UK proposes selfie-based, AI age verification system for porn sites

There is a 0% chance that AI can accurately determine if someone is 18 or not, even with hypothetical futuristic AI technology. Some 20-year-olds look very young. Some 16-year-olds look shockingly old. And nobody changes very significantly between the day of their 18th birthday and the day they were 17 years, 364 days.

- simply connect it to a facial recognition database (I understand the UK are quite fond of such)
  Yeah but that doesn't mean they work.
To quote the Simpsons: "0% is a percentage as well!" And that will be more than enough for politicians who know nothing about the topic and are blinded by the hot tech-buzzword of the minute (especially if it turns out they or some of their friends can make a shitload of money with it. I love capitalism and democracy.)
- As an outside observer, UK politicians (even Conservatives) seem to tend to be a bit better at this sort of thing than American or Australian ("the laws of mathematics are very commendable, but the only law that applies in Australia is the law of Australia") politicians. There's a much stronger tendency for their back benchers to vote against the party line than we have, too, which is great for deliberative democracy.
Exactly, this is something that even humans would have a hard time doing. Even though AI can do many things better than humans, humans are better at vision at the moment.
- humans are better at vision at the moment
  Eh, humans are better at certain kinds of vision—particularly on tasks that deal with non-white people where the AI was trained mostly on white people.
  But things where the vision is looking at very fine detail, AI is very good at. Like determining if a patient has a disease based on a retinal scan or other medical imagery.
  And I think it's fair to say that, at least superficially, the problem in this thread seems like it might be more similar to those medical cases where an AI could do a really good job. The problem is that actually, no. There's no known marker that could determine age with the level of accuracy that would be required for this task.
Hell, even 13-15 year olds are looking much older. I genuinely saw one in normal clothes, took a guess based on her being around maybe 20. Saw her a day later in school uniform. And only under 16's wear them.
Really did make me realise I am shit at age guessing.

Surely this won't block lots of legitimate users, while simultaneously being trivially easy to bypass by submitting a picture of literally anyone.

But it's so much more than that. It's a privacy nightmare in general and a boon for anyone interested in blackmail.
Totally gonna work this time though.
Such a complicated series of tubes, ye olde internet.
- Not to mention it is all based on the questionable assumption that porn is somehow harmful for teens to watch but the exact same porn is not harmful for adults.
Simply AI generate an adult face, it’ll be AI the whole way down
- Or alternatively send a dick pic, if they are underage, now they're in possession of child porn, congrats you played yourself.

‘cause if there’s one demographic that couldn’t possibly have the aptitude, resourcefulness or motivation needed to defeat a scheme like this it’s horny teenagers.

Sales of fake moustaches are gonna skyrocket

The UK should stick to things they know, like tea, comedy shows, fox hunting, and unelected MPs.

What about giving money to the royal family because of reasons?

The government says selfies for AI verification are to "protect" children from such content but in reality we know it's all to create a database with biometric hashes of everyone and create the long-awaited dystopia of 24/7 mass surveillance. The government that completes the task first comes out ahead, and it seems that China is winning the dispute

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- And since this is the UK we're talking about, you know they're gonna use that data to track who's trans and persecute them

Wonder if 80% of the images submitted will be photos of Zuckerburg

Maybe they can use all those sexy pictures of John Oliver that got posted in protest over at Reddit.

I hate this timeline.

And so the last steps to privacy are removed.

What's the porn site going to do when AI determines that a 15 year old is over 18?

"Judge, I swear the AI said she was 18!"

Soon they will be wanting dick pics.

I'd actually have less qualms with that then sending a porn site my face. It's amazing that they think this will go down well.

time to buy a fake mustache hehe

Classic - clearly some British politicians have shares in a facial AI company.