Hang on, Hang on. Let's not get too carried away here. The big corps are all scared after what has/is happening to facebook, and this is an attempt at trying to "go down the unsteady river together" with the authorities.
Now, in an ideal world, where governments are ideal, then this is a good thing for the population, as the government theoretically represents the people.
However, the government is run by people and is not ideal. This is not a good thing, and will allow all sort of actual abuses of power occur, in the long run.
I read this as the tech industry trying to get the gov. in with them also. (even more than already so), in my opinion.
Brad is very specific about the problems with facial recognition and he generalizes an approach to regulation that seems sound. The argument that the government is always going to abuse power and should therefore not attempt to regulate anything is a rallying cry of politicians who were hired to run for office to stop regulation at all costs. There is skepticism and then there is cynicism. Skepticism serves the purpose of finding realistic solutions while cynicism serves the purpose of finding a reason to justify doing nothing. When someone in government proposes that a problem be solved by doing nothing you can be sure that they don't really work for the people. We can't fix environmental problems by shutting down the EPA, we can't fix public schools by reducing their funding and when a company reaches out publicly to talk about regulating their own industry we can't prepare for the future of that industry by telling them to stay in their lane.
> will allow all sort of actual abuses of power occur, in the long run
The abuses already happen and they will get worse, so what abuses of regulation you have in mind that would be worse than completely unregulated use?
> However, the government is run by people and is not ideal.
It is still much much more so than corporations are (run by people, that is), and people can change their degree of influence. As you say at least the government theoretically represents the people (that's the whole justification for it), while that's not the case for corporations, even in theory.
Now, in an ideal world, where governments are ideal, then this is a good thing for the population, as the government theoretically represents the people.
However, the government is run by people and is not ideal. This is not a good thing, and will allow all sort of actual abuses of power occur, in the long run.
I read this as the tech industry trying to get the gov. in with them also. (even more than already so), in my opinion.