They did that here in the Phillipines and they exploit the poor. They give money for people to allow them to scan their eyes. These people do not know the consequences of what they are doing.
> These people do not know the consequences of what they are doing.
They might have known the consequences, but money is money. I feel like for 99% of people there is a certain sum of money for which they will give into pretty much any kind of data collection. Even I'd give into it if they gave me enough. The bar is just higher, but there does exist a certain $X for which I would give in as well.
Most times I’ve been biometrically catalogued, I wasn’t paid for the privilege. The government just kind of said I had to, and I wasn’t in a position to argue.
I guess I am in some sense compensated by the data brokers who psychometrically profile my internet use and resell their conclusions—but “free ad-supported internet content” isn’t exactly fungible cash…
I haven't thought about an exact number, but I'd probably cave in for $20M.
I'd finally be able to afford a house, never have to work for a toxic company again in my life, and could afford various preventative medical care without relying on insurance.
Interesting, thinking about it - makes sense the money has to be life-changing, as you’d be selling the data of generations - or maybe there is some kind of formula that can be derived from gene distribution and kinship (you pass on 50% of your genes, etc.)
Is that any different from reality now? At least they throw a few dollars at you for it.
I suspect that my face has been recorded and linked to my profile at several stores. Palantir or similar have probably scrapped all of the internet looking to link a face to an identity.
Real ID just because fully required for domestic air travel.
What does a picture of your eye allow that fingerprints, face scans and other passport biometrics that have already been collected and linked do not? Honest question.
Yes the government and or private companies don’t have a copy of my fingerprints and I’d honestly rather they didn’t have pictures of my face on record either. Just because we’ve become accustomed to these breaches of our privacy doesn’t mean they are good.
> Just because we’ve become accustomed to these breaches of our privacy doesn’t mean they are good.
100% this. The fact that the governments and corporations have enough information at their fingertips to identify people from chance photos is, IMO, not good.
However that genie is out of the bottle and there is no way to get it back in. Cameras are ubiquitous and one can get a decent quality fingerprint from store camera footage. Any time I do eye exam the doctor takes an eye scan and uploads it somewhere. Passport biometrics are becoming required and most countries will match it with a face scan on border crossing. And this is just a tip of the iceberg.
I would like to be wrong, but IMO the only solution to the government being able to track anyone they like (or, rather, do not like) is via legislation, not technology. And with various 3-letter agencies being routinely allowed special access "because security" this path is unlikely to be viable either. My 2c.
My teeth were 3D scanned at very high resolution by my dentist the other day. He is leading edge and is now doing it for all patients (was previously only patients with replacement needs). I assume the information is going to some US provider somewhere.
Iris scanning and lots of other biometrics like capillaries can be done from a distance (e.g. iris scan at airport security in NZ).
In the EU it is mandatory to provide your fingerprints and a biometric scan of your face to the government. The data is stored on your government issued identification card.
Is it certain that impoverished people would weigh those potential consequences more heavily than being paid today?
For that matter, do we expect that the impoverished people the gp commenter refers to would resist, say, government-led efforts to compel their biometrics from them? [0]
True, but does that mean the solution is to force the starvation because their choice to alleviate it was insufficiently willing for our tastes? At least they’ll starve with two kidneys, and we hope the would-be kidney recipient can get by on dialysis a while longer?
By all means let’s engineer a world where people are never faced with crappy choices. But people are living in the present, not the glorious future: Taking away the choice in this case doesn’t seem to fix the situation, and deprives people of a benefit they’d accept if you let them choose.
> True, but does that mean the solution is to force the starvation because their choice to alleviate it was insufficiently willing for our tastes? At least they’ll starve with two kidneys, and we hope the would-be kidney recipient can get by on dialysis a while longer?
That’s not what anyone who objects to this thinks and you know it. Anyone who objects to people selling away something dear because they are poor want (1) those people to not be poor and (2) those other people to not prey on them. People are outraged when people are forced to drink dirty water—they are not outraged at desperate people for drinking dirty rainwater.
It’s a false choice.
> By all means let’s engineer a world where people are never faced with crappy choices. But people are living in the present, not the glorious future: Taking away the choice in this case doesn’t seem to fix the situation, and deprives people of a benefit they’d accept if you let them choose.
I agree! I think what rubbed me was the idea that the people taking Altman’s deal “do not know the consequences of what they are doing.”
Down that road lies a paternalistic flavor of charity, a spirit of “protecting them from themselves.” And that seems to evoke the idea that poor is the same as ignorant. That there’s only one correct value to assign to your biometric data, and anyone who values theirs differently must do so because they’re ignorant, rather than just having different values from you.
We can advocate for political freedom, material security, and just societies—and probably get better results—if we don’t model people as helpless or uninformed or without agency just because they’re in a socially vulnerable position.
> We can advocate for political freedom, material security, and just societies—and probably get better results—if we don’t model people as helpless or uninformed or without agency just because they’re in a socially vulnerable position.
Sam Altman has a far greater capacity for agency than an impoverished Filipino signing away his biometric data for the price of a Domino’s pizza.
If I tell you to give me your money or I'll kill you, by your reasoning it is good for you that you gave me the money. You are completely ignoring the situation that I set up where you had to do a bad thing to protect yourself from an even worse thing, and that you'd be even better off if some guy killed me so that I couldn't kill you.
People are selling things that should be inalienable, ostensibly because they really need to. The most immediate, glaring problem is that they are poor. This can be answered:
> > Is it certain that impoverished people would weigh those potential consequences more heavily than being paid today?
The answer is: No, it is not certain. Why? Because they are poor.
Poor people have less agency. That’s just a fact. And they are being preyed upon by Altman. Making this about whether poor Filipinos are making an informed agreement with an AI bro is tone-deaf.
not that it makes it any better, but you're saying that like it's impossible to do now what you're describing. you're already in the system, whether you like it or not, both public and private one(s).
