7 ms·

Serious question: Does a path exist that doesn’t lead to authoritarian use of this type of technology?

by josh_today 5y ago

zo1 5y ago
Arguably yes, but we need to put in the effort to make it secure instead of outright banning it.
- JasonFruit 5y ago
  Why not outright ban it?
  - zo1 5y ago
    Cause it can be incredibly useful in solving a multitude of problems plaguing society, without making it a dystopian hell.
    - nomdep 5y ago
      Like for instance? And please don’t say something related to guns, because that’s is just treating the symptoms and not the real problem.
      - zo1 5y ago
        Spousal abuse, child abuse, bullying, shoplifting, restraining orders, any number of things. Automated surveillance and facial recognition have so many potential uses in solving the worlds ills that I am frankly baffled that we aren't trying to figure out how to use it "safely". Instead we're promoting fear propaganda and beating the drum of "privacy" without really thinking about it or justifying it.
        nomdep 5y ago
        1. Is not about privacy just because. Is about avoiding dystopian 1984-like repressive societies. Power corrupts. Give that power to a government and they will 100% use it to keep them in power and justify it with good intentions. 2. Could you please elaborate your first examples? I can’t see how that could work without (1)
    - JasonFruit 5y ago
      I was more asking for examples of what AI solutions have achieved that is unambiguously good.
      - zo1 5y ago
        It's hard to find examples because of all the fear-propaganda surrounding facial-recognition and automated policing. But here are a few: https://www.theregister.com/2021/07/01/seoul_ai_bridge_rescue/ https://www.theregister.com/2021/07/01/seoul_ai_bridge_rescu... https://techcrunch.com/2017/11/27/facebook-ai-suicide-prevention/ https://techcrunch.com/2017/11/27/facebook-ai-suicide-preven...
Shank 5y ago
As a good example, the two seemingly useful use cases (identifying an expelled student or a trespasser) could use this technology if deployed on the entrances and exits to a building. The more cameras you install, though, the more of a chance you’ll encounter a situation where mission creep occurs. Cameras deployed all throughout schools with AI watching will inevitably lead to errors in misidentification, capture of information that isn’t pertinent, or misuse. At best the system errors too much, occasionally acting as a useful system to stop known trespassers. At worst, you send the police chasing down the wrong person, or you accidentally record something you wish you didn’t and the video is leaked. I’m not quite sure how deployment of this system would lead to intended results, like stopping school shooters. It reminds me a lot of the Brussels airport that suggested having human “fire spotters” strategically stationed around the building as a substitute for a working and functional fire alarm system.
tyingq 5y ago
Recurring pandemics where we're all wearing masks?
yosito 5y ago
If that path exists, we missed a turn a few miles back.
kortex 5y ago
Facial detection has a lot of uses, and facial re-id (fusing tracks based on face vectors within a session) have lots of uses. Facial recognition, or what should really be called facial identification, where media is converted to a numeric fingerprint to look up in a database, really does not have a lot of use-cases that give me the warm-fuzzies. IMHO, The only reasonable use for this kind of biometric fingerprinting is creating biometric models for validating key public figures against deep fake videos. This approach uses motion biometrics, so it's not even face-ID, but it is a form of "compare vector against existing database" so I count it. This is also super specialized and only applies to figures with hours of video to train on. Also my opinion, any system which does identification of the general population is going to inevitably be abused. Face detection, eye tracking, emotional and sentiment analysis, etc, has many uses in the videoconferencing space. The vector data only exists in the scope of a session. The part that makes it nasty and authoritarian is any time you build a database/index coupling identities (even pseudonymous) with features, whether it be face, gait, voice, from CNNs, HoG, or even just browser fingerprints, this is the dangerous bit, and where laws should focus their effort. Re-id in public (where you vectorize and fuse tracks starting with first glimpse) is a grey area and probably should be very scope-limited, e.g. active warrant, specifically signed by a judge to authorize use looking for only that person. Even then, kinda icky. Disclaimer: I work in the video emotional recognition field

Serious question: Does a path exist that doesn’t lead to authoritarian use of this type of technology?

zo1 5y ago

Arguably yes, but we need to put in the effort to make it secure instead of outright banning it.

