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thechanelmuse's review against another edition
4.0
"If you're not paying for it, you're the product."
Your Face Belongs to Us is a terrifying yet interesting journey through the world of invasive surveillance, artificial intelligence, facial recognition, and biometric data collection by way of the birth and rise of a company called Clearview AI — a software used by law enforcement and government agencies in the US yet banned in various countries. A database of 75 million images per day.
Your Face Belongs to Us is a terrifying yet interesting journey through the world of invasive surveillance, artificial intelligence, facial recognition, and biometric data collection by way of the birth and rise of a company called Clearview AI — a software used by law enforcement and government agencies in the US yet banned in various countries. A database of 75 million images per day.
youngthespian42's review against another edition
5.0
This book is a living dystopian nightmare. Well written, informative, and clearly communicates the stakes of the issue while allowing the reader to come to their own conclusions. The sections of the book that give the history of development of face recognition technology add to the profile of Clearview.ai without feeling like a diversion. Books like this can feel like long form article stretched to a novel but this book has no fluff.
profpetitfours's review against another edition
5.0
This is an excellent look at the rapidly improving technology around facial recognition. While the book's core follows the growth of Clearview AI, a program used by law enforcement agencies around the US, it makes clear that the technology doesn't just belong to them.
I appreciated the historical approach to the topic. Hill tracks the early days of facial recognition and it's slow and uneven improvements over time.
As Hill highlights in the quote above, those early technology pioneers (probably) could not imagine the use cases that facial recognition has today. For many, it was an academic exercise to prove what was possible. I was constantly drawing connections to emerging AI and LLM tools, a technology we also haven't tried to regulate or discuss the ethics of.
The book also forced me to think of all of the times I've willingly given up my biometric data and what that means about the ability to move around this world unbothered.
I appreciated the historical approach to the topic. Hill tracks the early days of facial recognition and it's slow and uneven improvements over time.
Those giants, computer scientists who had toiled in academic labs and Silicon Valley offices, had paved the way not just for Clearview but for future data-mining companies that may come for our voices, our expressions, our DNA, and our thoughts. They yearned to make computers ever more powerful, without reckoning with the full scope of the consequences. Now we have to live with the results.
As Hill highlights in the quote above, those early technology pioneers (probably) could not imagine the use cases that facial recognition has today. For many, it was an academic exercise to prove what was possible. I was constantly drawing connections to emerging AI and LLM tools, a technology we also haven't tried to regulate or discuss the ethics of.
The book also forced me to think of all of the times I've willingly given up my biometric data and what that means about the ability to move around this world unbothered.
“Something that people don’t generally think about a lot, but which is actually so core to our ability to just function in a free society,” Wessler said, “is to be able to go about our lives, whether it’s mundane or really embarrassing, sensitive or private things, and not expect we’ll be identified instantaneously by a total stranger, whether that’s police or some billionaire trying out a fun toy or anyone in between.”
omg_pear's review against another edition
challenging
informative
reflective
slow-paced
Just like with all non-fiction you need to come into this knowing there is a bias. I loved how the book went from the past to the present in terms of where facial technology is and I learned a lot. This helped me form a better opinion on a topic I didn’t think too much about. I always hated face id stuff and never used it, but now I have more language and reasoning as to way it’s okay to be skeptical about it. I also got another view on how helpful something like this can be, but because humans are humans it will not always be used with the best intentions.
zwembadman's review against another edition
informative
medium-paced
4.0
Facial recognition is most of the time not illegal per se, yet is poses challenges to privacy I never really thought about. Hill points them out in chilling detail and shows how an entire wave of companies and researchers are working to make a really pervasive kind of surveillance come true.
Her conclusion - facial recognition is here to stay and it can be used both for good and bad; so we should think about how to deal with it - is a wake-up call that we, as a society, have to plan for a different world in which it will not be evident to go about your life discreetly and anonymously.
Her conclusion - facial recognition is here to stay and it can be used both for good and bad; so we should think about how to deal with it - is a wake-up call that we, as a society, have to plan for a different world in which it will not be evident to go about your life discreetly and anonymously.