Watched the new Spiderman movie today and something that made me think was him tapping into real time face recognition surveillance cameras around the city to track his enemies real time, which I thought was strange to say the least in the light of the recent controversies around Flock cameras in the US. Is there something going on behind the scenes to plant the idea that these make for safer cities, or am I being paranoid and the movie is just trying to be cool by being hi-tech?

The other thing that caught my attention was him talking to his computer with natural language. Now this one isn’t exactly new for superhero movies, I remember Jarvis and Ironman, but regardless it came across as the sort of techbro dream scenario that the current day AI assistans are trying to realize, which is not an angle I’d consider at the time that I was watching the original Ironman.

I should probably stop overthinking these things and just try enjoying the movie instead, but I was curious to hear what others think about this.

  • YoFrodo@lemmy.world
    321·
    5 days ago

    Advertising? no.

    Its the same as Christian Bale’s Batman where he uses his surveillance tech to find the Joker.

    Both instances are “a hero uses scary tech to try to help, but what does this mean for their morality?”

    In Batman, Morgan Freeman’s character quits because he feels Bruce is going too far.

    In the new Spider-Man film there isnt anyone directly opposing Spider-Mans face recognition hack but the whole film frames Peter’s misuse of tech, which is primarily highlighted during a conversation Peter has with Bruce Banner. It seems clear to me that this film is setting up a big conflict where Peter’s tech will be used for significant harm.

    So everyone saying that Spider-Man is now promoting Flock/Palantir/Surveillance seems to have quite literally missed the plot.

    • Uruanna@lemmy.world
      1·
      3 days ago

      He very clearly created what’s going to be the mutant power supressing tech (usually depicted as collars) that’s going to be used to round up mutants everywhere in the upcoming X-Men saga, yes. I expect it to be openly blamed on him a couple times, same as Iron Man creating Ultron and the Sokovia accords. The discussion with Banner about exactly that was the whole crucial point of what’s coming, yeah.

    • thesdev@feddit.orgOP
      9·
      5 days ago

      This was insightful, I had not made these connections.

      What worries me is people walking out of the cinemas thinking (perhaps mostly unconsciously) that the surveillance helped save the day, while I watched a clip just the other day what a camera reading a plate (let alone face) incorrectly can lead to (in that case arresting people at gunpoint only to let them go later because the camera had read an X as a Y).

    • TheImpressiveX@lemmy.today
      7·
      5 days ago

      In the new Spider-Man film there isnt anyone directly opposing Spider-Mans face recognition hack

      When Spidey talked to the police commissioner about it, she did comment that it sounded illegal, but that’s the extent of the opposition to his facial recognition tech.