JasonFruit 5y ago
Why not outright ban it?
- zo1 5y ago
  Cause it can be incredibly useful in solving a multitude of problems plaguing society, without making it a dystopian hell.
  - nomdep 5y ago
    Like for instance? And please don’t say something related to guns, because that’s is just treating the symptoms and not the real problem.
    - zo1 5y ago
      Spousal abuse, child abuse, bullying, shoplifting, restraining orders, any number of things. Automated surveillance and facial recognition have so many potential uses in solving the worlds ills that I am frankly baffled that we aren't trying to figure out how to use it "safely". Instead we're promoting fear propaganda and beating the drum of "privacy" without really thinking about it or justifying it.
      - nomdep 5y ago
        1. Is not about privacy just because. Is about avoiding dystopian 1984-like repressive societies. Power corrupts. Give that power to a government and they will 100% use it to keep them in power and justify it with good intentions. 2. Could you please elaborate your first examples? I can’t see how that could work without (1)
  - JasonFruit 5y ago
    I was more asking for examples of what AI solutions have achieved that is unambiguously good.
    - zo1 5y ago
      It's hard to find examples because of all the fear-propaganda surrounding facial-recognition and automated policing. But here are a few: https://www.theregister.com/2021/07/01/seoul_ai_bridge_rescue/ https://www.theregister.com/2021/07/01/seoul_ai_bridge_rescu... https://techcrunch.com/2017/11/27/facebook-ai-suicide-prevention/ https://techcrunch.com/2017/11/27/facebook-ai-suicide-preven...

Shank 5y ago

As a good example, the two seemingly useful use cases (identifying an expelled student or a trespasser) could use this technology if deployed on the entrances and exits to a building. The more cameras you install, though, the more of a chance you’ll encounter a situation where mission creep occurs. Cameras deployed all throughout schools with AI watching will inevitably lead to errors in misidentification, capture of information that isn’t pertinent, or misuse. At best the system errors too much, occasionally acting as a useful system to stop known trespassers. At worst, you send the police chasing down the wrong person, or you accidentally record something you wish you didn’t and the video is leaked. I’m not quite sure how deployment of this system would lead to intended results, like stopping school shooters. It reminds me a lot of the Brussels airport that suggested having human “fire spotters” strategically stationed around the building as a substitute for a working and functional fire alarm system.

tyingq 5y ago

Recurring pandemics where we're all wearing masks?

yosito 5y ago

If that path exists, we missed a turn a few miles back.

kortex 5y ago

Facial detection has a lot of uses, and facial re-id (fusing tracks based on face vectors within a session) have lots of uses. Facial recognition, or what should really be called facial identification, where media is converted to a numeric fingerprint to look up in a database, really does not have a lot of use-cases that give me the warm-fuzzies. IMHO, The only reasonable use for this kind of biometric fingerprinting is creating biometric models for validating key public figures against deep fake videos. This approach uses motion biometrics, so it's not even face-ID, but it is a form of "compare vector against existing database" so I count it. This is also super specialized and only applies to figures with hours of video to train on. Also my opinion, any system which does identification of the general population is going to inevitably be abused. Face detection, eye tracking, emotional and sentiment analysis, etc, has many uses in the videoconferencing space. The vector data only exists in the scope of a session. The part that makes it nasty and authoritarian is any time you build a database/index coupling identities (even pseudonymous) with features, whether it be face, gait, voice, from CNNs, HoG, or even just browser fingerprints, this is the dangerous bit, and where laws should focus their effort. Re-id in public (where you vectorize and fuse tracks starting with first glimpse) is a grey area and probably should be very scope-limited, e.g. active warrant, specifically signed by a judge to authorize use looking for only that person. Even then, kinda icky. Disclaimer: I work in the video emotional recognition field