
Microsoft won’t sell police its facial-recognition technology - longdefeat
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/06/11/microsoft-facial-recognition/
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zests
Doesn’t this just mean the police will buy from Palantir now? This problem
needs a legislative solution.

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beebmam
Frankly, I think this is hypocritical. Satya Nadella has explicitly stated
that Microsoft will not withhold technology from democratically elected
governments.

In this context, why is ethical for Microsoft to build the US military a "war
planning and operations" cloud as part of the JEDI contract?

In what reality is selling facial-recognition technology to police somehow
less ethical than making the US military, in their own terms, "more lethal"?

If Microsoft rejects the police for being human rights abusers, they should do
the same for the US military, which has regularly violated human rights around
the world.

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kasey_junk
I don’t necessarily believe this but it’s fairly easy to craft an argument for
arming military forces separately from police forces. In a well functioning
government the police would operate in completely different theaters & under
completely different rules than the military.

One can easily argue that many of the US’s current problems have to do with
getting that blend incorrect but it doesn’t obviate the idea that done tech
should go to one but not the other.

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grawprog
>operate in completely different theaters & under completely different rules
than the military.

Killing people is really no different anywhere in the world. They're ok with
their technology being used to kill, just so long as it's only people in
certain place in the world and done by a certain group. What difference is it
to me if I'm shot by a cop or a soldier? Either way I'm being shot by someone,
likely far more well armed and armoured than myself, at the behest of the
government. Who cares whether their uniform is blue or green?

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close04
> Killing people is really no different anywhere in the world.

Legally speaking it most certainly is, otherwise cops, soldiers, or criminals
killing would be treated the same way. Morally... perhaps it's a grey area but
one thing I'm sure you agree with is that there is a massive difference
between a military conflict between armed parties, and a conflict between
police and anything from unarmed bystanders to criminals. There's a common
sense principle of proportionality that hasn't been observed in too long.

Jack the Ripper wasn't a surgeon because "cutting is really no different
anywhere in the world".

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grawprog
>I'm sure you agree with is that there is a massive difference between a
military conflict between armed parties, and a conflict between police and
anything from unarmed bystanders to criminals

I guess that depends doesn't it. A gunfight between armed gangsters and cops
in the middle of an urban area isn't all that different than a small american
patrol in an urban area in say Iraq, Libya or Syria getting into a gun fight
with a group of insurgents. In both cases there will be innocent bystanders
likely caught in the middle. As far as both a logical and moral perspective
goes, American soldiers have far less right to be killing people in those
countries than a police officer defending against armed criminals in their own
jurisdiction.

All these arguments on it being 'right' are based on the assumption that
America's armies currently being used to invade other nations is 'right'. If
America's armies weren't being used to oppress and and control other nations,
I'd maybe agree with you more.

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close04
> I guess that depends doesn't it

This is exactly how I'd frame any situation to defend any argument or position
no matter how inappropriate it is.

Dressing up police like soldiers and letting them rip on harmless and unarmed
people is most definitely _not_ the same as soldiers in a declared conflict
making collateral damage while fighting a _genuinely_ dangerous army armed to
the teeth. Soldiers dress like soldiers because they have to go fight other
soldiers and face machine gun or sniper fire, mortars, IEDs, grenades, tanks,
etc. Police dresses up like soldiers to fight some people with a bandanna and
a passive aggressive sign. Are you telling me that's the same?

Unless a country declares war on its citizens the police should not be allowed
under any circumstances to treat them as an enemy combatant. And it doesn't
even matter really, the fact that the US Army is more that willing to commit
war crimes should have no impact on what the Police does to its citizens.

This is what happens when common sense stops being common, when people no
longer understand "appropriate force" and "proportionality".

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close04
BTW, 5 years old but more relevant than ever. It also touches on the
difference between police and military:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUdHIatS36A](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUdHIatS36A)

US citizens deserve the same response in daily life from a police under the
"serve and protect" banner that an enemy combatant gets from the opposing
military during an active conflict? You can't treat every citizen as if they
are the worst possible one. If you got this "you could be the worst ever"
treatment in any other situation you would certainly not find acceptable to
reference the fact that the army also does it while in a war.

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moksly
I’m not American, but isn’t the police about the only people you should ever
trust (if any) with facial-recognition technology?

If you can’t trust your police with it, then there is something fundamentally
wrong with your society.

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jfengel
You got it in one: we don't trust our police with it, and there is something
fundamentally wrong with society. That is why there have been calls to
radically re-think, or even eliminate, policing in the US.

This announcement coincides with protests against police brutality, at which
many police have behaved brutally. That was sparked by an outright homicide by
a police officer, captured on video, of a man who was subdued and presented no
threat -- while other police officers watched, and many others have
subsequently attempted to justify.

The "something fundamentally wrong" is very complex and subject to genuine
debate, but it's not subject to debate that whatever it is, people don't trust
the police.

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luckylion
> That is why there have been calls to radically re-think, or even eliminate,
> policing in the US.

Isn't "defund the police" 99% "that's a nice slogan", not actually "we'll be
good without any form of law enforcement"? From what I understand it's a play
to break unions: you defund and dismantle the police department and then you
can create a new department, can start fresh with new people, new tactics etc
pp. Might work, might not, but it's certainly not "eliminate policing".

