Your Face Belongs To Us

I just finished this book by Kashmir Hill about the rapidly advancing field of AI and face-recognition technology. I first heard about Kashmir’s research from a 2024 Search Engine podcast episode called “Should this creepy search engine exist?” where it was revealed that there is technology readily available that can put a name to a face in even the most obscure pictures.

The majority of this book builds up to the insane and scary practical implications of a technology in secret use today known as Clearview AI. For most of us who have been on the internet through all of its various stages in the 2000s, the fix is long gone. We are in some database somewhere even if we’ve tried to curb our internet uploads at some point. If you’ve uploaded a photo to Flickr, Facebook, Instagram, Venmo, or any social media platform in the last 10 years, we are cooked! Done. Finished. No going back.

If you are curious about how every public and private space has been eroded of every privacy assumption we’ve ever come to know, then pick up this book and read it.