President Uhuru Kenyatta's rockstar cousin, Tom Morello, has agitated against the use of facial recognition at music festivals.
Together with Evan Greer, a trans musician, writer and activist, they penned an opinion piece for Buzzfeed titled, "How Artists And Fans Stopped Facial Recognition From Invading Music Festivals."
"In a few short weeks, using basic grassroots activism tactics like online petitions, social media pressure and an economic boycott targeting festival sponsors, artists and fans killed the idea of facial recognition at US music festivals," they wrote.
"Now we need to do the same for sporting events, transportation, public housing, schools, law enforcement agencies and all public places. And there’s no time to lose."
Morello wrote, "But in almost all of these cases, facial recognition is still in its early stages. It’s an experiment. And we’re the test subjects. If we accept ubiquitous biometric monitoring and normalise the idea of getting our faces scanned to get on a plane or pick up our kids from school, the experiment works and our fate is sealed."
He advised, "But if we organise — if we refuse to be lab rats in a digital panopticon — we can avert a future where all human movements and associations are tracked by artificial intelligence algorithms trained to look for and punish deviations from authoritarian norms."
Technological advancements are slowly changing how we interact, and with the advancement of AI, the world will soon be run by machines.
