The rules are now more strict, especially in the field of facial recognition.
Microsoft has tightened the rules for using its Azure OpenAI Service, banning US police departments from using generative AI for facial recognition. Changes to the terms of service introduced on Wednesday now explicitly prohibit the use of Azure OpenAI Service for police facial recognition, including integration with current and possibly future OpenAI image analysis models.
The new provision also applies to police around the world, specifically prohibiting the use of real-time facial recognition technologies on mobile cameras, such as body cameras or on car dashboards, to identify people in uncontrolled environments.
This change comes a week after Axon, a manufacturer of technical and military tools for law enforcement, announced a new product that uses OpenAI's GPT-4 generative text model to generalize audio from body cameras. Critics have pointed out possible problems such as the creation of inaccurate information by models and racial biases in training data, which is particularly worrying given the greater likelihood of police stopping blacks compared to whites.
It is unclear whether Axon used GPT-4 via the Azure OpenAI Service and whether the changes to the terms of service were a reaction to the Axon product launch. OpenAI has previously restricted the use of its models for facial recognition through its APIs.
The new conditions leave Microsoft some room for maneuver. The full ban on using Azure OpenAI Service applies only to the US police and does not apply to face recognition using stationary cameras in controlled environments, such as in the office, although the terms prohibit any use of facial recognition technologies by the US police.
This is consistent with the recent approach of Microsoft and its close partner OpenAI to AI-related enforcement and defense contracts. Earlier , we reported that OpenAI is working with the Pentagon on a number of projects, including cybersecurity capabilities, which is a departure from the startup's early policy of prohibiting the provision of its AI to the military.
Microsoft has tightened the rules for using its Azure OpenAI Service, banning US police departments from using generative AI for facial recognition. Changes to the terms of service introduced on Wednesday now explicitly prohibit the use of Azure OpenAI Service for police facial recognition, including integration with current and possibly future OpenAI image analysis models.
The new provision also applies to police around the world, specifically prohibiting the use of real-time facial recognition technologies on mobile cameras, such as body cameras or on car dashboards, to identify people in uncontrolled environments.
This change comes a week after Axon, a manufacturer of technical and military tools for law enforcement, announced a new product that uses OpenAI's GPT-4 generative text model to generalize audio from body cameras. Critics have pointed out possible problems such as the creation of inaccurate information by models and racial biases in training data, which is particularly worrying given the greater likelihood of police stopping blacks compared to whites.
It is unclear whether Axon used GPT-4 via the Azure OpenAI Service and whether the changes to the terms of service were a reaction to the Axon product launch. OpenAI has previously restricted the use of its models for facial recognition through its APIs.
The new conditions leave Microsoft some room for maneuver. The full ban on using Azure OpenAI Service applies only to the US police and does not apply to face recognition using stationary cameras in controlled environments, such as in the office, although the terms prohibit any use of facial recognition technologies by the US police.
This is consistent with the recent approach of Microsoft and its close partner OpenAI to AI-related enforcement and defense contracts. Earlier , we reported that OpenAI is working with the Pentagon on a number of projects, including cybersecurity capabilities, which is a departure from the startup's early policy of prohibiting the provision of its AI to the military.
