Clearview AI Wants To Sell Its Facial Recognition To Authoritarian Regimes (buzzfeednews.com) 38
popcornfan679 shares a report from Buzzfeed:
Clearview has been touting a "rapid international expansion" to prospective clients using a map that highlights how it either has expanded, or plans to expand, to at least 22 more countries, some of which have committed human rights abuses. The document, part of a presentation given to the North Miami Beach Police Department in November 2019, includes the United Arab Emirates, a country historically hostile to political dissidents, and Qatar and Singapore, the penal codes of which criminalize homosexuality...
Albert Fox Cahn, a fellow at New York University and the executive director of the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project, told BuzzFeed News that he was disturbed by the possibility that Clearview may be taking its technology abroad. "It's deeply alarming that they would sell this technology in countries with such a terrible human rights track record, enabling potentially authoritarian behavior by other nations," he said.
Clearview's CEO wouldn't confirm to Buzzfeed whether they were already working in those countries, or hoped to expand into them later, but he did claim that "Many countries from around the world have expressed interest in Clearview."
But Buzzfeed has also accused Clearview of misrepresenting its work with law enforcement, for example "by falsely claiming a role in the arrest of a terrorism suspect... [I]n at least two cases, BuzzFeed News found that the company suggested it was working with a police department simply because it had submitted a lead to a tip line."
Albert Fox Cahn, a fellow at New York University and the executive director of the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project, told BuzzFeed News that he was disturbed by the possibility that Clearview may be taking its technology abroad. "It's deeply alarming that they would sell this technology in countries with such a terrible human rights track record, enabling potentially authoritarian behavior by other nations," he said.
Clearview's CEO wouldn't confirm to Buzzfeed whether they were already working in those countries, or hoped to expand into them later, but he did claim that "Many countries from around the world have expressed interest in Clearview."
But Buzzfeed has also accused Clearview of misrepresenting its work with law enforcement, for example "by falsely claiming a role in the arrest of a terrorism suspect... [I]n at least two cases, BuzzFeed News found that the company suggested it was working with a police department simply because it had submitted a lead to a tip line."
Evilworld (Score:3)
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Got any info about WTC7? I heard it was a false flag insurance scam.
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Got any info about WTC7? I heard it was a false flag insurance scam.
911 leads right to the false financial crisis. let's not forget that, shall we.
Heh (Score:2)
I was literally about to say "sometime around 2001 ..."
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I know what you mean. Before this everyone was so nice to each other. What happened?
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I know what you mean. Before this everyone was so nice to each other. What happened?
People forgot about the Nazis. Or, in some cases took them as a guideline.
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Texts by Goebbels are still used to teach marketing. And some of his ideas are in high demand today. For example, the concept of the "Big Lie" is alive and well in politics like never before, also because the average voter cannot even do basic fact-checking.
Why bother being virtuous? (Score:2)
When did we wake up in Evilworld?
Don't we have a lot of articles about engineers going on strike or having walk-out days to force employers to be less evil?
Don't we expect large companies to curate evil content on their sites?
Don't we have articles encouraging people to boycott this or that company because of their political views? Or because they use child labor in China? Or excessively pollute the environment?
Where are these virtuous people when it comes to these obviously non-virtuous practices?
Why bother being virtuous by not helping e
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So you've decided to become part of the problem rather than part of the only slightly effective solution, congratulations.
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A long time ago. People continue to be stupid and easily manipulated by fear. And in any democracy, the root of all evil is the voter.
Investment scam (Score:2)
Pretty sure cleaeview.ai is an investment scam.
They lack the algorithm and backend that could actually distinct between 3 billion faces. I seriouslu doubt that they even mined 3 billion faces.
However its perfect for investment scamming to just claim it. Then theres a window to take in money. And if they get banned thats perfect for the execs of the company who pump the money right out as wages.
It reminds me a lot about the fake bomb detectors.
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Capitalism. (Score:1)
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It is about maximizing return on your investment. It isn't about how.
