Facial recognition is being rolled out right now, often in subtle ways. Under the guise of making life easier, it’s really about making privacy obsolete.
In Europe, these provisions will be illegal under the EU AI Act - https://artificialintelligenceact.eu/article/5/; unfortunately the US is not following the same path when it comes to regulation.
I have an opinion that probably differs from most here.
First of all, Pandora's Box has been opened and there is no going back. The technology is not going to go away. But I am fine with that. Most of the arguments against the technology is much like the arguments of the anti-gun crowd. This is a tool that can be used for good or evil. We can't just ban it because it could be used improperly.
The right of privacy does not guarantee anonymity or the right to break the law. Some people should be tracked at all times. Some people should be identified as quickly and efficiently as possible. It could be someone on supervised release for criminal reasons or maybe the hunt for someone who has been abducted or finding someone who is lost because of mental issues.
For example, I would much rather have traffic monitored for infractions by an impartial system than traffic stops being used as a ruse for a fishing expedition. I don't find it an inconvenience when my credit union sends me a message about an unusual purchase made on my account. Misidentification should be a once in a lifetime thing. Once an issue is resolved, these systems should be able to be trained to differentiate anyone who has been misidentified wrongly.
The question then becomes how do you enforce it only being used for good?
Actually I think that this is the easy part. These systems take a huge number of people to implement and maintain. The first part is to offer generous bounties to whistleblowers. You instantly have an incentive for reporting misuse. The second part is to create severe penalties for wrongdoing for all people involved along with their immediate coworkers and supervisors. There cannot be just some fall guy to take the blame. This kind of abuse cannot be carried out by just one person. That creates a incentive for everyone to be vigilant and not just look the other way. It also creates a mechanism to prevent retailliation for a whistleblower. It wouldn't take long to stamp out the problem.
All excellent points. I recently made similar arguments here at Collapse Life a couple articles ago regarding digital currency.
As you call it here, “Pandora’s box,” I called it crying oneself asleep each night because 1) people domesticated the wolf 30,000 years ago, then 2) people started eating higher carb diets & smaller, leaner game 20,000 years ago, when we began experimenting with (i.e. evolving under conditions of) forest dwelling.
I agree that facial recognition technology (& digital funny munny) can be used for good or for evil, just like our paper funny munny currently is.
What’s important is that we maintain the modern miracle of Western liberalism (e.g. the US Bill of Rights), aka Western Christian Enlightenment egalitarian idealism. It’s the ‘culture war’ (USA) that determines whether technology will be used for good or evil.
But our species will continue to co-evolve with its technologies (both the tangible & the intangible, philosophical technologies).
Because that’s what our species does. First, there are innovators. Then all other human groups are either incorporated or genocided.
It’s the culture war that matters (i.e. our Western philosophical technology), continuing to believe in the modern miracle of the Western experiment in socioeconomic liberalism.
… And no one cries himself to sleep (anymore) because we domesticated grass seeds (3) 5,000-10,000 years ago and transitioned from low-carb dieters to high-carb dieters. Yet (1-3) each transformed day to day life, making socioeconomics unrecognizable to previous eons of human beings.
Several years ago it was discovered that Amazon showed higher prices when shopping was done from an Apple computer. Given that Apple gear carries a premium price, it’s easy to see why they might do this. I don’t know if this is still the case, as I no longer have a Windows computer. With the advent of AI in everything, facial recognition everywhere, it seems like Orwell called it, but a few decades early.
At the least, run different browsers to check the differences. You can tell the browser to identify itself as a different browser and platform. If you want to get fancy with it, you can even run a different OS in a virtual machine and use that when you want privacy.
If you don't want to go to that trouble, you can use a live linux system on a bootable flash drive and boot up that. They also have little linux computers that look like a thumb drive that just connect to a HDMI port on your TV for instance.
That said, that is old tech. Now, they just locate the physical location of the IP and can gauge the affluence even if you turn off location tracking.
Yes, these things all help mitigate, sandboxing etc. Though I am a big proponent of I2P, sadly if we can't convince people to use a hardened out of the box browser ( such as Brave) getting normies to adopt to i2p is a impossible task. Decentralized networks have so much potential.
The only problem with the alternatives is that most sites are so invested in the API from Google and a few others. They succeeded in the market where Microsoft failed with Internet Explorer.
Now with so many cloud based programs, you are stuck using them for most tasks.
For myself, I just avoid doing anything beyond trivial stuff on a computer. If I want to do any banking, I have to go over to the credit union in person. I don't even have a smart phone. I rarely even carry my *dumb* flip phone unless I am going to need it for something in particular. I just leave it charging and go look at it every few days to see if any one called that I am inclined to call back.
If someone wants to track which YouTube videos I watch, more power to them.
Everyone worried about FR while shopping......after 25 years of swiping their debit/visa/air miles points cards...
