Just A One Trick Pony Use Case for Clearview AI? Duh?

March 28, 2022

I read “Ukraine Uses Facial Recognition to Identify Dead Russian Soldiers, Minister Says.” If I were a minister, I suppose everything I might say would become a news story from a “trust” outfit. The write up reports that Clearview AI’s technology and image database will allow Ukraine to ID casualties. Then Ukraine will output the matches via social media. The write up makes clear that other questions were asked, but the minister did not comment. One factoid in the write up is that Clearview has an alleged two billion images scraped from VKontakte, the Russian Facebook.

A couple of points:

  • The trust outfit publishing the one trick pony use case requires that one register to ingest the content.
  • Will those in Ukraine use the technology to determine if a living Russian is trying to pass as a resident?

My clear view is that the more immediate use case for the system might be to focus on the living. Does that idea creep into the news report? Of course not, Thomson Reuters is not the New York Times.

Which is better the “we don’t comment on the obvious spin from the minister” or “the laptop content” shuffle? “Better” is the incorrect word. How about “different.”

Stephen E Arnold, March 28, 2022

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