What will these inquiries do for us, the users and targets of AI systems?
New York Times reporter and author Kashmir Hill wrote Clearview AI, the facial recognition system favored by law enforcement agencies in the U.S., proposed a unique settlement to a class action lawsuit for scraping images from publicly available images on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram.
Instead of traditional monetary payouts, the company wants to give affected parties a 23% stake in the company. Hill reports the company is valued at $225 million and 23% would represent $52 million.
This arrangement turns those negatively affected by Clearview into the very people rooting for its financial success. Would the plaintiffs have a say in operational decisions? The structure of this proposed settlement reminds me of the restricted stock units a tech company gave me as a retention incentive when I joined the company. As a part-owner of the company, I had more motivation to make it successful and to stay with the company longer. My shares didn’t ‘vest’ (have a liquid cash value) until the first six months of my employment and then every quarter thereafter.
It’s complex, I know. But when I left the company I had equity.
Behavior like this by tech firms make federal antitrust regulators’ jobs nearly impossible. Consequences for bad behavior aren’t really consequences at all in this case, but rather a strategy to gain support, users, and goodwill.
Check out Clearview’s role in the false arrest of six Black men and one pregnant Black woman since 2019.
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