The time to worry is over
Most failed
In Europe, these provisions will be illegal under the EU AI Act - https://artificialintelligenceact.eu/article/5/; unfortunately the US is not following the same path when it comes to regulation.
And I was worried about Digital ID and now I won’t need it.
How dastardly, evil & clever the Technocracy is .
Thank you for keeping me informed 🙏
I have an opinion that probably differs from most here.
First of all, Pandora's Box has been opened and there is no going back. The technology is not going to go away. But I am fine with that. Most of the arguments against the technology is much like the arguments of the anti-gun crowd. This is a tool that can be used for good or evil. We can't just ban it because it could be used improperly.
The right of privacy does not guarantee anonymity or the right to break the law. Some people should be tracked at all times. Some people should be identified as quickly and efficiently as possible. It could be someone on supervised release for criminal reasons or maybe the hunt for someone who has been abducted or finding someone who is lost because of mental issues.
For example, I would much rather have traffic monitored for infractions by an impartial system than traffic stops being used as a ruse for a fishing expedition. I don't find it an inconvenience when my credit union sends me a message about an unusual purchase made on my account. Misidentification should be a once in a lifetime thing. Once an issue is resolved, these systems should be able to be trained to differentiate anyone who has been misidentified wrongly.
The question then becomes how do you enforce it only being used for good?
Actually I think that this is the easy part. These systems take a huge number of people to implement and maintain. The first part is to offer generous bounties to whistleblowers. You instantly have an incentive for reporting misuse. The second part is to create severe penalties for wrongdoing for all people involved along with their immediate coworkers and supervisors. There cannot be just some fall guy to take the blame. This kind of abuse cannot be carried out by just one person. That creates a incentive for everyone to be vigilant and not just look the other way. It also creates a mechanism to prevent retailliation for a whistleblower. It wouldn't take long to stamp out the problem.
Piss off 🥾👅
All excellent points. I recently made similar arguments here at Collapse Life a couple articles ago regarding digital currency.
As you call it here, “Pandora’s box,” I called it crying oneself asleep each night because 1) people domesticated the wolf 30,000 years ago, then 2) people started eating higher carb diets & smaller, leaner game 20,000 years ago, when we began experimenting with (i.e. evolving under conditions of) forest dwelling.
I agree that facial recognition technology (& digital funny munny) can be used for good or for evil, just like our paper funny munny currently is.
What’s important is that we maintain the modern miracle of Western liberalism (e.g. the US Bill of Rights), aka Western Christian Enlightenment egalitarian idealism. It’s the ‘culture war’ (USA) that determines whether technology will be used for good or evil.
But our species will continue to co-evolve with its technologies (both the tangible & the intangible, philosophical technologies).
Because that’s what our species does. First, there are innovators. Then all other human groups are either incorporated or genocided.
It’s the culture war that matters (i.e. our Western philosophical technology), continuing to believe in the modern miracle of the Western experiment in socioeconomic liberalism.
… And no one cries himself to sleep (anymore) because we domesticated grass seeds (3) 5,000-10,000 years ago and transitioned from low-carb dieters to high-carb dieters. Yet (1-3) each transformed day to day life, making socioeconomics unrecognizable to previous eons of human beings.
Several years ago it was discovered that Amazon showed higher prices when shopping was done from an Apple computer. Given that Apple gear carries a premium price, it’s easy to see why they might do this. I don’t know if this is still the case, as I no longer have a Windows computer. With the advent of AI in everything, facial recognition everywhere, it seems like Orwell called it, but a few decades early.
I assume you have come to your senses and installed Linux?
At the least, run different browsers to check the differences. You can tell the browser to identify itself as a different browser and platform. If you want to get fancy with it, you can even run a different OS in a virtual machine and use that when you want privacy.
If you don't want to go to that trouble, you can use a live linux system on a bootable flash drive and boot up that. They also have little linux computers that look like a thumb drive that just connect to a HDMI port on your TV for instance.
That said, that is old tech. Now, they just locate the physical location of the IP and can gauge the affluence even if you turn off location tracking.
Yes, these things all help mitigate, sandboxing etc. Though I am a big proponent of I2P, sadly if we can't convince people to use a hardened out of the box browser ( such as Brave) getting normies to adopt to i2p is a impossible task. Decentralized networks have so much potential.
The only problem with the alternatives is that most sites are so invested in the API from Google and a few others. They succeeded in the market where Microsoft failed with Internet Explorer.
Now with so many cloud based programs, you are stuck using them for most tasks.
For myself, I just avoid doing anything beyond trivial stuff on a computer. If I want to do any banking, I have to go over to the credit union in person. I don't even have a smart phone. I rarely even carry my *dumb* flip phone unless I am going to need it for something in particular. I just leave it charging and go look at it every few days to see if any one called that I am inclined to call back.
If someone wants to track which YouTube videos I watch, more power to them.