obligations do not exist as you claim, why should we pretend they should exist?
  - darkerside 6y ago
    Because it's in the common interest. The social contract doesn't "exist". It's an abstraction that people have agreed upon, in many forms, because it benefits the whole. What things we codify end up as government regulation. What things we don't are moral obligations.

boomboomsubban 6y ago

>what moral obligations do corporations have beyond following the law and trying to provide the optimal product to their consumers? This question just does not work when you consider how much companies spend lobbying.

chishaku 6y ago

> there seemed to be no substantive discussion Just because you don't know about it doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Try google "aclu facial recognition", "eff facial recognition". congress.gov returns 132 bills introduced in the last two sessions going back to 2017. If you read the titles, it's clear many of them are related to transparency and respecting rights to privacy. https://www.congress.gov/search?searchResultViewType=expanded&q=%7B%22congress%22%3A%5B%22116%22%2C115%5D%2C%22source%22%3A%22all%22%2C%22search%22%3A%22facial+recognition%22%7D https://www.congress.gov/search?searchResultViewType=expande...

hpoe 6y ago
I don't mean to imply that there wasn't discussion or advocacy around the issue but rather it was not an issue that was high in public awareness or concern.
- ncallaway 6y ago
  I don't really see how this interpretation of what you wrote makes sense. "Also there seemed to be no substantive discussion prior this about the police using Rekognition until it became a hot button issue." If you didn't mean that it wasn't an issue that was high in public awareness or concern wouldn't it be tautological that it wasn't high in public awareness or concern until it was a hot button issue? Like, the definition of it becoming a hot button issue is that it's high in public awareness or concern. Am I misinterpreting something? Did you mean something else and I just got it wrong?
- dagnabbit 6y ago
  Please borrow some integrity and own your words. You wrote that there was no substantive discussion. Now that you have been proven completely wrong about that, you are pretending that there wasn't mass-market discussion instead, which is different. Lame.

monsonjeremy 6y ago

I think it's an absurd assertion to say "there was no substantive discussion prior to this about police using Rekognition". Seems to me that people are now becoming aware of the problem with this, and Amazon has implemented a one-year (not permanent moratorium) in order to allow for more discussion and legislation around the issue. There are much bigger implications than the facebook issue if you are misidentifying criminals as a result of bad facial recognition, so you can't really equivocate the two. Also, to call this "mob outrage" or "principled consumer pressure" is delegitimizing the entire thing. Do you really genuinely think this happens any other way? Seems like when a lot of people start to have a problem with something, it makes sense to have a moratorium and investigate improvements/solutions.

kmonsen 6y ago

I don't think there is any obligation to do more than follow the law. I believe Amazon is here trying to go one step above and do what it believes is right. Clearly corporations are allowed to put more stringent requirements on itself if it believes that is right.

bigiain 6y ago

> what's to stop police departments from simply using a corporate card and signing up for a different account? Surely there's better oversight in police management to prevent that? Well, you know, except in Australia where the cops lied to the public about using clearview: https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2020-04-14/clearview-ai-facial-recognition-tech-australian-federal-police/12146894 https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2020-04-14/clearview-ai-... Or New Zealand: https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/416913/police-stocktake-surveillance-tech-after-clearview-ai-facial-recognition-trial https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/416913/police-stocktake-... Or the UK: https://globalnews.ca/news/6969069/london-police-clearview-ai-review-facial-recognition-technology/ https://globalnews.ca/news/6969069/london-police-clearview-a... And I'm sure all the 600+ US law enforcement agencies here went through proper approval channels and oversight: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/18/technology/clearview-privacy-facial-recognition.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/18/technology/clearview-priv... :sigh:

ardy42 6y ago

> Finally I wonder how they will implement this, I mean after all I can sign up and start using any AWS service with just a credit card what's to stop police departments from simply using a corporate card and signing up for a different account? Maybe they could work some kind of penalty into the contract? Something like "if you're working on behalf of a police department, you are forbidden from using our facial recognition services. If you sign up despite this term, we will cancel your account and retroactively bill you $100,000 or your usage at a rate 1000x normal, whichever is greater."

dagnabbit 6y ago

> Also there seemed to be no substantive discussion prior this about the police using Rekognition until it became a hot button issue. There was substantial discussion on this topic. Your ignorance of such discussion is not the same as the discussion not existing.