This morning I experienced this tech going wrong first hand. Someone mentioned and I decided to try a site called pimeyes. It lets you upload a photo, then it will try to find other examples of your photos posted online. Well I uploaded one of my photos. And it returned this:
I am a 38 year old woman. I don’t recall using this site before, and I sure as hell have never used it to search for kids. I uploaded another photo, and that one worked. But still, that is a fucked up message to send someone just based on some shitty AI age estimation algorithm. Someone with a different face might always trigger the “minor” filter.
And while this was just for an image search site, it’s much more serious on other sites. People do a lot of essential communication on social media platforms. What happens if you’re completely shut out of all social media sites because you have a face that the algorithms decide look under 18? What happens if it’s something even more important, like your bank’s website or a government service page?
It’s ridiculous that that they would claim 85% accuracy as some great success. That’s a horrible success rate in this context. That means millions of people will be incorrectly flagged as minors and potentially lose access to entire regions of the internet. And how long until they start using this facial recognition, not as proof of age, but as proof of identity? How long til you have to scan your face to apply for government benefits, retirement, or access other government services? And what happens to those people who the face scanning algorithm just fails at? A 15% failure rate is awful. When you’re imposing something on the entire population, you shouldn’t even consider applying it until the success rate is more like 99.99% accurate. If the tech just isn’t that good, then it simply shouldn’t be used.
I am a 38 year old woman
Holy shit that’s bad. You’re literally more than double the age limit and it still didn’t do the right thing. That’s beyond even “looks young for their age” territory into just “catastrophic failure of the system”. Out of interest though…in your own opinion (or the opinion of people who know you IRL), do you at least look rather young for your age?
That means millions of people will be incorrectly flagged as minors and potentially lose access to entire regions of the internet
And the other way around. You can guarantee there’ll be some children who are not supposed to get through the system who nonetheless will do so. And you can also guarantee that these will mostly be non-white, so whatever harms the content that’s being blocked is supposed to do will be done predominantly to minority communities.
I’ve said it before and I will say it every time this comes up. The only acceptable way this system should work is via parental controls. Operating systems should be able to store a user’s age, and apps & websites should be able to access that age via an API. Parents should be able to set their child’s age in that system and lock it with a password so that the child can’t edit it. That removes any possibility that shitty AI will fuck things up for people. It removes any privacy concerns associated with uploading government ID. It literally addresses all the concerns people could have with the system, beyond the very idea of the system itself.
I do get told I look young for my age. But that’s no excuse for the software. I get told I look 30. I don’t get carded while buying alcohol. My husband, who is the same age as me, never gets dirty looks when we’re out in public like he’s with someone half his age. People may read me a little bit younger than I am, but no one is mistaking me for an 18 year old.
the best scams affect your emotions.
Meant to post that somewhere else?
engaged in activities that involve searching for children
Jesus Christ I read that in a totally different way!
As in “You are a creepy pedo that’s been doing searches for children!”
No, you read it the right way the first time. The site thought I had uploaded the image of a child, and then it accused me of being a creepy pedo that’s searching for images of kids. As though I had taken a picture of a random child in public then uploaded it hoping to find more. And it threatened to refer to me to law enforcement. Remember, the site works by uploading an image and then using an AI tool to find other images of the uploaded face that have been posted elsewhere on the net. Their AI thought I had uploaded the image of some kid and was trying to find more of their images posted to facebook or other sites. Effectively, their AI accused me of being a pedophile.
All for uploading a picture of my own face. I honestly don’t know whether to be flattered or terrified. Frankly, I feel a little bit of both.
That’s horrendous AND horrifying!
Agree that an 85% ‘success’ rate is nowhere near good enough.
Stupid idea which kids will get around in 5 seconds and will lock unwilling or unlucky adults out.
“… the leaked teen social media ban tech trial report…”
Glad I’m not the only one struggling to parse that one!
The leaked (((teen social media ban) tech trial) report)
They can accept my anonymised digital driver’s licence details or they can fuck off.
Anyone got an archive link to the story so I don’t have to create a login?
Theoretically, “they” in this story includes us. According to the definition in the bill, aussie.zone counts as social media.
And I personally have zero interest in dealing with government IDs. So, I hope they figure out a way of doing verification before you get as far as the sites themselves. Because while we’ll be bound by this legislation, I can’t see any other instance out there caring in the slightest about it - why would they? So it’ll do diddly-squat.It’s almost like it was poorly thought out and rushed through with little concern for the logistics of it.
That said, the Queensland digital i.d. also has a pretty straightforward verification app as well, and you can verify age with no personal identifiers other than a photo. Not sure about the other states and territories, but it’s really not that onerous unless your one of those sovereign citizen nutters.
