One night in February final yr, a 23-year-old Uber driver named Niradi Srikanth was on the point of begin one other shift, ferrying passengers across the south Indian metropolis of Hyderabad. He pointed the telephone at his face to take a selfie to confirm his identification. The method normally labored seamlessly. However this time he was unable to log in.
Srikanth suspected it was as a result of he had just lately shaved his head. After additional makes an attempt to log in have been rejected, Uber knowledgeable him that his account had been blocked. He isn’t alone. In a survey performed by MIT Know-how Overview of 150 Uber drivers within the nation, virtually half had been both briefly or completely locked out of their accounts due to issues with their selfie.
Lots of of hundreds of India’s gig financial system staff are on the mercy of facial recognition know-how, with few authorized, coverage or regulatory protections. For staff like Srikanth, getting blocked from or kicked off a platform can have devastating penalties. Learn the total story.
—Varsha Bansal
I met a police drone in VR—and hated it
Police departments the world over are embracing drones, deploying them for all the things from surveillance and intelligence gathering to even chasing criminals. But none of them appear to be looking for out how encounters with drones go away folks feeling—or whether or not the know-how will assist or hinder policing work.
A workforce from College School London and the London Faculty of Economics is filling within the gaps, finding out how folks react when assembly police drones in digital actuality, and whether or not they come away feeling kind of trusting of the police.
MIT Know-how Overview’s Melissa Heikkilä got here away from her encounter with a VR police drone feeling unnerved. If others really feel the identical manner, the large query is whether or not these drones are efficient instruments for policing within the first place. Learn the total story.
Melissa’s story is from The Algorithm, her weekly publication overlaying AI and its results on society. Enroll to obtain it in your inbox each Monday.
