Cynical take: I'm pretty sure we've all agreed to ToSes that has allowed our faces to end up online. Clearview AI is just doing what a detective with an eye for faces and unlimited time is doing.

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.

An eye for faces, unlimited time, ungodly computing power, and the ability to scrape and remember every face posted publicly online.

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.

This has always been a bullshit argument for this type automation, whether it be facial recognition, license plate readers, recording phone conversations, whatever.

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'.

Could you critique it without calling it a "bullshit argument"?

By "bullshit argument" I mean specifically that this argument is not presented in good faith. Rather it is used to obfuscate or avoid engaging with the issues at hand. At least, that is how it comes from corporate entities etc. From individuals I expect it is more a category error.

Would you have preferred “disingenuous " ?