After Facebook, Amazon is the other company I wouldn't trust to not do evil. Even if many more shareholders join in on this, I don't see Jess Bezos caring about these things. The Amazon stock won't suffer even if he publicly says he won't listen to such shareholders. On the contrary, the stock may just shoot up.
The larger question on this topic is, "If the big technology companies do not sell the technology to the governments, won't somebody else do?" Of course, the governments would find some domestic or foreign companies to buy such technology from (or even spend money on developing it). I think that's inevitable over the course of time. But such pressure on companies could possibly help shape policy too (added several adjectives to indicate how difficult this would be).
The problem comes down to the engineers and researchers involved.
As an INDUSTRY, we have some very important decisions to make, one of which is, "will we work on this type of system knowing full well what it will be used for?"
Yes, everyone has their price, but the fact remains that the tools are nigh useless without the expertise of the knowledgeable people to integrate and fine tune the final product. If there is enough ethical backlash by we tech people, the progress any government makes can be set back decades.
It can't be stopped at this point most likely, as the data and initial research is out of the bag as it were, but it does"t have to be carried one inch further.
Personally, I won"t touch it. No benefit is worth the risk of this type of system being leveraged against a population. I've fully thought through the security, search and rescue, administrative, etc... applications, and as cold as it may sound, it is not worth it. The invasion of privacy, the chilling effects put on public discourse, the enabling of active population social engineering through ubiquitous surveillance and negation of dissidents is not a legacy worth having anything to do with.
The mass surveillance global market is already huge. Meanwhile, Amazon introduces the very hardware accelerators in the cloud that can make real time tracking of billions of people an affordable reality for any government.
Not only would another company step in to take this market, but Amazon stands to lose a wad of cash if it gives up it's fast mover advantage. Think figures in the tens of billions, maybe more.
A much more accurate title would be "19 Amazon shareholders demand it stop selling facial recognition to governments." They even wrote a sternly worded letter!
A much more accurate title than that would be "Shareholders representing X% of Amazon demand it to stop selling facial recognition". I mean Jeff Bezos and myself are both shareholders, but his stake is worth mentioning.
Activist funds are able to shake things up with a lot less than 19 shareholders, so the count isn't important at all unless it's giant.
Privately delivered to Amazon by the ACLU. Until one of the signatories, who is also a major Amazon shareholder, goes public with their disgruntlement this should merit no further attention.
This seems like it is approaching the problem from the wrong angle. This should be addressed at the government law level.
The problem is where do you draw the line? Any technology can be used for evil. Do you next ask companies that sell cameras not to sell to the government? Then ban computers?
Laws that concern themselves with targeting and surveilling people encompass any technology.
Facial recognition is not a hard problem and this is just a matter of convenience. Government can just go around and implement it themselves if nobody provides it to them. At least through Amazon there is some level of non-government control to shut it off if they end up doing anything nefarious.
I agree with this in principle, but in the US the intelligence/police don't really seem to be accountable to the people.
They regularly conduct surveillance on huge scales and no one even knows about it until we get lucky with a leak like Snowden. Who knows how many dozens of other secrets like that they still have. The CIA/FBI etc. have a history of doing this kind of thing for decades, at least since WW2. Then it gets declassified 50 years later when no one cares.
Surveillance is a case where its good for the government, but bad for the people the government is meant to represent. Bottom line is they will never police themselves on this issue. So going after the people making it like Amazon may be a better idea.
There's growing number of investors who are looking also at the non-financial side of business (social responsibility, environmental issues etc). Companies who ignore these things exclude themselves from the portfolios of these investors.
Some banks and investors are saying the don't want to be involved with certain types of legitimate activities. Here's one example: "Deutsche Bank avoids entering into, or continuing, any kind of business relationship with entities with clear, direct links to the following types of Controversial Weapons business [...]" [1]
I'm not saying face recognition is same thing as antipersonnel mines, but things can change over the years, especially under pressure from public.
I get that people are upset with government abuses (I am too!), but stepping back for a minute, I think it is much more concerning that we’re building a world where a few tech companies get to decide what computing may or may not be used for.
The fact that even the government is hitting headwinds gives me an extremely negative outlook for where the cloud is headed with respect for individual rights.
While I applaud this effort, this will not stop the use of the technology. It will simply steer them to another provider or a custom implementation (on top of AWS if they so choose to) of this now well-understood technology.
I think this kind of “don’t sell technology x to governments” is kind of misguided for the following reasons.
