[HN Gopher] Clearview AI being used to identify Capitol rioters
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Clearview AI being used to identify Capitol rioters
Author : nonprofiteer
Score : 54 points
Date : 2021-01-09 19:21 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nytimes.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nytimes.com)
| Cactus2018 wrote:
| > He spent 10 days in jail after facial recognition led to arrest
| of the wrong man (nj.com)
|
| >258 points 12 days ago 174 comments
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25562321
|
| ...
|
| > I got my file from Clearview AI (onezero.medium.com)
|
| > 811 points 9 months ago 224 comments
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22681207
| ondrek wrote:
| It seems that face recognition could be as dangerous as country
| laws are. China's social credit system is a strong mirror to its
| government. The Black Mirror scenario with all those people
| scared to even talk publicly could (if once real) be strongly
| country specific, if we get to the point, where life drastically
| depend on ethics of technology laws.
| mmmBacon wrote:
| I think we already have a system in the West where people are
| afraid to speak openly; it's referred to as cancel culture but
| exists elsewhere. The difference is that it's not a formal
| government system but more of a mob social justice system.
| akhilcacharya wrote:
| Complaining about "cancel culture" with regard to a mob that
| literally tried to cancel the votes of 81 million people is
| hilariously missing the point.
| jackson1442 wrote:
| In reality, cancel culture is just the free market at work
| and has always felt, to me, like a narrative peddled by the
| powerful to allow themselves to not be held accountable for
| their actions.
|
| If I don't want to buy a Musk-mobile because I don't agree
| with Musk on issues like racism[0] or don't like how he
| treats his employees[1], I am allowed to act on it. I am also
| allowed to share these thoughts with people on appropriate
| platforms, like I'm doing here.
|
| I can understand the frustration coming from people digging
| up problematic tweets from 4 years ago, but this whole idea
| that "the internet forgets nothing" isn't new. I learned it
| in grade school. If you want to post racist/sexist/homophobic
| things on your public Twitter, so be it, but don't be
| surprised when someone finds it. There's also a delete
| button.
|
| [0] https://www.theverge.com/2018/11/30/18119832/tesla-elon-
| musk...
|
| [1] https://www.ibtimes.com/elon-musk-hot-water-after-tesla-
| empl...
| inglor_cz wrote:
| "If you want to post racist/sexist/homophobic things on
| your public Twitter, so be it, but don't be surprised when
| someone finds it."
|
| So, what is going to be the kiss of death in 2050? Do you
| know in advance? How many of your contemporary comments are
| going to run afoul of the standard of 2050 and will you
| remember to delete them all, including from Internet
| archive/wayback sites, in 2049?
|
| Remember, a senior manager at Boeing was forced to step
| down 33 years after he wrote an offending article. The
| article was published before WWW even existed.
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/08/business/boeing-
| resignati...
| fpgaminer wrote:
| Comparing cancel culture to China's social credit system is
| ... not a great choice, in my opinion.
|
| Regardless, I've had this theory about cancel culture. I
| don't necessarily agree with cancel culture, for the
| aforementioned problem of it being mob social justice. But it
| seems to me like it has arisen out of a failure by the real
| justice system. Issues like sexism in particular, which
| affect half of the population, have been ignored and
| marginalized. It took how long for Bill Cosby's heinous
| crimes to finally be prosecuted? More over, how likely would
| it have been for his crimes to yet again have been swept
| under the rug had cancel culture not fostered an environment
| where the victims felt comfortable coming forward?
|
| The very topic we're discussing, the terrorist attack on our
| Capitol, is another example of racist failures of our police
| force.
|
| So is it really any surprise that society has collectively
| taken matters into their owns hands?
|
| Again, I don't _agree_ with the idea that society at large
| should pass their own judgements. I'd rather the courts do
| that. But they haven't been. And aren't. And we just suffered
| through one of the worst years on record of blatant police
| abuse and court inaction.
|
| If we want to get rid of cancel culture I think we need to
| fix our policing and justice system to the extent that
| society feels they don't need to take up the mantel of
| justice themselves.
|
| In other words, I don't see value in deriding cancel culture.
| If one feels that cancel culture is wrong, my belief is that
| one should be calling for action to repair the _cause_ of
| cancel culture, not the symptoms. And that cause is a
| prejudiced justice system.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| "So is it really any surprise that society has collectively
| taken matters into their owns hands?"
|
| It is not the society. The virtual mobs that hunt people
| online, even though looking massive (1:N is scary even for
| N==100), are absolutely tiny when compared to the society
| as a whole.
