Plenty are the benefits of new technologies, but several news items in the last week are making us yearn for the days of Rolodexes, Polaroid photos, and library card catalogs with actual paper cards.
First came the news from a pair of Stanford University researchers that computers are now able to determine one’s sexual orientation with astonishing accuracy using only a photo of one’s face. It’s a high-tech version of “gaydar,” a colloquial term that describes the ability of some people to recognize others as gay or straight just by appearance. The anti-science left criticized the study, paradoxically, both as “junk science” and as science that could be used to discriminate against gays.
In response to the criticism, one of the researchers responded that artificial intelligence someday will be able to do much more: “Using photos, AI will be able to identify people’s political views, whether they have high IQs, whether they are predisposed to criminal behavior, whether they have specific personality traits and many other private, personal details that could carry huge social consequences,” according to the Guardian.
So who would want to participate in such technologies? Lots of us, apparently: Apple unveiled a new iPhone that has built-in facial recognition that will be used to unlock the phone. And you’ll pay for that, bigly: The iPhone X starts at $999.
If it’s insufficiently overexposing to give tech companies access to your face—which could be used for all manner of nefarious purposes, such as marketing—hackers might also find a way. News emerged last week that hackers stole personal information on 143 million Americans from credit reporting bureau Equifax.
In sum, you could shell out big money for a phone that will recognize your face, which might be used by artificial intelligence to make snap judgments about you, judgments which might then be stolen by hackers. Being a Luddite never sounded so tempting.
