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As someone who tries to think deeply about the ethics of innovation and technology, my considered view on this is: Just stop with this shit already. https://nationalpost.com/news/pay-with-your-face-ontario-grocery-chain-looks-at-paying-via-facial-recognition/">https://nationalpost.com/news/pay-...
Okay, so I’m dunking on this (and will continue to do so), but let me make one observation that really troubles me about technology generally. 1/6
When asked why they would implement facial recognition in stores, the chain owner says “Because society moves forward and we will follow it.“ Essentially we will do it because it’s a thing that’s done or soon will be done. Call this the “inevitability raionale.” 2/6
The inevitability rationale is pervasive in thinking about tech. Consider the atomic bomb. As I’ve written elsewhere, participants in the Manhattan Project reasoned that the bomb was inevitable so better that Americans get it before Germans or Russians 3/6 https://www.danmunro.ca/blog/2018/11/29/feynmans-error-on-ethical-thinking-and-drifting-nbsp">https://www.danmunro.ca/blog/2018...
Read Rhodes’ Making of the Atomic Bomb. He spends the first 100-150 pages basically making a case for the inevitability of the bomb - or, at least, for its inevitability in the minds of prospective Manhattan Project participants. 4/6 https://www.amazon.ca/Making-Atomic-Bomb-Richard-Rhodes-ebook/dp/B008TRU7SQ">https://www.amazon.ca/Making-At...
The problem is that the *fact* of inevitability is a merely a crystallization of the *belief* in inevitability. A potential tech takes the status of inevitable because people think it’s inevitable and therefore try to get ahead of or keep pace with some imagined competitor. 5/6
We can say no to facial recognition - stuff it back in the box and hit it with a bat every time it tries to get out. Emerging technologies are not inevitable. We choose to make them so. We can make different choices. 6/6