|
| And as for the reasons, every mob in history, including the
| ones that did absolutely horrible things (such as pogroms),
| had some reasoning as to why their activity is virtuous and
| noble. And putative inefficiency or corruption of the legal
| system was one of them. Check up on history of lynching -
| that was done because the legal system was perceived to be
| "soft".
| bllguo wrote:
| "not a great choice"? Why? Because it makes us
| uncomfortable? I think this is an interesting comparison
| that people are too willing to gloss over.
| Nuzzerino wrote:
| > Regardless, I've had this theory about cancel culture. I
| don't necessarily agree with cancel culture, for the
| aforementioned problem of it being mob social justice. But
| it seems to me like it has arisen out of a failure by the
| real justice system.
|
| > In other words, I don't see value in deriding cancel
| culture.
|
| This is apologism, and starting such an argument with "I
| don't agree with this but..." is just a way to trick a few
| more people into taking your ideas seriously enough to read
| to the end of the paragraph.
|
| And terrorists, really? You could use your same EXACT
| logic, in fact even more justifiably, as a defense for what
| happened at the U.S. Capital.
| fapjacks wrote:
| Cancel culture exists because it is 100% cost-free to
| shitpost on Twitter when people feel like their petty
| political issues with some person or company are in
| conflict with their own personal value judgments. But this
| isn't an issue with the courts _at all_.
| jonathanlb wrote:
| "Cancel culture" is also not new. Indigenous societies were
| "canceled" by Spanish missionaries and Indian schools, gay
| and trans people have been "canceled" by bigots, political
| activists "canceled" by COINTELPRO, and communist
| sympathizers canceled by Joe McCarthy.
|
| So, "cancel culture" been a matter of fact, at least in the
| US, for quite some time now. It's just given a scary name
| when those who have been "canceled" in the past are doing the
| "canceling".
| eplanit wrote:
| True, but what's frightening now is that the mob/SJWs are
| aligned (mostly) with the new administration, whose party has
| swept up all power in the government.
| akhilcacharya wrote:
| "Frightening?" No, what's frightening is the armed
| insurrection that happened last Wednesday.
| agora_rising wrote:
| You are a conspiracy theorist.
|
| You are making things worse. I'm pleading with people
| like you to stop doing this before you make things worse.
|
| Flagging this doesn't change the truth of what I've
| posted. Please stop what you're doing
| ThrowawayR2 wrote:
| I'm not sure how one would come to that conclusion. Biden
| is regarded as a centrist, e.g.
| https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/19/us/politics/biden-
| cabinet... or
| https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2020-08-12/harris-
| bid... , so there's no love lost between his administration
| and the progressives. They might get a few things they want
| but Biden and the mainstream Democrats are probably going
| to keep their distance for the most part.
| remarkEon wrote:
| Joe Biden is 78. He's not firing on all cylinders
| anymore. He leads a party that has attempted,
| haphazardly, to deal with a growing and increasingly
| powerful left wing cultural phenomenon that seeks to use
| the infrastructure of government to change how society
| operates. You may be right, but it's just a bet that the
| mainstream democrats manage to put a lid on these more
| extreme elements.
| heyoni wrote:
| No one swept up all of the power. It's insane to say that
| just because democrats are in control. There's an entire
| spectrum of opinions and differences within the party that
| is being set aside in order to fight for some common
| beliefs...like ending the war on drugs, the war on the
| female reproductive system, and the war on education.
|
| There's a baseline among progressives which, once reached,
| will create entirely new divisions, trust me.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > whose party has swept up all power in the government.
|
| Did most of the federal judiciary die or resign? Was the
| Constitution amended to remove supermajority to
| requirements for certain actions?
| wilburCamel00 wrote:
| I have a hard time taking the so-called "right" seriously about
| free and fair elections after 8 years of obstructing Obama.
|
| Effectively marginalizing the other side with their media
| platforms, and political agents in the form of rich Republicans,
| only to suddenly screech about the same happening to them?
|
| Indeed, as a political party, Republicans have undermined both
| sides voters. I have yet to see factories growing out of the
| ground in Ohio after Trumps promises.
|
| I'm unaligned politically, only voted for Obama in '08 for the
| racial symbolism (representation matters).
|
| They show up in Portland, uninvited, pointing guns. They showed
| up in Kenosha uninvited shooting people.
|
| Why not align with the side that otherwise has largely spray
| painted buildings and marched for representation?
|
| Human biology will react in kind; refuse to compromise, put boots
| on necks figuratively speaking, do not be surprised and angry
| when that's how you are treated in return.
