For every high-tech flying car or virtual reality headset that comes out, it seems like we also gotta get some kind of quasi-dystopian technology to offset the fun stuff. Consider, for instance, Corsight AI:
Corsight AI, a facial recognition subsidiary of the Israeli AI company Cortica, purports to be devising a solution for that sort of situation by using DNA to create a model of a face that can then be run through a facial recognition system. It is a task that experts in the field regard as scientifically untenable.
Corsight unveiled its "DNA to Face" product in a presentation by chief executive officer Robert Watts and executive vice president Ofer Ronen intended to court financiers at the Imperial Capital Investors Conference in New York City on December 15. It was part of the company's overall product road map, which also included movement and voice recognition. The tool "constructs a physical profile by analyzing genetic material collected in a DNA sample," according to a company slide deck viewed by surveillance research group IPVM and shared with MIT Technology Review.
Hmm. How to best sum this up?
I mean, you could sit down for an absurdly short amount of time and probably come up with at least half a dozen significant risks posed by such technology. It's not hard at all.
What makes it worse, though, is this:
[M]arketing materials show that the company is focused on government and law enforcement applications for its technology. Its advisory board consists only of James Woolsey, a former director of the CIA, and Oliver Revell, a former assistant director of the FBI.
Oooookay. So this stuff is gonna land in the laps of spooks, cops and bureau agents. No danger there. Completely risk-free, right?