1) You are saying that you are from be with private entities having access to this technology, but not public entities? Private individuals and companies should be able to use facial recognition, but not governments? Throughout history, governments have typically been the first ones to acquire tech. Of note is that the major Airplane companies (Boeing and Airbus) have very large military units.
2) It is likely to be ineffective. All you need is a third company that serves as the bridge that buys facial recognition from Amazon and resells to the government.
3) International relationships really are a competition. I am sure Chinese AI companies are working hand in glove with the government to make sure their government is able to deploy the latest AI tech. If AI is the gamechanger people say it is, you have given an incredible leg up to China vs the West.
4) If employees at companies keep on pushing this anti-government, anti-military thing with AI, there is a good chance that it will get reclassified as a sensitive technology and heavily regulated.
> 3) International relationships really are a competition. I am sure Chinese AI companies are working hand in glove with the government to make sure their government is able to deploy the latest AI tech. If AI is the gamechanger people say it is, you have given an incredible leg up to China vs the West.
I think this is a really important point, here.
I think the paranoid line of thinking is helpful in this instance:
Who benefits from the US government not having access to AI technologies?
- The argument on the face of it seems to be that we, the people of this world and in the US, benefit thanks to keeping these tools out of our government's hands
- The unmentioned argument is benefits go to China, Russia, and other countries whose tech sectors cooperate with the government
I am not suggesting that the article was written by China or Russia to hurt our government - that certainly sounds like "conspiracy theory"; however, I am suggesting that it is a valid concern that the US as a country may want to "keep up".
> 4) If employees at companies keep on pushing this anti-government, anti-military thing with AI, there is a good chance that it will get reclassified as a sensitive technology and heavily regulated.
The US Government will build/spur/prompt the next Googles and Amazons by pouring hundreds of millions of dollars in venture capital into new companies, targeting whatever tech they want to see exist. They had a large role to play in making just about every major tech company in the US possible. They'll simply keep on with it. Google, Amazon, etc will have the US Government as an aggressive direct competitor as they hand the latest DARPA tech and In-Q-Tel funding to the next Googles. It won't get reclassified and heavily regulated, the next company will jump at the opportunity to ride the US Government money spigot to billions in riches.
A giant corporation might be evil, but where I live the government pretty much has a mandate to systematically erode the last 200 years of advancement in civil rights.
The sooner facial recognition data is integrated en masse, this mandate will be exponentially easier to carry out.
A corporation aiding the government in this process is essentially an extension of Corpgov and is not to be trusted with facial recognition tech anymore than the increasingly authoritarian government with whom they share a bed.
It would be far better if efforts were spent on recognizing and electing qualified and capable people to run the government as wanted instead of this silly run-around with commercial companies.
... empowered to do things we lock up, tase, beat, sick dogs on, and/or kill other people for doing. Kind of an important distinction to make.
If you have reason to think exhorting your peer-proles to 'pick qualified and capable people' will lead to better outcomes now than it has in the past, certainly, please continue. Some of us, however, don't see that happening and prefer to explore other approaches, even if you happen to find our pessimism 'silly'.
I understand this is a practical reaction to what most of us would agree is an egregious use of the tech, but wouldn't it make more sense to stop the problem at its root? I'm talking about surveillance. Why aren't we complaining about camera companies selling surveillance equipment?
The gov't already has the data and Amazon's APIs just make this a little bit easier. But they can go direct to EC2 and get a couple hundred GPU-optimized instances and do it themselves.
I don't think it matters. Third parties are going to be in this space anyway (Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and the foreign defense contractors) so it doesn't make a lot of sense to shut off a profitable segment.
I was just thinking how much I would like an facial recognition API for my home security system. That way I can give someone's name to the police to make it easier to track someone down.
Me, I've been thinking about ALRs. If this stuff is going to be available, I think everyone should have it. So this is one of those projects I am just never going to get around to, but someone else, please do it - it shouldn't be that tough to build a cheap Raspberry-Pi-ish automatic plate reader anyone can point out their window to capture every plate going by. With a network of them, everyone can know this stuff, all the time, for free.
I find that to be a frightening outcome, but I think it is a less frightening one than only certain people having access. We have to learn how to live with this tech; far better to not allow it to be a tool of selective control while we're adapting. And it can be a more honest resource - police and other official vehicles' movements will be visible to those paying for those cars, whereas anything official will have official holes.