|
| There's a parallel here to the story recently about securities
| fraud. Investors suing a company means the company burns cash
| that undermines investors.
|
| Politicians undermining and not compromising with the other side
| is undermining the whole of their own country.
| fat_pikachu wrote:
| > I have a hard time taking the so-called "right" seriously
| about free and fair elections after 8 years of obstructing
| Obama.
|
| Obstruction wasn't invented with Obama. Obama himself
| participated in obstruction and filibusters as a member of the
| Senate during George Bush's presidency.
| not_knuth wrote:
| Whataboutism doesn't add any value to a discussion. GP did
| not exclude what you have commented in their comment.
|
| But I don't want to make this comment purely about
| criticizing someone.
|
| There is a figure on Wikipedia [1] that shows that
| Filibusters have been rising starkly since the 70s - since
| politicians started realising how effective they could be
| under the new rules.
|
| My conclusion of this is twofold: 1. The use of a filibuster
| is an extreme measure and shows how divisive US politics has
| gotten - hence the more numerous reach for drastic measures.
| 2. It is an inevitable devil's spiral with two parties that
| don't trust each other. Every use of a Filibuster by a
| Republican will give a Democrat a justification for one and
| vice versa (this is why Whataboutism should be avoided).
|
| So please let's not make this about "But the Democrats
| started it" or "But the Republicans did more".
|
| Instead, judge me on my hypothesis: "The increase in use of
| the filibuster is an indicator of polarization and shows that
| polarization has been on the rise since the 70s."
|
| [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filibuster_in_the_United_
| Sta...
| sillysaurusx wrote:
| "Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less,
| as a topic gets more divisive."
|
| It's not my place to go around quoting the rules, but I was
| just hoping to calm the waters a little bit. We could all use a
| bit of "let's step back and talk this over rather than argue
| passionately for a position," I think. E.g. the article is
| about the implication of AI on society at large.
| nerdponx wrote:
| This is BS, with all due respect. Are people not allowed to
| express strong, lucid, and well-reasoned opinions on
| existentially important topics?
| sanxiyn wrote:
| No, they are not allowed, on HN.
| fpgaminer wrote:
| People are certainly allowed to express strong opinions. It
| can be cathartic to write out your frustrations. But HN
| isn't the place for that. Comments like that, even though
| they _feel_ like they contribute to something, tend to
| really just be selfish and don't contribute to discussion.
| Political threads on HN get filled with 1000s of such
| comments, and none of them lead to _interesting_
| discussion. Interesting, thoughtful discussion is what
| we're after, and what we tend to see more of here than
| other places. That's what I, and I believe the majority of
| users here, come here for.
|
| I've personally been frustrated by the recent political
| threads, not because I don't want to see those threads
| here, but because I desperately want the comments to say
| something _interesting_. Something thoughtful that I can't
| get elsewhere (from the news or Reddit). But about an hour
| after such articles show up they're so bloated only a
| single thread of comments is visible per page, making it
| too difficult to navigate and find any useful discussion
| that might be happening.
|
| In other words, HN isn't our personal emotional outlet. It
| can be used for that _occasionally_, but since _everyone_
| uses it for that under certain topics like politics, it's
| best to avoid doing so there.
| lijogdfljk wrote:
| According to those rules you just read, not always. Not
| sure why that's difficult to comprehend or accept.
|
| Just like how Twitter isn't required to spew Trump's
| bullshit, HN isn't required to support forms of discourse
| it does not see as constructive or beneficial.
|
| Does this sound controversial to you?
| bra-ket wrote:
| No doubt progressive liberals are ok with this Orwellian sh*t
| wtfiswiththis wrote:
| Trump rallied his followers after years of violent rhetoric.
| Him, his family, his lawyer Giuliani urged things like "trial
| by combat" for Trump's enemies.
|
| He timed his rally to end at 1pm, when the tally started down
| the road. He then sent his followers to pressure "weak"
| Republicans within the Capitol building for the purposes of
| urging the overthrow of certified votes in favor of replacing
| them with unilateral votes for Trump.
|
| They brought zip ties. They called for Pence's hanging.
|
| Trump called Pence during the siege trying to pressure him, and
| the call had to be cut short because the insurgents were
| already inside the building.
|
| This was a legislative and violent coup. Cry more about
| liberals in reaction to a literal coup attempt. Please, I want
| to hear more about how this is all antifa/BLM's fault some
| more. How the liberal agenda is a boot upon your neck while
| Trump's followers attempt violent and legislative coups against
| the citizens of this nation.
