MichaelGroves

Maybe it's a myth, but if so, it's an influential myth. I first heard this story about 10 years ago when I was new to the business and working on ad tech. It was used as an example of "what not to do" (because creeping out customers is bad for business.) The ideal, I was told, was to toe the line as close as possible. Creep on customers, but don't let them realize it. Hide highly targeted suggestions among less accurate suggestions, to disguise the efficacy of the tracking.

I recently saw a viral video of a seagull shoplifting a bag of chips. The automatic doors didn't open for the seagull, so the bird just waited until a permitted human approached the door.

A "mantrap" entrance (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mantrap_(access_control) ) could solve this, but I think many stores don't have the space for it. That 7-11 doesn't. Also, neither the cops nor the towing company will show up in time to do anything about it.

A self driving car obviously needs to be aware of other cars on the road. I don't see any reason why the car couldn't observe other cars, see what speed they are going at, and refuse to go faster than the rest. A car that refuses to do 120mph when all the other cars are doing 60mph in a 50mph zone should be trivial.

(Trivial if the self driving tech works at all....)

You can obscure your face from many cameras with bright IR leds, but then you become "that one guy who's face shows up on camera as a bright washed out blur." It's like trying to hide an airplane from radars by broadcasting megawatts of broadband noise; possible but not particularly useful.

When store employees are told not to physically detain any shoplifter, it hardly matters at all if they tell a serial shoplifter to leave the store. The shoplifter will walk around the confronting employee, grab whatever they like off the shelves, and walk out without paying for it. (I've seen this happen numerous times at 7-11, where the facial recognition is being run by store employees using their eyeballs/brains.)

The real victims of this will be the false positives. People who follow the rules, but get incorrectly classified as shoplifters. They will be the ones who are actually turned away at the door.