亚马逊与微软仍未解答在面部识别技术使用上存在的争议

因为人脸识别软件在识别黑人面部时表现不佳，人们担心这会导致该软件变成执法部门歧视有色人种的工具。于是亚马逊网站公司上周宣布，暂停警方使用一年的人工智能软件识别人脸。第二天，微软公司也表示，直到联邦政府通过一项法律来规范使用前，不会向美国警方出售类似产品。虽然微软和亚马逊上周的举措受到了赞扬，但真正执行取消合同的过程却具有复杂性。因为国内外、地方、州和国家各级有许多不同级别和类型的执法机构。这意味着，对于临时禁令涵盖哪些内容以及将如何实施，仍有许多悬而未决的问题得不到解决，而且目前还不清楚这些禁令只是针对当地警察部门，还是也包括联邦执法官员。目前两家公司都拒绝回答这些问题。微软总裁布拉德史密斯（Brad Smith）只是表示，公司现在没有任何联邦执法部门的客户，公司也不会在任何“导致对有色人种或女性产生偏见的情况下”向联邦执法部门出售产品，但他并没有排除向联邦机构出售这项技术的可能性。这些机构参与了许多海外警务活动，如美国移民和海关执法、海关和边境保护等。这些公司目前拒绝就是否会会向美国以外的机构出售软件予以置评，这意味着它们可能仍在瞄准大量海外客户，因为他们发现在美国国内销售该软件一直存在争议。

Black people，a population on whom facial，recognition software performs poorly, leading to concerns that the technology is another vector for discrimination against people of color by law enforcement. Amazon.com Inc. last week announced a one-year pause in use by police forces of its artificial intelligence software for recognizing faces. The next day, Microsoft Corp. said it doesn’t currently sell its similar product to U.S. police departments and won’t do so until the federal government passes a law regulating its use. While Microsoft and Amazon received praise for their steps last week, the complicated nature of technology contracts, and the many different levels and types of law enforcement agencies—foreign and domestic, at local, state and national levels—mean there are still many unanswered questions about what the temporary bans cover and how they will be implemented. Both companies have declined to answer these questions. It’s not clear whether the bans mean just local police departments or also include federal law enforcement officers. Both companies have declined to answer these questions. Microsoft President Brad Smith said the company doesn’t currently have any federal law enforcement customers. He said the company wouldn’t sell to federal law enforcement in any “scenario that either leads to bias against people of color or women,” and “won’t allow our technology to be used in any manner that puts people’s fundamental rights at risk,” but he stopped short of ruling out any sales of the technology to federal agencies that take part in many different kinds of policing, such as U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Customs and Border Protection and others. In announcing Microsoft’s move, Smith specified that it related to U.S. police. The companies have declined to comment on whether they will or currently sell to organizations outside the U.S. That means they may still be targeting a large group of international customers with software they have found problematic to sell domestically.  source

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