Corsight AI, a facial recognition subsidiary of the Israeli AI company Cortica, purports to be devising a system that uses DNA to create a model of a face that can then be run through a facial recognition system. It is a task that experts in the field regard as scientifically untenable.
Corsight unveiled its “DNA to Face” product in a presentation intended to impress investors on December 15. The tool “constructs a physical profile by analyzing genetic material collected in a DNA sample,” according to a company slide deck.
Corsight declined a request to answer questions, but marketing materials show that the company is focused on government and law enforcement applications for its technology.
The science that would be needed to support such a system doesn’t yet exist, however, and experts say the product would exacerbate the ethical, privacy, and bias problems facial recognition technology already causes. Regardless, it’s a worrying signal of the industry’s ambitions for the future. Read the full story.
—Tate Ryan-Mosley