Ukraine using face recognition technology to identify dead Russian soldiers
Ukraine is employing face recognition technology to identify invading Russian troops killed on its soil, a complex and unprecedented avenue for software already seen as problematic, experts said Thursday.
The embattled nation uses details resulting from the process to try to track down and notify the families of the dead, in an act Ukraine says is aimed at piercing Russia's war information filter.
While this type of artificial intelligence could offer closure to families denied it by the fog of war or Kremlin secrecy, the potential for mistakes is considerable and consequential.
"If you're a Russian parent being informed that your child has been killed when it's not true, that gets into a complex ethical dilemma," said Jim Hendler, director of the Institute for Data Exploration and Applications at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York state.
US-based Clearview AI, often criticized by privacy advocates, says it gave Ukrainian officials free access to its service that matches images from the internet to pictures uploaded by users trying to identify someone.
"The Ukrainian officials who have received access to Clearview AI have expressed their enthusiasm, and we await to hear more from them," Hoan Ton-That, the firm's co-founder and CEO, said in a statement.
Ukrainian vice prime minister Mykhailo Fedorov on Wednesday wrote that his nation was using "artificial intelligence" to search social networks for Russian soldiers' profiles using images of their bodies, to then report their deaths to loved ones.
He added one of the purposes was to "dispel the myth of a 'special operation,'" referring to Moscow insisting the invasion and war be designated as such.
Ukraine authorities did not reply to AFP requests for further information
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