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> Sorry but almost everyone does have ID on them at all times. This is objectively false. 11+% of Americans don't have a government issued photo id. Presumably

> Sorry but almost everyone does have ID on them at all times. This is objectively false. 11+% of Americans don't have a government issued photo id. Presumably many more forget their id on any given day. The folks who don't have IDs are disproportionately minorities and the elderly. In some places, as few as 55% off eligible Black people had IDs. Millions more are here illegally, and yes, we should design our society to accommodate them. "Maybe they shouldn't be here" is both callous and unrealistic. No one should have to live in fear that they'll be spotted on some camera and have their life ruined. > All this fear mongering about false positives is irrelevant because there is a human in the loop. Humans in the loop won't fix failures. Last week we were all discussing how hospital administrators blamed "the algorithm" when vaccines were issued to admins rather than front line workers. People constantly say, "well, the computer says..." when the computer is obviously making a mistake. The TSA regularly screws up people's travel because they make mistakes about the no fly list. A human can be in the loop, but in practice the human isn't going to meaningfully question the outcome.

throwawaysea 6y ago
> Millions more are here illegally, and yes, we should design our society to accommodate them. "Maybe they shouldn't be here" is both callous and unrealistic. No one should have to live in fear that they'll be spotted on some camera and have their life ruined. Those that break the law SHOULD have to live in fear that they'll face consequences. In some cases that may amount to having "their life ruined" and in other cases the consequences may not be that dramatic. But we have a society built on laws, and enforcing the law is required in a fair and just society. > Last week we were all discussing how hospital administrators blamed "the algorithm" when vaccines were issued to admins rather than front line workers. People constantly say, "well, the computer says..." when the computer is obviously making a mistake. In my opinion, you are comparing very different situations. The hospital admins have an incentive to get admins vaccinated first, and are not in a position where they're tasked with validating an algorithm's match. Additionally, the algorithm in question did not involve machine learning as a facial recognition algorithm would. It was simply software implementing a very straightforward formula (https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/12/21/1015303/stanford-vaccine-algorithm/ https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/12/21/1015303/stanford...). > The TSA regularly screws up people's travel because they make mistakes about the no fly list. This isn't because of facial recognition or black box machine learning algorithms. It is because the TSA uses very rudimentary heuristics like name matching, to err on the side of safety. I disagree with the unsophisticated approach they use, for what its worth. A complex AI based matching algorithm would do a better job of balancing safety against such mistakes.
- Pfhreak 6y ago
  > Those that break the law SHOULD have to live in fear that they'll face consequences. Let's agree to disagree. > The hospital admins have an incentive The cops do too. Someone, somewhere is going to be pushing them to try and maximize the use of this very expensive system they just installed. Politically, they'll be very motivated by their superiors to say it's super good. And if you aren't convinced that hospital admins or TSA or drivers using GPS deferring to computers aren't examples of general human behavior, here's some more: * A machine learning algorithm detected you were in violation of copyright. Your content has been deleted/moderated/banned. * A computer graded application process presents your scores to a human, who evaluates your employability, but largely just accepts whether the computer said, "Hire/No Hire". * Ever been denied for a loan for something the computer says? * Ever driven a self-driving car that does most of the work for you, but then you crash into people and things because you just generally trust it to do the right thing and stop paying attention? * A police officer arrested an innocent man, and several people interrogated him based on a bad facial recognition algorithm. (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/24/technology/facial-recognition-arrest.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/24/technology/facial-recogni...) Machine Learning is a powerful tool, but it is only as good as the humans who make it and the data they supply to train it. And the closer it gets to good, the more humans will believe it is actually flawless. Humans in the loop absolutely will not fix the flaws with a system like this, as time and time again humans have shown a propensity towards doing the easy thing -- trust the computer.
dragonwriter 6y ago
> es. Last week we were all discussing how hospital administrators blamed "the algorithm" when vaccines were issued to admins rather than front line workers. People constantly say, "well, the computer says..." when the computer is obviously making a mistake. More often, they say it to defect blame to the computer when it is precisely implementing the intended policy. > The TSA regularly screws up people's travel because they make mistakes about the no fly list. No, because the no fly list implementation is designed to do exactly what it does, with (among other features) extremely loose matching criteria applied. “Mistakes” are a cover for policy.
- Pfhreak 6y ago
  I think maybe you and I agree on worldview. I suspect that facial recognition will be used in the same way.

throwawaysea 6y ago

> Millions more are here illegally, and yes, we should design our society to accommodate them. "Maybe they shouldn't be here" is both callous and unrealistic. No one should have to live in fear that they'll be spotted on some camera and have their life ruined. Those that break the law SHOULD have to live in fear that they'll face consequences. In some cases that may amount to having "their life ruined" and in other cases the consequences may not be that dramatic. But we have a society built on laws, and enforcing the law is required in a fair and just society. > Last week we were all discussing how hospital administrators blamed "the algorithm" when vaccines were issued to admins rather than front line workers. People constantly say, "well, the computer says..." when the computer is obviously making a mistake. In my opinion, you are comparing very different situations. The hospital admins have an incentive to get admins vaccinated first, and are not in a position where they're tasked with validating an algorithm's match. Additionally, the algorithm in question did not involve machine learning as a facial recognition algorithm would. It was simply software implementing a very straightforward formula (https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/12/21/1015303/stanford-vaccine-algorithm/ https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/12/21/1015303/stanford...). > The TSA regularly screws up people's travel because they make mistakes about the no fly list. This isn't because of facial recognition or black box machine learning algorithms. It is because the TSA uses very rudimentary heuristics like name matching, to err on the side of safety. I disagree with the unsophisticated approach they use, for what its worth. A complex AI based matching algorithm would do a better job of balancing safety against such mistakes.

Pfhreak 6y ago
> Those that break the law SHOULD have to live in fear that they'll face consequences. Let's agree to disagree. > The hospital admins have an incentive The cops do too. Someone, somewhere is going to be pushing them to try and maximize the use of this very expensive system they just installed. Politically, they'll be very motivated by their superiors to say it's super good. And if you aren't convinced that hospital admins or TSA or drivers using GPS deferring to computers aren't examples of general human behavior, here's some more: * A machine learning algorithm detected you were in violation of copyright. Your content has been deleted/moderated/banned. * A computer graded application process presents your scores to a human, who evaluates your employability, but largely just accepts whether the computer said, "Hire/No Hire". * Ever been denied for a loan for something the computer says? * Ever driven a self-driving car that does most of the work for you, but then you crash into people and things because you just generally trust it to do the right thing and stop paying attention? * A police officer arrested an innocent man, and several people interrogated him based on a bad facial recognition algorithm. (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/24/technology/facial-recognition-arrest.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/24/technology/facial-recogni...) Machine Learning is a powerful tool, but it is only as good as the humans who make it and the data they supply to train it. And the closer it gets to good, the more humans will believe it is actually flawless. Humans in the loop absolutely will not fix the flaws with a system like this, as time and time again humans have shown a propensity towards doing the easy thing -- trust the computer.

dragonwriter 6y ago

> es. Last week we were all discussing how hospital administrators blamed "the algorithm" when vaccines were issued to admins rather than front line workers. People constantly say, "well, the computer says..." when the computer is obviously making a mistake. More often, they say it to defect blame to the computer when it is precisely implementing the intended policy. > The TSA regularly screws up people's travel because they make mistakes about the no fly list. No, because the no fly list implementation is designed to do exactly what it does, with (among other features) extremely loose matching criteria applied. “Mistakes” are a cover for policy.

Pfhreak 6y ago
I think maybe you and I agree on worldview. I suspect that facial recognition will be used in the same way.