This isn't recognizing your specific face, it's about watching your general expressions.
Many modern cars already have something like this to see if you're falling sleeping while behind the wheel and will start vibrating the seats and steering while sounding alarms to get you alert again.
That being said, it's definitely over engineered compared to a "are you still active" button on the screen.
Clarification of the difference between recognition and general detection is not an argument for or against, though perhaps you should re-read my last sentence for my position.
Your post is making the mistake that, just because all this function needs is detection, that therefore this is the only thing it's actually doing. "What this is about is..."
This isn't about detection and isn't about triggering a sleep mode at all. It's not even about over-engineering for this particular function, because this particular function is not the point. What it's actually about is doing everything they can conceivably think of to monetize engagement tracking, while continuously pointing a camera at your face as you watch movies and adds.
Those are some wild assumptions. You're discussing an entirely different topic about cameras and privacy that I never mentioned.
It doesn't make my post a mistake for not accounting for every last thought you had about a different conversation. And if you need it to be clear, by over-engineered I do consider these unnecessary and unwanted.
Don't worry, the algorithm only checks if you're asleep. By algorithm I mean outsourced workers in 3rd world call center, that is until our actual algorithm starts producing better results.
Many modern cars already have something like this to see if you're falling sleeping while behind the wheel and will start vibrating the seats and steering while sounding alarms to get you alert again.
That being said, it's definitely over engineered compared to a "are you still active" button on the screen.