Stuff They Don't Want You To Know CLASSIC: At What Price Safety: The Conundrum of Clearview AI
Sep 9, 2025
The discussion dives into the ethical dilemmas surrounding Clearview AI's facial recognition technology. It highlights the tension between protecting public safety and invading personal privacy, raising important questions about data ownership. The evolution of imaging technology brings nostalgia and modern implications to the forefront. Humorous anecdotes about quarantine pets offer a lighthearted contrast to the serious themes, while the conversation underscores the vulnerability of such technologies and their potential misuse.
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Clearview's Massive Face Index
- Clearview AI built a searchable index of billions of publicly available face images scraped from the web.
- The company offers law-enforcement-focused facial-search tools that match photos to online images at scale.
Real Case: Child Abuse Identification
- The hosts describe a child-abuse case where two usable frames from a video helped identify a suspect via Clearview.
- They present this as a clear benefit while warning about broader implications when applied universally.
AR Pairing Enables Real-Time ID
- Clearview's code is built to pair with augmented reality and could feed identity data into AR glasses.
- That capability implies real-time identification of people on the street with linked personal breadcrumbs.
