You might have heard about the facial recognition industry and how this new technology was going to be the next big thing. While facial recognition technology has caught on in many areas, many companies are starting to shift away from. IBM has famously stopped researching facial recognition technology due to how it could be used for ill. It’s also true that financial problems and technical issues are threatening to kill the facial recognition industry.
Technical Issues
There are actually many technical issues that people have noted in regard to this technology. You’ll find that facial recognition technology is very accurate when it comes to certain types of people. Many of the big companies have been able to make it so that facial recognition technology works well when identifying Caucasian faces. However, there have been issues when using the tech to identify faces from other races.
Since facial recognition technology is very popular in the law enforcement sector, you could see where this will present problems. There are many concerns about whether facial recognition technology will make discrimination issues worse than they already are. If the technology is getting things wrong and falsely identifying people of color, then is it really that useful? Many would say no but it’s also true that this technology could improve over time.
Social Concerns
Social concerns have also presented themselves and this makes it tougher to monetize facial recognition tech for many companies. This is a type of technology that has the potential to invade people’s privacy. For instance, one popular facial recognition software program is able to take a picture of your face and then mine the Internet to pull up every photo that it can find of your face. It’s fairly accurate as well but this is a creepy type of privacy invasion that many people aren’t comfortable with.
This is why many companies are moving away from this tech because it doesn’t appear that the public likes it very much. It’s true that facial recognition tech has the potential to be useful in some ways but the potential harm that it could do might outweigh the benefits. Time will tell if the facial recognition industry will die or if it will thrive. It’s up to you to decide how you feel about it on a personal level.