Meta, the parent company for Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, plans to introduce new face scanning tech while people are distracted by current political turbulence. The Trump-adjacent corporation plans to package the feature in new smart glasses. An internal Meta document seen by the New York Times (NYT) says:
We will launch during a dynamic political environment where many civil society groups that we would expect to attack us would have their resources focused on other concerns.
The media outlet provides further info on what the tech would allow:
The feature, internally called “Name Tag,” would let wearers of smart glasses identify people and get information about them via Meta’s artificial intelligence assistant.
The cynical internal memo likely references the tumult currently sweeping the US amidst the mass criminality carried out by the brownshirts of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Trump’s personal paramilitary goons have been violating laws left and right as they beat and kill their way around the US, under the pretext of an immigration crackdown.
ICE have already made extensive use of face scanning tech. Meta’s glasses would represent another privacy violating move, capturing massive amounts of personal data which may ultimately find its way into the hands of an authoritarian state. Meta has form when it comes to handing over info about customers to governments.
Not only that, when the bubble pops, which it seems like it’s going to as they’ve no way to make back the money they are investing, the federal government will bail them out I fear, and make them even more beholden to our politicians and their pet projects.
Man I sure hope the gov sees the writing on the wall and just lets it die. There’s no “bailing out” a company that has no path to profitability. At least the auto and housing industries existed for hundreds of years prior.
Yeah think about it, they would hardly lose any jobs, the only people that will lose out will be investors, bond holders, corporations that signed contracts with them maybe. They would have to play on the few lost jobs it could cause, even those though, the chip makers will still have work, they will just have to switch back to making chips for computers, which we need to be cheaper as AI has led to a derth of computer chips and I presume skyrocketing prices. So the chip makers will be fine.
They really don’t have an argument that I can see to bail them out, they will anyway, but it will be even more corrupt and blatant than what came before.
But maybe they can keep it going for a long time, especially with the fed about to be controlled by the executive and zero interest rates indefinitely. I mean look at Tesla, the actual value means nothing, apparently. It seems like it has to pop eventually, but I think the knowledge that the goverrnment will bail them out has led to less volatility as investors aren’t so quick to jump ship.
Privatized gains, and socialized losses. The president is basically a communist. That is what I’m going with.