Sometimes technology can get a little
scary.
You remember this picture, right? The
picture that I posted here on Monday after my parents' 60th
anniversary dinner?
Well, I also put it up on Facebook
Sunday night. And even before I has a chance to finish writing the
caption on the picture, Facebook's facial recognition software had
identified six people in the picture and tagged them in it.
Even before I finished writing the
caption.
Now, I know technology is everywhere,
and we have no privacy any more. But the fact that a private company
has the ability to identify people just...makes me wonder. Should
any one group have that much of an ability to identify us?
Especially enough power to do identify a person with just this much
of their face showing?
That's my nephew Nick, who was one of
the people tagged by Facebook, even though you could only see part of
his face. I expect governments to have the ability to do something
like that. I don't like it, but I expect them to have that ability.
Same goes for the military. But for a private company to be able to
identify someone just on their eyes and their forehead?
I just don't know.
Like I said, I know tech is everywhere.
I know it's (hopefully) keeping us safe and helping us live our
lives to the fullest. But is there a line somewhere that we should
be drawing in the sand, just so we have a little privacy left? I
mean, if they can identify Nick by his eyes, who's to say that some
eye wear or insurance company can't use his picture to see whether or
not he needs glasses or he's developing glaucoma or something?
It's just a slippery slope, I guess.
And I don't know if there's a good answer to all of this. All I know
is that it's gonna keep getting slipperier and slipperier as the
years wear on. Now, if you don't mind, I'm gonna go jump in the
shower and shave. After all, I don't want a camera somewhere to take
a picture of me, notice I have stubble, and tell Gillette that I
haven't been using those razors of theirs I bought a few weeks ago.
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