Just think about the investigators around the world (FBI, DEA etc...) who are combating evil organizations but are not careful with the the information the post online; those people are screwed. Time for a new job.

I'm glad that this one was done in the USA so we have a way to bring more light to these issues.

I suspect (and hope) that clearview AI will not last long here in its present form.

Yikes.

We need a Robin Hood of privacy. Extralegal justice for the common people, for whom official channels are contemptuous.

Some companies like Sift Science got caught not having proper opt-out facilities that are now required by law https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/04/business/secret-consumer-...

Now that the CCPA is in full effect, can't somebody just build a mass opt-out service to get out of Sift, Clearview, etc? Sift etc already have to hire a 3rd party to handle ID verification (yeah it's weird you have to send them your ID to get your own data, which is supposed to define your identity...).. No idea if it would be profitable, but if you've got the ID verification bit solved, then launching an opt-out service might be the way to make your product go viral?

ROFL - they will use your request to add and extract value out of your information. It also clearly, and uniquely identifies individuals who can be considered "trouble makers".

And this kind of database, i imagine, would already exists for the NSA or whatever intelligence agency for China/russia.

So instead of worrying that your biometric data could be captured anywhere and used for anything without your knowledge, you now have to click “I accept” before engaging in any activity with a business or government entity, which then establishes your consent to your biometric data being captured anywhere and used for anything without your knowledge.

Let me guess - neither FB nor YouTube will go after them legally, because its probably waste of money anyways, since their clients did not experience immediate/direct harm?

In general, once the tech to do X exists, then X will find a way to exist.

Instead of crucifying Clearview, it might be better to open a dialogue about regulation in this space. But even that has problems; bitcoin was eventually accepted. Yet ICO regulation shows that it’s worth trying.

The point is, this kind of tech can be helpful. Feynman once cited a quote along the lines of “Science is a key that unlocks the door to heaven, but the same key unlocks the door to hell.” It seems relevant here.

They have supposedly already been used: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strait_of_Juan_de_Fuca_laser_i...

Eugenics?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics

Still, genetic engineering is marching ever-closer. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAhjPd4uNFY

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assortative_mating and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homogamy_(sociology)

Others, like people who are not you? I think your future children fall into that category. How will you get their consent?

As always, the public debate (and witchhunt) is focused on the tool, the symptom, the observation, and never the underlying cause.

How are these technologies being abused, and why are the perpetrators allowed to do so?

The surveillance tech already exists, as a component of personalised advertising, because it makes lots of money. It's all any government needs as well. It's flown under the radar wrt. the masses, because most people have absolutely no comprehension of how that kind of thing can work and will ignore anyone talking about it because it's an SEP.

But facial recognition is something which the masses can recognise, if not understand, and therefore react to as a threat.

Personally I think that as long as we haven't solved the first problem then we should avoid piling more possible problems upon it, so roadblocking facial recog tech is not something I would object to. But it does miss the point by rather a large margin.

I don't believe that it'll be as 'awareness-raising' as some people seem to believe either, for the reason implied above: people only care about the comprehensible threat.

I don't have a lot of hope that in the next 50 years we'll be able to prevent the ubiquity of (perhaps 3D printed and untraceable) drones broadcasting HD video to AI curated repositories that track your identity and every word (and bowel movement), if only for the lulz. Your only hope is that you'll be able to afford a home (and work in an office) with all the good countermeasures.

But as you suggest the usual answer to this is has always been regulation, which is only effective with teeth.

Nobody can stop you learning how to build a RF transmission devices, or conversely a blocker. But the FAA has very particular ideas (US specific) on what you are allowed to do and not in that space, and if you step too far out of bounds you will be shut down.

The trick is to make the penalties both likely and severe enough to outweigh any benefit you'll see. That will shut down most (ab)uses of the technology. Note regulation can include "you cannot do this as an individual or corporate entity, at all".

There are legal/regulatory limits placed on technologies that can

- create radio signals and/or interference

- reproduce some things (e.g. financial instruments)

- produce certain types of substances (e.g. nuclear, but also chemical)

- are primarily used for producing restricted things (e.g. some arms and armament)

- explode particularly well

- etc.

In some cases this will limit your ability to purchase or create them, in some cases just use. For many things you can do them as a corporation, but only if you subject yourself to scrutiny that you are playing by the rules - i.e. you will be audited.

I agree that I'm really concerned about the way the surveillance state is creeping in. But it kind of feels like the cat is out of the bag, and moralizing like this is useless.

Sounds pretty different from a low-cost Magnum PI sitting in his strip mall office.

  Clearview AI is just doing what a detective with an eye for faces and unlimited time is doing.

It pretends that scale doesn't matter, when the reality is that scale and network effects are the most important feature of many of these 'advances'.

Would you have preferred “disingenuous " ?

"The Secretive Company That Might End Privacy as We Know It"

A few hours in the post title was changed to:

"Clearview AI helps law enforcement match photos of people to their online images"

The difference to me was night and day and super sketch. Why was this change made? Is ycombinator invested in Clearview?