AI meets MSG
Corporate Panopticon Punishes Girl Scouts
I prefer my artificial intelligence without MSG. MSG Entertainment Corporation, that is. MSG (aka, Madison Square Garden Entertainment) has entered the sweepstakes for the 2022’s creepiest application of AI. MSG spent time and money to simultaneously spoil a Girl Scout Christmas outing, give substance to Luddite paranoia about AI, and undermine Americans’ access to legal representation.
According to NBC New York and other news outlets worldwide:
Kelly Conlon and her daughter came to New York City the weekend after Thanksgiving as part of a Girl Scout field trip to Radio City Music Hall to see the Christmas Spectacular show. But while her daughter, other members of the Girl Scout troop and their mothers got to go enjoy the show, Conlon wasn't allowed to do so.
MSG used facial recognition software to identify Conlon so that security guards could eject her from the venue as Girl Scouts and chaperones entered the facility. While her daughter’s troop and other parents watched the Rockettes, Conlon waited outside in the rain. Why? Because she is an attorney with a New Jersey law firm (Davis, Saperstein & Salomon) where other attorneys are representing clients involved in a personal injury lawsuit against a restaurant property now owned by MSG. MSG owns an empire of entertainment venues, including Madison Square Garden.
If Conlon were involved in the lawsuit, her ejection-by-algorithm from a Christmas show would still qualify as an unnerving example of Minority Report-meets-Ebenezer Scrooge. But she says she isn’t involved in the case and doesn’t even practice law in New York State. Immediately upon entering the music venue, alarms sounded, guards knew her identity without asking her, and out the door she was thrust.
MSG issued a statement confirming the veracity of these events:
MSG instituted a straightforward policy that precludes attorneys pursuing active litigation against the Company from attending events at our venues until that litigation has been resolved … While we understand this policy is disappointing to some, we cannot ignore the fact that litigation creates an inherently adverse environment.
To put it another way, “Nice Christmas plans you have there. Be a shame if anything happened to them.” Ponder the steps required to make this drama possible. MSG had to place Davis, Saperstein & Salomon on their Grinch list. They had to compile lists of attorneys (and others?) at the firm. They had to secure facial scans of all of those people—presumably via companies that scan Facebook pages and the like. They had to put in place the technology necessary to spot Conlon instantaneously as she entered the facility. They had to divert their security team toward planning and executing the ejection of Girl Scout mothers rather than, say, focusing on potentially dangerous intruders.
How many people are caught up in MSG’s secret dragnet? In October, attorney Barbara Hart and her husband went to a concert at Madison Square Garden for their anniversary and, like Conlon, were ejected for guilt-by-association. Her law firm, Grant & Eisenhofer, also represents clients involved in litigation with MSG Entertainment. Like Conlon, Hart is not involved in the MSG case. MSG confirmed this story, as well. How many other big firms are laboring like trapdoor spiders to snare unsuspecting acquaintances of those with whom they have a bone to pick?
A Davis, Saperstein & Salomon spokesperson called MSG’s actions “collective punishment.” The larger story is that there are few limiting principles on how extensively this technology can be used to settle scores and to intimidate. In 2018, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders (now, governor-elect of Arkansas) was ejected from the Red Hen restaurant in Lexington, Virginia because the owner did not approve of Huckabee’s politics. The only saving grace of that story was that the owner’s churlishness had to be meted out on a on-off, face-to-face basis. But in the hands of a company like MSG, score-settling could be expanded to industrial scale. Go on the web, download political contribution records, scour Facebook and Instagram pages for faces and, voilà! Unsuspecting Americans find themselves ejected from basketball games and restaurants and who knows where else because they donated money to the wrong candidate at some point. Or perhaps because they merely work with someone who donated to a disfavored candidate. Or, because someone controlling the algorithm simply doesn’t like your brother.
AI offers enormous benefits to humankind. In Deep Medicine: How Artificial Intelligence Can Make Healthcare Human Again, Eric Topol, MD, explores how AI can save lives and restore the more human-scale doctor-patient relationships that have slipped away from us in recent years. AI has revolutionized intra-city transportation via ridesharing apps like Uber and could do the same for air travel, as well. On my walks, my PictureThis app helps me to identify obscure plants, from the largest trees to the smallest weeds. Airports are seeking to make security procedures less onerous by using facial recognition software and other AI applications. But repurposing such technologies to upend Girl Scout outings and anniversary celebrations sows profound distrust about the whole idea of AI.
MSG’s action also undermines Americans’ guaranteed access to legal representation. The Conlon and Hart incidents send a powerful signal: represent a client against a powerful entity, and we will devote our corporate might to spoiling the most mundane aspects of your daily life—along with all of those who associate with you. File a legitimate legal action against a large entity, and you and everyone around you will suffer petty indignities at the hand of soulless, dystopian software, poised to spring on you when you least expect it.
Robert F. Graboyes is president of RFG Counterpoint, LLC in Alexandria, Virginia. An economist, journalist, and musician, he holds five degrees, including a PhD in economics from Columbia University. An award-winning professor, in 2014, he received the Reason Foundation’s Bastiat Prize for Journalism. His music compositions are at YouTube.com/@RFGraboyes/videos
Creepiest corporate use of facial recognition AI I've heard yet. Shared, I hope MSG gets a lot of blowback for this.