This is interesting. The marketing has certainly been disturbing, reinforcing the worst uses for this sort of tech and overstating its usefulness for those cases. But ... unlike Google's contract work with the Defense Department, I'm not sure Amazon could legally get away with refusing to sell an on-demand product to a government agency. This service is nowhere close to the worst thing that's running on Amazon's servers on behalf of governments. The software exists and could easily be set up to run directly by governments or their contractors on Amazon's infrastructure (I guarantee that is already going on far more extensively than Amazon's own specific service will ever grow to). Ditto for GCP and Azure and everything else.
I sympathize with these investors, truly, but the only solution here would be to get out of the cloud computing business altogether.
I work in a department at Microsoft that does a lot of Machine Learning and AI work for MS customers. I'm proud that our organization regularly turns down opportunities because of ethical considerations. We have a concrete set of ethical standards, and if a project makes it past that review and into your hands, and you still feel uncomfortable, you are strongly encouraged to flag it for second review in committee. The whole system is called AETHER, for your googling - er, Binging - pleasure.
The ground rule that would apply here is, we don't do anything that makes choices about restricting or injuring humans. So no perp detection systems, no autonomous weapons of any kind... Not even a camera to disable the ignition if you're detected as drunk.
This is a perfect example of social governance: stockholders feeling empowered to control how a company operates. We need to see more of this type of governance. Ultimately, shareholders should just vote with their dollars. Sell a stock you dont like or dont invest in the first place.
I agree with you, but I think we disagree. What I mean is that this article specifies 19 share holders, without mentioning their share. It's a very safe bet to assume that it's not even a significant fraction of a percent. In other words, in 'voting with their dollar' these individuals would have a literally unnoticeable impact.
When a substantial chunk of society feels something ought be changed, then I certainly agree they have the right to make such change happen. But we live in a time where headlines, such as this, are constantly driven by irrelevantly small numbers. For instance traditional fear mongering was stuff along the lines of 'video games are driving kids to kill.' What that really translates to is 'one mentally unstable kid who happened to play a lot of video games killed another kid, primarily because he was mentally unstable'.
The conflation between the views/actions of society and the views/action of the individual is counterproductive. If you polled people, proportional to share of amazon, what percent would agree with the statement 'I demand Amazon stop selling facial recognition to governments'? On that we can only speculate, but I imagine it would probably be quite small.
I'm starting to think we have the need of something like the ICAN for facial recognition (FR), promoting the regulation of FR worldwide. There a little valid systems where FR is truly helpful. Most of todays applications are around things like "access control" and "tag your friends here", i.e. banalities which are either unnecessary or can be solved with simpler tech.
On the other hand the risks are incredible, FR in combination with AR systems could completely eradicate privacy. Autocratic governments could use it for a new levels of surveillance. Military usage could perfect the use of autonomous weapons etc.
It's just not worth it and should be internationally outlawed. Just like A-bombs and chemical warfare.
Preventing facial recognition techniques from spreading would seemingly require some attempt at keeping them secret. But aren't AI techniques often openly published in scientific papers? And it seems likely that there is also open source software available?
It's weird that we have so many people directing their protests towards the tech companies, and not the government itself. The whole premise of capitalism is that profit-motivated-corporations will inevitably succumb to evil temptations. That it's the government's job to regulate corporations, and police their moral behavior.
Instead, we have the complete opposite. Americans expect the government/military to engage in morally unacceptable behavior, and are looking to corporations to "enforce" morality instead, by denying the government specific services.
Not that there is anything wrong with tech companies and workers doing their part. But when we see corporations as the best catalyst for pro-social outcomes, and not the government itself, there's something very wrong with our political system.
[+] [-] newscracker|7 years ago|reply
The larger question on this topic is, "If the big technology companies do not sell the technology to the governments, won't somebody else do?" Of course, the governments would find some domestic or foreign companies to buy such technology from (or even spend money on developing it). I think that's inevitable over the course of time. But such pressure on companies could possibly help shape policy too (added several adjectives to indicate how difficult this would be).
[+] [-] salawat|7 years ago|reply
As an INDUSTRY, we have some very important decisions to make, one of which is, "will we work on this type of system knowing full well what it will be used for?"
Yes, everyone has their price, but the fact remains that the tools are nigh useless without the expertise of the knowledgeable people to integrate and fine tune the final product. If there is enough ethical backlash by we tech people, the progress any government makes can be set back decades.
It can't be stopped at this point most likely, as the data and initial research is out of the bag as it were, but it does"t have to be carried one inch further.
