Meta’s AI smart glasses are recording people having sex – and yes, it’s a full-blown privacy nightmare
The scenario sounds like all our privacy nightmares rolled into one and is like a scene straight out of Black Mirror
Meta is under fire after it emerged that workers for another company training its AI were able to view sexual content that had come from users’ videos on smart glasses like the Meta Ray-Ban.
The scenario sounds like all our privacy nightmares rolled into one and is like a scene straight out of Black Mirror.
The problem seems to concern sex content that users have specifically shared with the Meta AI chatbot rather than all videos that users have taken using the glasses.
That shared videos could be viewed by other humans seems to be covered under various terms and conditions and there is specific phrasing like: ”In some cases Meta will review your interactions with AIs and this review may be automated or manual.” Where it says manual there it means ‘by a human’.
But even so, those users would surely not expect that videos of them having sex might end up being viewed by other people for AI training.
The news comes via Sweden where two newspapers – Svenska Dagbladet and Goteborgs-Posten claimed in February that workers for a third-party company called Sama were able to see very personal data as they trained Meta AI including users who went to a bathroom and had sex.
One Sama worker said that “we see everything – from living rooms to naked bodies”.
Intriguingly, Meta ended Sama’s deal recently, claiming the company did not meet standards, something which Sama has denied to the BBC in a statement which expressed surprise at the decision saying it “consistently met… operational, security and quality standards”.
Dan Grabham
Editor-in-Chief 