| agora_rising wrote:
| This was not an attempted coup.
|
| This was IRL shitposting.
|
| The cops murdered a woman. A couple more people died of
| natural causes from the excitement during the event. A cop
| died from a pulmonary condition afterwords.
|
| If you engage in this sort of rhetoric, you are fanning the
| flames. Please stop. It's not helping. You don't want things
| to get worse because I'm not sure you can conceive of how bad
| things can actually get.
|
| Let's all just let off the gas and tap the brakes.
| Sparkyte wrote:
| Problem with this is that facial recognition is not perfect. It's
| no better than fnger printing which often leads to unjust
| arrests. There is no replacement for detective work and the
| government shouldn't be lazy to exclude it. The best it can do is
| narrow down suspects.
| srean wrote:
| I was under the impression that good quality fingerprints are
| lot more reliable. Could you point me to some resources that
| show how unreliable fingerprints are, I would learn something
| new.
|
| EDIT: Nevermind there is an active HN thread on just that
| fpgaminer wrote:
| That's been my feeling. Last I looked I recall public SOTA in
| facial recognition being something like an error every 1 in
| 1000 cases. Assuming that a private corporation's efforts are
| somehow 100x better that still gives you 3,000 suspects in
| America for any given photo. (And all those people are likely
| to look very, very similar.)
|
| Hell, Apple's FaceID makes a mistake every million faces, and
| that system is both professional and has an order of magnitude
| more data to work with from the FaceID scanner. Clearview is
| just using blurry photographs.
| DangerousPie wrote:
| Why is that a problem? This is just the first step to
| generate a set of possible matches, there will always be
| further steps to narrow it down further.
| Youden wrote:
| > Problem with this is that facial recognition is not perfect.
|
| Why is that a problem? Are there any investigative tools that
| _are_ perfect or is there a reason why facial recognition
| should be held to a higher standard?
|
| > It's no better than fnger printing which often leads to
| unjust arrests.
|
| You need to be more specific. Why is it no better? Has facial
| recognition been demonstrated to lead to more unjust arrests
| than other investigative methods?
|
| > There is no replacement for detective work and the government
| shouldn't be lazy to exclude it.
|
| Who's saying that facial recognition is a replacement for
| detective work? It's just another investigative method, like
| looking up a license plate or asking people at the crime scene
| what they saw.
|
| > The best it can do is narrow down suspects.
|
| It can also help find suspects when you don't have any other
| leads. Why isn't that good enough?
| jackson1442 wrote:
| The problems come from when it is hailed as perfect and
| arrests are made solely on a facial recognition result[0].
|
| Facial recognition has also time and time again proven to be
| racially biased[1][2].
|
| Not to mention how easy it is to create a surveillance state
| with facial recognition[3].
|
| [0] https://threatpost.com/lawsuit-claims-flawed-facial-
| recognit...
|
| [1] https://www.cnn.com/2019/12/19/tech/facial-recognition-
| study...
|
| [2] http://sitn.hms.harvard.edu/flash/2020/racial-
| discrimination...
|
| [3] https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/dec/9/social-
| credi...
| Master_Odin wrote:
| At least in this instance, the racial biases of facial
| recognition will not be a problem for the overwhelming
| white mob.
| DangerousPie wrote:
| Nobody is suggesting arresting anyone solely based on
| facial recognition.
| jackson1442 wrote:
| Nobody suggested it, but it's still happened. Here's a
| better link than what I posted above:
| https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/29/technology/facial-
| recogni...
| heyoni wrote:
| I seriously doubt anyone is being convicted based on that
| alone. Look, once you suspect someone was at the riot, you
| can then start to look for other things like, license
| plates coming in and out of DC, or beacon data or phone
| tower records. Some of these people were shouting their
| names out to cameras along with the city they were from.
|
| Facial recognition is like watching footage from a bank
| robbery, and then recognizing the person in it, except a
| computer does the initial work and a human being verified
| it before making any moves. I'd be worried if high def
| cameras were on every corner but this footage was taken at
| the scene of a crime, by reporters and criminals alike. So
| what if a private group runs it through a filter?
| karmasimida wrote:
| > Problem with this is that facial recognition is not perfect
|
| I don't think it is the case. Facial recognition can
| drastically speed up the process of nailing down suspects,
| accompanying with other information sources.
|
| I don't really see facial recognition as the sole reason to be
| worried here. Information collection and sharing is already
| ubiquitous, that is what leads to all these.
