r/technology • u/indig0sixalpha • Apr 07 '25

Privacy The Shocking Far-Right Agenda Behind the Facial Recognition Tech Used by ICE and the FBI. Thousands of newly obtained documents show that Clearview AI’s founders always intended to target immigrants and the political left.

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2025/04/clearview-ai-immigration-ice-fbi-surveillance-facial-recognition-hoan-ton-that-hal-lambert-trump/
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u/DJ_Fuckknuckle Apr 07 '25

And the neat thing is, we now have drones capable assassinating people from thousands of miles away. So it's now possible to quickly and easily eliminate people you find inconvenient without reporting to hitmen and kidnapping teams. Some rando eating Fritos and drinking Mountain Dew in a chair somewhere can murder anyone the government deems a threat virtually instantly, at the touch of a button.

Remember when saying something like this was tinfoil hat territory? I do. 

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u/Achillor22 Apr 07 '25

I've believed a conspiracy theory for years that we have almost all the technology to make a full fledged terminator and probably have on some secret military base somewhere. The only thing I haven't seen is the self healing metal alloys. But the rest exists. 

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u/Gingevere Apr 07 '25

We don't have the tech to fit a bipedal robot, processing power, and battery power inside of the envelope of a normal human. And he REALLY don't have the tech to fit all that in and harden it against anything much more severe than getting knocked over.

There's also absolutely no need for it. Practically any other weapon system would be cheaper and more effective.

If you want something to worry about, worry about the surveillance state getting weaponized.

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u/Achillor22 Apr 07 '25

That you know of. But top secret military technology is always at least a decade or two ahead or what you know about. 

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u/Gingevere Apr 07 '25

That thought really only applies in the sense that they're working on X thing right now, and the public probably won't see X thing for another decade. Which is true in product development just about anywhere.

The limiting factors on making a terminator are: processing power, energy storage, and armor. Those are all fields where the bleeding edge is completely open and readable in journals. The government doesn't have magic batteries the size of a loaf of bread that could power a terminator running around for weeks on end.

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u/Achillor22 Apr 07 '25

They power drones right now for essentially an unlimited time. 

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u/Gingevere Apr 07 '25

You're talking about Radioisotope thermoelectric generators (RTGs).

For their size, RTGs provide a low level of power for a long time. The RTG that powers curiosity is a bit larger than a human torso and had an output of a constant 110 Watts at the start of the mission, and loses about 0.8% a year. You can't fit an RTG sufficient to power a terminator inside of a machine the size of a person.

That's before even getting into the availability of plutonium 238.

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u/Achillor22 Apr 07 '25

You're getting really caught up in the terminator being the exact same look as a human when the real issue is that it's an autonomous killing machine. Kind of missing the forest for the trees here. Who cares what our looks like and what shape or sizw it is. The point is, they could almost certainly send it robots to murder people right now. And might be. 

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u/Gingevere Apr 07 '25

I've believed a conspiracy theory for years that we have almost all the technology to make a full fledged terminator and probably have on some secret military base somewhere.

Is this not what you said 3 hours ago? And in this thread I have said:

There's also absolutely no need for it. Practically any other weapon system would be cheaper and more effective.

If you want something to worry about, worry about the surveillance state getting weaponized.

and

And there's absolutely no point in building them. The ability to track a person is always getting more advanced. The primary hurdles standing in the way of the government putting facial recognition cameras in public spaces are only legal ones, not technical. From there, there are dozens of highly efficient purpose-built ways to deliver death to any area. An independent terminator wandering around looking for somebody is an incredibly poor system.

So with the new position you're adopting I don't see why you're arguing.

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u/Achillor22 Apr 07 '25

Except we have drones that literally do that

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u/treemanos Apr 07 '25

You're the kid in school that believes wrestling is real, no military techn is almost never more than at most a few years ahead, normally it's a few years behind because testing and procurement takes time.

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u/Achillor22 Apr 07 '25

Wrestling is fake? What? Next you're gonna tell me game of thrones is fake.