Imagine strolling down a busy city street and snapping a photo of a stranger then uploading it into a search engine that almost instantaneously helps you identify the person.

This isn’t a hypothetical. It’s possible now, thanks to a website called PimEyes, considered one of the most powerful publicly available facial recognition tools online.

  • meseek #2982@lemmy.ca
    10·
    9 months ago

    “Eric Schmidt as far back as 2011, said this was the one technology that Google had developed and decided to hold back, that it was too dangerous in the wrong hands — if it was used by a dictator, for example,” Hill said.

    Yeah, I’m sure they didn’t just keep it to themselves and use it for their nefarious purposes. Definitely not what happened.

    • Nik282000@lemmy.ca
      3·
      9 months ago

      Government’s already have this tech, it’s not a secret or even very complicated it just takes some really beefy hardware (or a lot of time). The FBI used it to identify people in the capitol attack.

      • meseek #2982@lemmy.ca
        4·
        9 months ago

        Yeah I’m sure they’ve had for decades. Not saying it’s not out there, just that it’s a bit disingenuous to say Google doesn’t employ and even sell the service.

        It makes it seem like Google locked it away like some Akira project.