How is it ridiculous? The fact that purchasing a gun is the first step of shooting people is a good enough reason for most countries to ban the purchase of guns...
I don't think "because there's legitimate uses" is the differentiating factor, since that implies only kitchen knives have them. Self-defense is a legitimate use for owning a gun, for example.
There is no argument, why are people jumping to extrapolation? I'm pointing out that this DNN can be (and is being) used to identify people based on the ("any") detected faces. The possible usage is certainly related to the Parent comment issue.
Yes, and pjreddie seems to have concluded computer vision is mostly (or too often for their liking) used for the digital equivalent of those bad things.
I think prjeddie's concerns are extremely relevant. However he's not the only one working on things like this, thus it's unlikely that research and development will stop, although I certainly think such development is ethically questionable. In some ways this thing seems similar to the ethical problems facing the scientists working on the nuclear bomb. I just hope to God that this tech will be used for good rather than bad, but the way things are going with political censorship (government sponsored or otherwise) and people of opposing camps doing their best to dox political opponents–let's just say I'm not too optimistic...
> it's unlikely that research and development will stop
I know you didn't make this argument here, but I still want to point out that that's ethically irrelevant for his decision.
Or the other way around: "Someone else would have done it" is not a defense when you've built something that was clearly gonna be used for Bad Things(TM).
> Yes, and pjreddie seems to have concluded computer vision is mostly (or too often for their liking) used for the digital equivalent of those bad things.
Indeed, there are many nefarious applications of computer vision. But applications to the medical industry are plentiful too.
I see weighing up the net benefit as a tricky and a personal matter.
That's fine - that's a personal choice he is free to make. But I completely disagree with it. I also don't think that unencumbered AI research is going to lead to the overthrow of the human race by machines like Elon does.
Making cheap computer vision is just as dangerous to the "tyrant" as his supposed victims. You can already make a plausible anti-president suicide drone, A Ticket To Tranai style.
He said: "I stopped doing CV research because I saw the impact my work was having. I loved the work but the military applications and privacy concerns eventually became impossible to ignore."
Initial good results on CV doesn't mean that you realize all the ways it'll start to be used and the implications thereof.
IMO this is ethically more simple than many like to believe.
There are existing power structures (planned ones and emerged ones) in this world and the technology we create can either be used to reinforce them or to question them. Sometimes it is both and things cancel each other out and move on a sideways trajectory – but in the case of CV, it is quite clear who will benefit: those in power, those who need to quantify, control and punish the human element, but don't have the manpower (=legitimacy?) or funds (=priority?) to do so manually.
I get that working in CV is interesting and cool stuff, but the collective suffering it might help creating and keeping is something one should seriously think about as well.
Exactly. CV is interesting and can be completely harmless. But the benefits of the technology for the average person are extremely small relatively to the benefits it brings to any potential oppressive power. Mass surveillance tech can be convenient but it's a deal with the devil and I think we sometimes willfully ignore that under the guise of a perceived amorality of progress. "it's just science, it's neutral and you can also use it for good" can sound like a good argument that I usually even agree with.
But in this case it's very simple:
"Good guys" using of CV gets them things like good auto sorting in Google photos
"Bad guys" using CV can reduce the complexity of creating a fully Orwellian, big brother like surveillance state from "absurdly complex to implement and impossible to maintain" to "we can already put in place a solid implementation today and it will get better by the day".
Now I used to work in CV and as you said,I get how great and exciting the underlying tech is. But I definitely lean more towards fear than excitement these days. I also realize that it's already everywhere, with heavy research efforts and that you can't ever stop it at this point. But that really goes to show that the Yolo creator was right.
Think about it, what does the chinese people gain from CV or face recognitio right now? Maybe cool filters. The chinese government? Unimaginable levels of surveillance and control over it's entire population and it's just getting started.
>it is quite clear who will benefit: those in power
I think it's more likely that you want to detect a person so you don't hit them with a car than trying to hit them with a drone missile. Detecting cancer with CV, and other improvements to diagnostics also save lives. If you could be working on these technologies and stop, your decision could cost lives.
>but in the case of CV, it is quite clear who will benefit: those in power, those who need to quantify, control and punish the human element, but don't have the manpower (=legitimacy?) or funds (=priority?) to do so manually.
Technology that exists for surveillance can also be turned on the surveillants. The most relevant case probably being police abuse being caught on smartphone cameras. These tools don't just discipline citizens, they also discipline the police. If I'm in a room with someone in a position of authority far above me, I'd rather have the camera on both of us than none of us.
So it's not actually that simple, and I don't see opting out as realistic or helpful, because other benefits these technologies bring, for example security, will always convince the population to drive adoption forward.
I mostly agree on your thinking but I think it is not so simple to decide.
If we focus on reinforce vs question part. It is kind of prisoners dilemma. If we assume governments(reinforcers) will anyway work on this technology, and lets assume they will end up with some lower quality version (lets say 50/100) . Questioners have 2 options:
- dont work on this, accept 50/0
- or work and improve both sides, 70/20
Without deeper context hard to decide which will be better for questioners.
Would you prefer to have a gun against rifle, or no weapon vs gun?
The question is, if we are so aware of the dangers posed by these power structures, agreeing that the technology itself is "apolitical", then why have we allowed power to be concentrated so highly in a given institution or individual? It seems that, if we are concerned with ethics, we should be pushing much more for the dilution of power back to the people, rather than "taking sides" in terms of who to work with or what to work on.
Just trying to provoke an answer with a little humour ...
It is obvious to anyone that one of the primary uses of computer vision is to watch other humans at scale. This cannot be surprising to anyone in the field yet now there are ethical concerns mixed with politics through the roof.
Maybe we can be more precise about this?
The work here is a technical achievement but there are some weird comments here which I think has something to do with the author being Chinese.
Focusing too much on negative aspect of thing will lead you nowhere.
Manhattan project gave >500 research papers. Gave us Iodine 131 and other radio nucleotide which we use in medicine. And gave us lasting peace. So was it bad or not?
Is gene editing bad? was the internet bad? Was the dude who invented round wheel bad?
Yes, using atomic bombs was bad. As others say it is debatable if it helped end the (already won?) war. And in any case, _lasting_ _piece_ where? Are middle east and Africa not part of this world?
I find your comment is entirely missing the point and low effort. Asking whether random techniques, inventions, inventors were "bad" or not makes us much sense as asking:
Is the sun bad? Were dinosaurs bad? Are the aliens bad? Is life bad?
I believe that the USA and USSR/Russia have been at war with some other country directly or by proxy more or less always since the end of WW2. Yet we had no other major world war because of the mutual assured destruction. That kind of peace might not last forever but it was an unusually long period. A wonderful change for the best if you lived in Europe, no change at all if you lived in one of the countries that took the turn to be the target of one or both the powers. Add regional powers operating on their own will now.
one human brain can only perform some 10-12 hrs of facial recognition work before needing to take a break, and also do so relatively low speeds.
One computer brain can be copied for free, and deployed to thousands of computer clusters and work 24/7 on facial recognition, at a fraction of the cost.