Personally, I won"t touch it. No benefit is worth the risk of this type of system being leveraged against a population. I've fully thought through the security, search and rescue, administrative, etc... applications, and as cold as it may sound, it is not worth it. The invasion of privacy, the chilling effects put on public discourse, the enabling of active population social engineering through ubiquitous surveillance and negation of dissidents is not a legacy worth having anything to do with.
[+] [-] cornholio|7 years ago|reply
Not only would another company step in to take this market, but Amazon stands to lose a wad of cash if it gives up it's fast mover advantage. Think figures in the tens of billions, maybe more.
Not gonna happen.
[+] [-] hn_throwaway_99|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jonknee|7 years ago|reply
Activist funds are able to shake things up with a lot less than 19 shareholders, so the count isn't important at all unless it's giant.
[+] [-] JumpCrisscross|7 years ago|reply
Privately delivered to Amazon by the ACLU. Until one of the signatories, who is also a major Amazon shareholder, goes public with their disgruntlement this should merit no further attention.
[+] [-] analognoise|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bcheung|7 years ago|reply
The problem is where do you draw the line? Any technology can be used for evil. Do you next ask companies that sell cameras not to sell to the government? Then ban computers?
Laws that concern themselves with targeting and surveilling people encompass any technology.
Facial recognition is not a hard problem and this is just a matter of convenience. Government can just go around and implement it themselves if nobody provides it to them. At least through Amazon there is some level of non-government control to shut it off if they end up doing anything nefarious.
[+] [-] zaptheimpaler|7 years ago|reply
They regularly conduct surveillance on huge scales and no one even knows about it until we get lucky with a leak like Snowden. Who knows how many dozens of other secrets like that they still have. The CIA/FBI etc. have a history of doing this kind of thing for decades, at least since WW2. Then it gets declassified 50 years later when no one cares.
Surveillance is a case where its good for the government, but bad for the people the government is meant to represent. Bottom line is they will never police themselves on this issue. So going after the people making it like Amazon may be a better idea.
[+] [-] _rpd|7 years ago|reply
Low quality facial recognition is easy. High quality facial recognition is hard.
[+] [-] jpalomaki|7 years ago|reply
Some banks and investors are saying the don't want to be involved with certain types of legitimate activities. Here's one example: "Deutsche Bank avoids entering into, or continuing, any kind of business relationship with entities with clear, direct links to the following types of Controversial Weapons business [...]" [1]
I'm not saying face recognition is same thing as antipersonnel mines, but things can change over the years, especially under pressure from public.
[1] https://www.db.com/newsroom_news/2018/deutsche-bank-upgrades...
[+] [-] remarkEon|7 years ago|reply
Sounds good to me. It seems very unwise to run your business based whatever pet project "socially conscious" investors are supporting this week.
[+] [-] hedora|7 years ago|reply
The fact that even the government is hitting headwinds gives me an extremely negative outlook for where the cloud is headed with respect for individual rights.
[+] [-] istvanp|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] FartyMcFarter|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|7 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] RcouF1uZ4gsC|7 years ago|reply
1) You are saying that you are from be with private entities having access to this technology, but not public entities? Private individuals and companies should be able to use facial recognition, but not governments? Throughout history, governments have typically been the first ones to acquire tech. Of note is that the major Airplane companies (Boeing and Airbus) have very large military units.
2) It is likely to be ineffective. All you need is a third company that serves as the bridge that buys facial recognition from Amazon and resells to the government.
3) International relationships really are a competition. I am sure Chinese AI companies are working hand in glove with the government to make sure their government is able to deploy the latest AI tech. If AI is the gamechanger people say it is, you have given an incredible leg up to China vs the West.
4) If employees at companies keep on pushing this anti-government, anti-military thing with AI, there is a good chance that it will get reclassified as a sensitive technology and heavily regulated.
[+] [-] merlincorey|7 years ago|reply
I think this is a really important point, here.
I think the paranoid line of thinking is helpful in this instance:
Who benefits from the US government not having access to AI technologies?
- The argument on the face of it seems to be that we, the people of this world and in the US, benefit thanks to keeping these tools out of our government's hands
- The unmentioned argument is benefits go to China, Russia, and other countries whose tech sectors cooperate with the government
I am not suggesting that the article was written by China or Russia to hurt our government - that certainly sounds like "conspiracy theory"; however, I am suggesting that it is a valid concern that the US as a country may want to "keep up".
