Facial recognition has arrived in school canteens.

Nine schools in Scotland have started taking lunch payments from schoolchildren by scanning their faces, the Financial Times reports.

The system reportedly speeds up the lengthy payment process and is more Covid-secure than using cards and fingerprint scanners.  Of course, these issues could have been resolved by making school lunches free. But why invest in healthy meals for children when you can splurge on technosolutionism instead?

In fact, facial recognition could solve practically every social problem. Here are just a few examples:

Mental health issues

There’s supposedly a mental health crisis in the UK. But maybe people just need to toughen up a bit?

Facial recognition can put them on a path to stoicism. Instead of paying for pointless therapy, cameras equipped with emotional AI software could detect when they’re feeling a bit blue.

A connected robot could then advise them, “keep your chin up,” and place a cold, comforting hand on their shoulder — or give them a slap if the behavior continues.

Sure, emotion recognition AI can be laughably inaccurate, but the benefits clearly outweigh the risks.

Climate change

Some people blame the climate crisis on fossil fuel firms and feckless politicians, but they should really point the finger at the activists.

Their lecturing and hypocrisy are only doing their cause harm. I learned this important lesson from right-wing media outlets, which definitely aren’t trying to discredit liberals, avoid additional taxes, circumvent regulations, and protect the fossil fuel industry.

Facial recognition can help them pursue their noble cause. Undesirable activists could be identified and replaced by more suitable candidates, like the CEO of Chevron or Jair Bolansero.

Poverty

Politicians have tried myriad methods of ending poverty, from building welfare states to overthrowing governments. But have they tried facial recognition?

The tech can tackle the problem at its roots. AI cameras would scan the streets and identify poor children with sunken eyes and hollow cheeks. The kids would then be whisked away to government facilities for rigorous rehabilitation.

The tech may regularly misidentify black people and women, but we must not let these concerns stop us from ending poverty.

A better future

These deployments should only be the start. The pandemic, war, and inequality could also all be ended by facial recognition. We just need to use our imaginations.

The good news is that future generations will be more open to the possibilities. If facial recognition is normalized for something as mundane as buying school lunch, the lucky children will surely embrace using it for countless other tasks.

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