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dragonwriter
> Isn't "defund the police" 99% "that's a nice slogan

No.

> not actually "we'll be good without any form of law enforcement"?

Not that, either.

“Defund the police” is about shifting substantial amounts of funding from
police to supportive/responsive social service instead of law enforcement.

> From what I understand it's a play to break unions:

That's probably true of some supporters of the related-but-distinct
abolish/dismantle effort, but even there it's not the main focus.

> you defund and dismantle the police department and then you can create a new
> department, can start fresh with new people, new tactics etc pp.

Dismantle/abolish does allow that, but most of the push for it is not for
abolish-and-directly-replace, but for rethinking public safety and community
services more generally and redesigning how law enforcement fits into it.
While any replacement includes law enforcement personnel employed somewhere,
they may not include a single large centralized paramilitary organization like
the dominant model for city police / county sheriffs offices, and might (for
instance) involve domain-specific law enforcement officers embedded in a
variety of different public agencies.

It can, and for many people does, mean abolishing (not merely replacing)
police departments as institutions, but, yes, it does not mean abolishing the
law enforcement function of government.

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zests
I haven’t seen any concrete numbers. That’s what keeps it in “slogan”
territory for me. I’ll admit to not looking very hard for numbers as a failing
of my own.

I want to see suggestions, for any major city, how much of their budget we
should cut (as percentage and gross) as well as where this funding should go
as a percentage of how much funding already goes to that place.

Apologies if this is readily available, I haven’t seen it yet.

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carlinmack
you can find more information about the movement here 8toabolition.com

~~~
catalogia
This is disappointingly sparse on details and does not seem to be a nuanced
position. It's calling for the eventual abolition of police, not merely
scaling back their funding:

> _The end goal of these reforms is not to create better, friendlier, or more
> community-oriented police or prisons. Instead, we hope to build toward a
> society without police or prisons, where communities are equipped to provide
> for their safety and wellbeing._

When somebody breaks into my home, I don't need a counselor; I need some sort
of investigator or detective who can track that man down and make sure he
doesn't do it again. Maybe that guy needs a counselor instead of a prison
sentence, I'm [skeptical of but] amenable to that idea, but who does the grunt
work of figuring how who did it and where he's at? Who brings him to trial,
where his guilt or innocence can be assessed? I can't find any answers for
this on that site, so it's hard for me to take seriously.

This document also mentions permanently closing all jails and freeing
everybody from involuntary detention, etc. When a man refuses to stop beating
his wife, where should he be put? I don't see any answers for this. Is the
idea really to create a utopia where people no longer do shitty things to
other people? Because if so, that's a pipe dream, not a serious proposal.

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thebouv
But they'll sell it to a third party. Who can then sell it to the police. So
this just means they won't directly sell it, but they'll still make their
money.

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electricviolet
It would be easy for them to put a clause in their contracts with third
parties that forbids them from reselling it to the police.

Not necessarily saying Microsoft will do that, but they could do it if they're
committed to this.

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toast0
PR gain for now, and further push against First Sale doctrine for later, win
win for Microsoft.

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electricviolet
I don't know much in this area so I might be wrong, but wouldn't first sale
doctrine not apply to software as a service?

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nimbius
I mean, i guess its a step but it misses the real opus of US policing in my
opinion.

AI and facial recognition require real investigative skill because they are
still high risk technologies compared to current policing tactics. As it
stands, cops mostly arrest brown and black low income people on capricious
charges because the revenue is predictable and the suspects rarely have access
to meaningful council that wont immediately direct them to plea-bargain. the
revenue from this policing is nontrivial in the city budget, and it puts warm
bodies in profitable corporate jails that many deficit-run cities are fully
dependent upon to service their debt.

AI and Facial recognition introduce the very real potential to arrest someone
who not only isnt your suspect, but is powerful enough to fight back and make
you look very bad. You cross over from comfy cop to officer who will need to
be able to prove a crime based on evidence. for a lot of law enforcement that
have become versed in their union bylaws, buying a product that can get them
fired if they arent sharp gumshoes to solve real crime isnt an appealing idea
anyway. And since we hire most cops from our boots-on-ground military troops,
the argument could be made that most arent the sharpest sherlocks.

Another problem is police overloading. cops are already social workers, dog
catchers, school truancy enforcers, and crisis management mental health
workers. Theres not much a cop in the US does _not_ do if you call them. the
idea of now making them a cloud-based AI guru at some level is likely going to
be met with some resistance. What does the FR do? and what additional duties
will cops have to absorb once its online? Is every face at a busy festival
going to have cops chasing lookalikes? how do you get help if facial
recognition is broken?

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m0xte
Perhaps if it has moral consequences they should delete the code?

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diegoperini
It can also have moral consequences if they deleted it.

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m0xte
The answer with all trade-offs is which is worse. I suspect that one is worse
than the other.

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pilif
But it happily sells GitHub enterprise to the ICE.

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Simulacra
So..they'll just use it for themselves?

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AlexandrB
No, they're waiting "until there is a federal law regulating the technology".
Then they can sell it with the PR cover of legislation. In the meantime they
can still sell it to militaries, intelligence agencies, and police departments
who are not governed by the US congress.

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jokoon
At this point I guess ML developers should just stop working on anything
related to face recognition...

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chickenpotpie
There’s still a lot of ethical uses of facial recognition. For example,
finding missing persons.