So it's better to be a landlord in hell than a tenant in heaven? Maximizing short term return is just business speak for take the money and run. It's nothing more than justifying selfish, greedy short sighted behavior, when the bills come due, these selfish greedy rich people won't look so smart. Meanwhile, they leave everyone else the shit they create. If that's good business, we have much different definitions of the word "good". No wonder things are so bad.
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And, the landlords get kicked out anyway, for better management.
Thomas 35, and elsewhere. "Taking captivity captive", nice turn of phrase.
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Capitalism raised the standard of living of the world from continuously on the edge of starvation for every single human being, to the point that the biggest problem with the poor is morbid obesity.
Re:Capitalism. (Score:5, Insightful)
Its where people pooled resources, worked together, helped each other for the benefit for all. Thats how villages, and towns started
Socialism is used to pay for the Military, Police, Prisons, etc, etc
Socialism is used to subsidise farming, almost 40% of US farms get tax payer subsidies.
Socialism had a lot to do with the Billion dollar offers to Amazon for their next HQ, you know the company that paid just over 1% tax on their $12 Billion profit.
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In particular the military in the USA is a gross over spend.
The Billions spent on agricultural subsidies ( about 40% of "farmers")
etc
I'm confused (Score:2, Flamebait)
But they already do. It's called the USA.
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The US has a history of selling weapons to all sorts of countries...like Saudi Arabia, the country where the majority of the 911 terrorists actually came from.
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Wow! Time for the Feds to close them down as a threat to national security.
Are you kidding ? hahaha, best joke ever. I am sure some agencies in the Fed Gov were the first customers to line up
Also I am sure the "AI" has built in routines to exclude pictures of family members of the super rich and high level politicians
I can see it now: "We have a pic of Senator Blowhard's 18 year old granddaughter doing ________, hurry up delete it before we get flooded with regulators"
It's naive to think this wasn't inevitable (Score:5, Insightful)
The potentials for financial returns or people control is too high not to do it.
Clearview AI got there first, but there was no way this wasn't going to happen. If not Clearview AI it would have been Palantir, DOD/NSA, FB, Google or a Chinese company.
Re:International Companies should/must NOT be SJWs (Score:4, Interesting)
How many of the images in their database are associated with a related modeling release? My guess is only a few.
They have violated a number of state laws.
Not Public Domain (Score:4, Insightful)
However are the contents living on a privately owned/operated server part of public space? It's more akin to walking into a store where private property rules apply.
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Isn't everything automatically copyrighted with a copyright that lasts 70+ years? Perhaps they're scraping old silent movies.
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Just because you can access it doesn't mean it isn't copyrighted. I can download Linux, but it's not in the public domain - it's a copyrighted work, just available with some generous terms.
Same goes with any photos I take and post online - by default it's copyrighted, but by posting it
Genie and bottle (Score:2)
You should not only post your own picture on the Internet, you should also make sure your friends and coworkers don't do it either. Neither the local newspapers covering the cafe you were visiting that day, nor random stranger taking a photo in a tourist destination. By the way, you need to make sure your parents had not posted your cute pics before you began talking in the first place.
Basically several photos, and one single tag from a friend (which could be from a hacked "private" copy), and the genie is
Money talks (Score:1)
Pretty simple, they're a bunch money grabbing, scuzzbags with less moral fibre than the cack you'd find at the bottom of the crappiest pond in the dankest swamp on earth. I suppose that Clearview stand to make a ton of money out of this, their investors have fewer scruples than those that run the company, and thus those investors want their payout from the plans that Clearview promised when they took the investor's money. Pretty much the same sort of model used by companies that make torture devices for sal
Warfare against corporations. (Score:3)
If we can invade some foreign country, because their leaders are a threat,
then why can't we treat corporations the same, when they behave the same.
How is this any different than a terror group or state-sponsored evil organization?
Rush those motherfuckers, and bring them to an international war tribunal. (Gotta rember that WE are supposed to uphold morals and human rights. Especially if the enemy douesn't. So no harming them! Just good laws or international rules.)
ITAR (Score:2)
Why aren't these AI facial recognition systems controlled for export under ITAR? They clearly can "provide aid... to our enemies."