A set of smart vending machines at the University of Waterloo is expected to be removed from campus after students raised privacy concerns about their software.
The machines have M&M artwork on them and sell chocolate and other candy. They are located throughout campus, including in the Modern Languages building and Hagey Hall.
Earlier this month, a student noticed an error message on one of the machines in the Modern Languages building. It appeared to indicate there was a problem with a facial recognition application.
“We wouldn’t have known if it weren’t for the application error. There’s no warning here,” said River Stanley, a fourth-year student, who investigated the machines for an article in the university publication, mathNEWS.
deleted by creator
There are people who actually believe that kind of dystopic bullshit, even in the tech sector. I remember a colleague a few years ago, told me he liked targeted ads because “it knew what I wanted”
deleted by creator
There’s a lot of people in the world who do, in fact, like to eat.
There are also a lot of people, already in the wealthiest upper percentiles, who would implement big brother just to be slightly wealthier.
“I was only following orders”
Problem is, if you refuse to do it, they’ll hire another developer who will.
Probably exploited labor, similar to those who have no choice but to work in scam call centers to survive.
Pretty unfortunate that things are like this IMO
I don’t think software developers working in AI are “exploited labour just doing it to survive”
Bro theres plenty of people who run scams in big offices all day every day
Removed by mod
What kind of amoral, selfish monster, would know full well that car emissions are exterminating life as we know it on earth, and still decide to drive a car?
The same kind of monster who develops this technology.
deleted by creator
Ah, so there we go. You have a perfect set of excuses for your own actions and why they’re someone else’s fault, but you struggle to understand how someone could develop software like this. The answer is: the same way as you. Excuses.
deleted by creator
No.
Aren’t you taking this all a bit personally? I’m just using your own experiences to explain a situation you find difficult to understand. The douchebags are the same as you. Hope that helps.
deleted by creator
Yeah, you’re taking this way too personally. I’m out here explaining how people can justify doing bad things to themselves, and you’re having a whole identity crisis over whether you’re a bad person about it. Look, your personal difficulties excusing your own actions are none of my business.
deleted by creator
I’d do that. Privacy should not exist. Everything must be public and available to everyone. Every person should have a tracking implant and anyone should be able to access it.
deleted by creator
Not /s. Privacy is a foreign concept for humans, invented a bit over a century ago. Privacy is a root cause of many social problems in our day and age.
Privacy as a human right is, indeed, new. The concept and the desire for it is old. Doing things and not wanting to get caught is as old as walking forward. What, you think the idea of cheating a romantic partner is new? That every military in history and prehistory exchanged letters with one another, saying what they were doing? That every important and “important” person always exposed everything they did and thought to everyone?
Also, keep in mind there’s a significant number of serious journalists that need privacy in order to do their job of exposing crimes. I can already see you replying “They wouldn’t need to do that if everything was public”. True, but that would also mean that tyrants and wannabe tyrants would have incredible ease in killing everyone they disliked.
Well, you said it yourself - you only need privacy to commit a crime or to cheat on someone. Privacy should NOT exist!
Huh, I didn’t know preparing surprises (parties, gifts, trips) was a crime. Today I Learned /s
Huh, I didn’t know that cheating on a romantic partner or starting a war was just preparing a surprise (parties, gifts, trips). Today I Learned, not /s
In that case, I would guess that you’re a man, and one who has never had a stalker.
Privacy is what enables stalkers.
You’re fucking unhinged, mate.
Their argument would be that the stalker having privacy allows them to do the stalking…
they are indeed unhinged. If everything was magically public like they wish. We’d have no resources as every government official would be outed for what they were hiding. Would be complete anarchy real fast.
And you’re deluded.
deleted by creator