Abstract
This paper offers the first philosophical analysis of a form of artificial intelligence (AI) which the author calls facial profiling technology (FPT). FPT is a type of facial analysis technology designed to predict criminal behavior based solely on facial structure. Marketed for use by law enforcement, face classifiers generated by the program can supposedly identify murderers, thieves, pedophiles, and terrorists prior to the commission of crimes. At the time of this writing, an FPT company has a contract with the United States federal government. After recounting how FPT resurrects the same moral problems associated with the pseudoscience of physiognomy, the author of this manuscript develops and defends the ‘Liberal Argument Against Facial Discrimination’ (LAAFD), which concludes that government use of FPT poses a significant risk of violating the classical liberal value of equality before the law by committing unjust discrimination against groups of people whose faces happen to match FPT classifiers. A key move in the argument suggests how a future scenario that results in widespread discrimination based solely on facial structure could be as unjustified and harmful, mutatis mutandis, as similar discrimination based solely on racial background. In the final section, the author of this paper develops prima facie policy proposals designed to protect classical liberal values if FPT is to be utilized by governments in liberal democratic societies.
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Notes
Examples include the infamous advertising poster for the laundry detergent “The Magic Washer” that depicts a racialized cartoon of Asian characters (complete with slanted eyes and other racially exaggerated features) being physically kicked into the ocean by a character bearing the likeness of Uncle Sam, who is wearing American flag regalia. The advertisement reads, “We have no use for them (Asian people) since we got this WONDERFUL WASHER”. Another cartoon from the era displays a racialized stereotypical caricature of an Asian man being held by his long hair and whipped by an American employer, warning Americans of the ‘Yellow-peril’ coming from Asian immigrants (California State Assembly 2017).
For example: the Rock Springs massacre occurred in September of 1885 when 28 Chinese residents were shot, stabbed, beaten, or burned to death in their homes or in the streets by white men and women in the town, some of whom had previously taught English to the Chinese residents (History Matters). Some of the victims were scalped, dismembered, and hanged from gutters. One victim had his genitalia amputated and then toasted in a nearby saloon as a ‘hunting trophy’ (Courtwright 1996). Even though federal troops were summoned to restore peace, no charges were ever filed (Rea2014). The Chinese Exclusion Act was eventually overturned after 58 years by the passage of the Magnuson Act of 1943, which was intended to improve U.S. relations with China for World War II involvement against Japan.
In U.S history alone, other egregious examples include: The practice of slavery against Black Americans; the passage of Jim Crow laws which codified mandated racial segregation post-Civil War; the US Government’s policies toward the Indigenous Tribes of America; the internment of Japanese Americans living on the West coast of the U.S. via Executive Order 9066 during WW II; Pre-1920 America, during which woman were denied the right to vote until the 19th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution was ratified; Pre-1990 American before the Americans with Disabilities Act was passed which prohibits discrimination based on disability; and many others.
The author thanks an anonymous reviewer for raising this important topic.
The author thanks an anonymous reviewer for raising this important topic.
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Gentzel, M.J. Facial profiling technology and discrimination: a new threat to civil rights in liberal democracies. Philos Stud (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-024-02156-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-024-02156-0