FACIAL RECOGNITION

Face-off

On Wednesday, Portland passed the strictest facial recognition ban in the U.S. after a unanimous vote. 

What’s banned: Use of facial recognition by the government, but also by private entities in public spaces (think: banks, public transit, airports). Portland is the first to do this. 

What’s allowed: Using the tech in public schools, private clubs, places of worship, or workplaces. 

• If you work in a factory, for example, a public lobby would be off-limits, but the factory floor would be fair game. 

Portland’s government agencies must stop using facial recognition immediately; private entities have until January 1, 2021. 

A peek at private use 

Some retailers use the tech to flag shoplifters (and that data can be shared with stores the individual has never visited). Some supermarkets use it to identify “subjects of interest.” It’s also used at stadiums and arenas—Taylor Swift even turned to FRT at a 2018 concert to spot stalkers. 

Then there’s FRT earmarked for “customer experience.” We’ve already seen face scans for personalized advertising based on age, gender, and mood. They can also be used on workers to gauge the quality of their customer service. 

Rules & regs 

While Portland has shut the tech down, its city council did begin sketching out what it would need to be comfortable with FRT use, in theory:

• “The City does not have the infrastructure to evaluate” this kind of tech, according to the ordinance. “Implementing this infrastructure needs investment in development of rules and structures that allow appropriate uses of Face Recognition Technologies." 

Should such rules and structures ever be established, experts say, it’s vital to look beyond the tech alone. 

“Auditors should look at the system in which the technology is embedded,” Alice Xiang, Partnership on AI’s head of fairness, transparency and accountability research, told us. “How high-stakes is the deployment context, is there human oversight before action is taken on matches, [and] how can individuals contest matches?” 

Looking ahead: There's a non-zero chance that law enforcement use of FRT will be banned nationwide in the coming years, but the picture is murkier for private entities. Portland’s ban—and its considerations for what fair use could look like—might influence other cities mulling the tech’s fate. 

AI

Fake it 'til you make it

Generating a deepfake is now so easy it’s become a TikTok trend. But the vast majority wouldn’t fool you. Enter: new research from IIIT Hyderabad and the University of Bath. 

Getting N*Sync 

The paper proposes a neural network that can not only parse whether a frame’s generated lip movement matches that moment of audio, but also contextualize it with surrounding frames. Translation: Deepfakes are becoming more convincing. 

The researchers also laid out real-life use cases besides making political figures vibe to a trending song: 

• Online lecture videos in any language 
• More accurately dubbed movies 
• Public press conferences/addresses in any language 
• Easier animation for CGI characters in movies and video games 

The flip side: There’s a reason why deepfakes have a bad rap—their potential for large-scale misuse. The more realistic deepfakes become, the more power bad actors have to spread misinformation. 

• The researchers have open sourced their work, hoping it can also boost detection of potentially harmful deepfakes. 

Big picture: Deepfakes are crossing a new threshold. What's less clear is who will ultimately benefit from these advancements. 

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SPACE

2020: A Space Odyssey

This week, Amazon added a key member to mission control: the company’s first head of space policy, Peter Marquez. 

Refresher: Amazon Web Services (AWS) launched its Aerospace and Satellite Solutions division in June. The business unit will focus on helping both government and private commercial customers build satellites, conduct launch operations, process data, and tap into satellite communications. 

• Clients include NASA, Lockheed Martin, and the U.S. military. 

Who’s in orbit 

Marquez held a similar role at the White House’s National Security Council, where he served under Presidents Bush and Obama. Before that, he worked in space policy at the Department of Defense. (Another resume highlight: space advisor for Space Force, a Netflix comedy series.) 

Retired Air Force major general Clint Crosier helms the division—another strategic hire as Amazon tries to snag a bigger piece of the ever-expanding defense budget. 

Bottom line: Making inroads with the U.S. military is a top priority for Amazon right now. The company recently fought for the Pentagon’s $10 billion JEDI contract and (very publicly) lost it to Microsoft. 

BITS & BYTES

Stat: Tesla implemented 10% salary cuts from April to July, but the company’s stock shot up nearly 30% in June alone—prompting a fiery social media exchange. 

• Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich tweeted that CEO Elon Musk was a “modern-day robber baron.” 
• Musk replied: "All Tesla workers also get stock, so their compensation increased proportionately. You are a modern day moron." 

Quote: “It seems that Facebook hasn’t found the business value to be had in aggressively pursuing the existing credible strategies to remove hate from the platform—despite pressure from civil society, our own employees, our own consultants, and our own customers via the boycott.”—Ashok Chandwaney, former Facebook software engineer, in their resignation letter on September 8. 

Read: The Verge has an interview with former Google engineer Marc Levoy, who spearheaded development of “computational photography technologies” for the Pixel, including HDR+, Portrait Mode, and Night Sight. 

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WHAT ELSE IS BREWING

• Ireland’s Data Protection Commission sent Facebook a preliminary order to stop transferring EU user data to the U.S., reports the WSJ. 
• Mastercard debuted a digital currencies testing platform for central banks. 
• A California bill would mandate that judges use a crime prediction algorithm instead of cash bail. 
• Amazon’s digital voice initiative, which aims to help make voice-activated assistants compatible with each other, now has 77 members, including Facebook, Dolby, and Salesforce. 
• Walmart is piloting on-demand drone delivery in North Carolina.
• Nikola shares drop ~18% after its “no-details denial” of a highly critical short-seller report.

GOING PHISHING

Three of the following news stories are true, and one… I made up. Can you spot the odd one out? 

1. A robotic boat will retrace the Mayflower’s transatlantic journey 400 years later. 
2. AI can now beat a human at a simulated game of hopscotch. 
3. Someone took on the 24-hour challenge to build a TikTok clone designed for Kanye West. 
4. Scientists have figured out a way to turn paper into a keyboard. 

TECH THINGAMABOBS

For the museum buff: An algorithm developed by Microsoft and MIT can analyze art collections, identifying “similarities in color, texture, theme, and meaning between otherwise disparate works of art.” 

For the robot takeover: The Guardian had GPT-3, the new language generator by OpenAI, write an essay on why robots come in peace. Next week, it starts as our third ETB co-writer...

ICYMI

Catch up on the top Emerging Tech Brew stories from the past few editions: 

• Commercial Cleaning Bots on the Rise 
• How Tech Workers Adapted to Activism From Home
• QuantumScape Will Go Public at $3.3 Billion Valuation

GOING PHISHING ANSWER

AI didn’t bring home the gold in a game of hopscotch.