| cstejerean wrote:
| It doesn't need to be perfect though. People facial recognition
| isn't perfect either. When they post some mugshot and ask the
| public for tips I'm sure some tips come in for people who look
| like the suspect but aren't. Proper police work should be able
| to rule out the false positives quickly.
|
| The problem only happens if law enforcement believes that the
| matches are somehow infallible and refuse to look for or
| believe in other evidence that would rule out a suspect.
| nerdponx wrote:
| Is it no better than finger printing in terms of accuracy?That
| would be an interesting study.
|
| Also, it's much easier to get people's photos than
| fingerprints.
| jusonchan81 wrote:
| Isn't it possible to use cell phone location to identify exactly
| who went inside the Capitol buildings? It's something that the
| police system uses anyways and I guess it must be being used.
|
| What happened was a shame, but I truly hope this doesn't evolve
| and make it worse than what it is already.
| LeoPanthera wrote:
| I'm quietly enjoying the irony that they might have escaped
| recognition if they'd worn a mask.
| [deleted]
| vladTheInhaler wrote:
| edit: someone else posted the same thing as I was typing this.
|
| Not necessarily. Belarusian protesters are working on methods
| to unmask anonymous police officers [1].
|
| [1] https://meduza.io/en/feature/2020/10/01/you-have-no-masks
| rriepe wrote:
| Less quiet after you commented
| therein wrote:
| It seems everything is going according to the plan, then and
| you have taken the bait.
| xnx wrote:
| Seems like there's a big difference between passive dragnet usage
| of facial recognition on crowds in non-criminal situations, vs
| using this tool combined with soliciting tips from the public to
| identify people from video of them performing crimes.
| username90 wrote:
| The most common complaint is that AI identifies unrelated
| people who look similar as being the perpetrator that would
| never have been found without AI. Pretty likely this can happen
| here as well.
| neurotech1 wrote:
| This seems to be a better link:
| https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/09/technology/facial-recogni...
|
| or https://archive.is/hRfLr
| rychco wrote:
| I realize that this is one of those situations where I'm supposed
| to be supportive of the use of facial recognition, but I'm still
| uncomfortable. Facial recognition seems like an all or nothing
| deal to me, and even after the capitol has been raided... I still
| opt for 'nothing'.
| LatteLazy wrote:
| Is it that different to wanted posters or publishing cctv of a
| crime? I get why people don't want facial recognition cameras
| on every street corner but using it to identify people from
| pics is a different activity...
|
| Edit: I completely agree there is nothing special about this
| case. No exigent circumstances.
| detaro wrote:
| I don't think you "should" be supportive, for exactly those
| reasons.
| rychco wrote:
| You're right, I think a better phrasing would be "supposed
| to".
|
| Edited the original.
| trianglem wrote:
| Yeah facial recognition is just bad. We have pictures and a
| populace ready and willing to root these terrorists out as
| we've seen so far.
| agora_rising wrote:
| Using the T-word as you have is only going to make things
| worse.
|
| You can be disgusted at what happened. But breaking out that
| word is an escalation.
|
| Language like this will let a genie out of a bottle that
| cannot be put back in. And you probably aren't the sort of
| person who would like the outcome.
| trianglem wrote:
| Things have to get worse before they get better. What other
| word besides terrorist are you going to use to describe a
| group of people that break into the capitol, kill police
| officers and set pipe bombs? It's quite literally the
| definition of a terrorist.
|
| Also is that a threat of violence at the end there from a
| 15 minute old account?
| agora_rising wrote:
| Not really a threat. Let's not be silly.
|
| Just a prediction of what's going to happen if you
| believe the official narrative and keep doing what you're
| doing.
|
| I don't want to see things get worse. But if you keep up
| with this nonsense, they will get worse. No one wants
| that.
|
| Just relax.
| eznzt wrote:
| >I realize that this is one of those situations where I'm
| supposed to be supportive of the use of facial recognition
|
| ???
| jonas21 wrote:
| Out of curiosity, why do you feel like you're supposed to be
| supportive of the use of facial recognition in this case?
| walls wrote:
| Identifying terrorists is a positive outcome.
| remarkEon wrote:
| This statement in the abstract is correct. The context in
| which it's applied ... well I'm sure many actually believe
| Trump supporters are "literally" terrorists.
|
| This technology was of course also used to identify those
| laying siege to various federal buildings over the summer,
| but I guess it's okay now. This is to say that the context
| in which this technology is used obviously matters a lot
| and is directly related to who holds the reigns of cultural
| power. Yay.
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