[+] [-] adventured|7 years ago|reply
The US Government will build/spur/prompt the next Googles and Amazons by pouring hundreds of millions of dollars in venture capital into new companies, targeting whatever tech they want to see exist. They had a large role to play in making just about every major tech company in the US possible. They'll simply keep on with it. Google, Amazon, etc will have the US Government as an aggressive direct competitor as they hand the latest DARPA tech and In-Q-Tel funding to the next Googles. It won't get reclassified and heavily regulated, the next company will jump at the opportunity to ride the US Government money spigot to billions in riches.
[+] [-] kakarot|7 years ago|reply
The sooner facial recognition data is integrated en masse, this mandate will be exponentially easier to carry out.
A corporation aiding the government in this process is essentially an extension of Corpgov and is not to be trusted with facial recognition tech anymore than the increasingly authoritarian government with whom they share a bed.
[+] [-] manigandham|7 years ago|reply
It would be far better if efforts were spent on recognizing and electing qualified and capable people to run the government as wanted instead of this silly run-around with commercial companies.
[+] [-] _jal|7 years ago|reply
... empowered to do things we lock up, tase, beat, sick dogs on, and/or kill other people for doing. Kind of an important distinction to make.
If you have reason to think exhorting your peer-proles to 'pick qualified and capable people' will lead to better outcomes now than it has in the past, certainly, please continue. Some of us, however, don't see that happening and prefer to explore other approaches, even if you happen to find our pessimism 'silly'.
[+] [-] JumpCrisscross|7 years ago|reply
Our current generation of technologists is not good at this. For whatever reason, the political turf is ceded. Something is better than nothing.
[+] [-] turdnagel|7 years ago|reply
The gov't already has the data and Amazon's APIs just make this a little bit easier. But they can go direct to EC2 and get a couple hundred GPU-optimized instances and do it themselves.
[+] [-] bb88|7 years ago|reply
I was just thinking how much I would like an facial recognition API for my home security system. That way I can give someone's name to the police to make it easier to track someone down.
[+] [-] _jal|7 years ago|reply
I find that to be a frightening outcome, but I think it is a less frightening one than only certain people having access. We have to learn how to live with this tech; far better to not allow it to be a tool of selective control while we're adapting. And it can be a more honest resource - police and other official vehicles' movements will be visible to those paying for those cars, whereas anything official will have official holes.
[+] [-] skywhopper|7 years ago|reply
I sympathize with these investors, truly, but the only solution here would be to get out of the cloud computing business altogether.
[+] [-] ohthehugemanate|7 years ago|reply
The ground rule that would apply here is, we don't do anything that makes choices about restricting or injuring humans. So no perp detection systems, no autonomous weapons of any kind... Not even a camera to disable the ignition if you're detected as drunk.
[+] [-] anonu|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] TangoTrotFox|7 years ago|reply
When a substantial chunk of society feels something ought be changed, then I certainly agree they have the right to make such change happen. But we live in a time where headlines, such as this, are constantly driven by irrelevantly small numbers. For instance traditional fear mongering was stuff along the lines of 'video games are driving kids to kill.' What that really translates to is 'one mentally unstable kid who happened to play a lot of video games killed another kid, primarily because he was mentally unstable'.
The conflation between the views/actions of society and the views/action of the individual is counterproductive. If you polled people, proportional to share of amazon, what percent would agree with the statement 'I demand Amazon stop selling facial recognition to governments'? On that we can only speculate, but I imagine it would probably be quite small.
[+] [-] derEitel|7 years ago|reply
On the other hand the risks are incredible, FR in combination with AR systems could completely eradicate privacy. Autocratic governments could use it for a new levels of surveillance. Military usage could perfect the use of autonomous weapons etc.
It's just not worth it and should be internationally outlawed. Just like A-bombs and chemical warfare.
[+] [-] skybrian|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] FooHentai|7 years ago|reply
- Microsoft catching heat for their deal to allow ICE to use their capabilities
- Amazon catching heat for their deal to allow government to use facial recognition
- A photo of Satya Nadella, Jeff Bezos and Trump sitting next to each other and shaking hands
What's the play here?
[+] [-] TangoTrotFox|7 years ago|reply
- Companies making money by developing and licensing software.
- Media making money by creating sensationalistic headlines.
[+] [-] r00fus|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] PenguinCoder|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] amelius|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] m3kw9|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] whack|7 years ago|reply
Instead, we have the complete opposite. Americans expect the government/military to engage in morally unacceptable behavior, and are looking to corporations to "enforce" morality instead, by denying the government specific services.
Not that there is anything wrong with tech companies and workers doing their part. But when we see corporations as the best catalyst for pro-social outcomes, and not the government itself, there's something very wrong with our political system.
[+] [-] bcheung|7 years ago|reply