RE: camera tech for crime prevention

Kurt Buff (kurtbuff@lightmail.com)
Sat, 2 Oct 1999 09:39:45 -0700

Spike,

What an amusing and refreshing naivete you display.

Your words only hold if there's no problem with large corporate entities, such as governments or business.

No fear indeed.

|
|
| Eugene Leitl wrote:
|
| > It would seem a very good idea to not let this happen too
| > easily. Pilot projects on face recognition for criminal
| deterrance are
| > on the way, and ubiquitous cameras are certainly proliferating. A
| > carnival, anybody?
|
| Eugene why not let this happen too quickly? Our current system of
| identifying perpetrators relies on face recognition, but done
| by extremely fallible and often panicky carbon units. I would
| think we would be much better off with machines doing the
| face recognition, voice recognition or perhaps body offgassing
| recognition instruments.
|
| There are undoubtedly many innocent black people who rot
| away in prisons while the real perpetrators go free to victimize
| others, simply because our face-recognition bioware is less
| effective with those of African descent than with others.
|
| Before you jump me or flame me, think this over. Im proposing
| a testable hypothesis. We could surely invent software that
| could identify faces more accurately than can humans, which
| would keep innocents out of prisons and get dangerous felons
| off the streets. That being the case, *why not* let this happen
| too quickly? Let it happen! It cannot happen too quickly.
|
| Where Im going with this is: NO FEAR. Popular catch phrase
| today. If you are not committing crimes, then no fear. You *want*
| face rec instruments everywhere. If you *are* a violent criminal,
| then yes, be afraid, be very afraid. The future may not be your
| kinda place, but for the rest of us, face rec software is your friend.
| spike