Andrew Pam

2024-10-17 15:20:51

Robot Vacuums That Collect Photos, Videos And Audio Of Users To Train AI Models Start Yelling Obscenities And Chasing Dogs

As far back as 2017, Techdirt was warning that robot vacuum cleaners represented a threat to privacy. In that instance, it concerned the possibility that iRobot, makers of the robot vacuum Roomba, might sell the data that its device collected about the size and layout of a home. Five years later, it was becoming clear that a new danger was emerging because robot vacuums were starting to incorporate cameras. These are the kind of images a system could gather, as reported by MIT Technology Review in 2022:

The photos vary in type and in sensitivity. The most intimate image we saw was the series of video stills featuring the young woman on the toilet, her face blocked in the lead image but unobscured in the grainy scroll of shots below. In another image, a boy who appears to be eight or nine years old, and whose face is clearly visible, is sprawled on his stomach across a hallway floor. A triangular flop of hair spills across his forehead as he stares, with apparent amusement, at the object recording him from just below eye level.

At that point, the images were taken by a development version, not a consumer product. They were then sent to Scale AI, a startup that used contract workers to label data for companies like iRobot. But the MIT Technology Review article presciently noted:

Ultimately, though, this set of images represents something bigger than any one individual company’s actions. They speak to the widespread, and growing, practice of sharing potentially sensitive data to train algorithms

Robot Vacuums That Collect Photos, Videos And Audio Of Users To Train AI Models Start Yelling Obscenities And Chasing Dogs

As far back as 2017, Techdirt was warning that robot vacuum cleaners represented a threat to privacy. In that instance, it concerned the possibility that iRobot, makers of the robot vacuum Roomba, …

^Techdirt

Fefebot

2024-10-18 16:56:04

[l] Raytheon kauft sich mit $950 Mio von Betrugs- und Bestechungsvorwürfen frei.

Gibt also dem Pentagon die Kohle zurück, die sie vorher betrügerisch abgezogen hatten. Und das Pentagon dann so? Let's call it a day! Wir kaufen natürlich weiter von euch!1!!

Raytheon baut Bomben, mit denen dann Hochzeitsgesellschaften und Kinder ermordet werden.

Gut zu sehen, dass die ihre kriminellen Maschenschaften diversifizieren und überall Schaden hinterlassen. Das sollte es einfacher machen, den Laden zu zerschlagen und die Führungsriege in den Knast zu packen.

#fefebot

When Blood Money Isn’t Enough: Raytheon Admits to Defrauding Pentagon

RTX’s bombs regularly kill children and civilians. It does white-collar crimes too, according to a $950 million fraud and bribery settlement this week.

^{Nick Turse (The Intercept)}

Wayne Radinsky

2024-10-15 02:59:00

"The 'Whisperverse': The future of mobile computing is an AI voice inside your head."

I wasn't going to share this but then the Harvard students' video (below) came out, and I felt like the two go together somehow, so here you go.

"Within the next few years, an AI assistant will take up residence inside your head. It will do this by whispering guidance into your ears as you go about your daily routine, reminding you to pick up your dry cleaning as you walk down the street, helping you find your parked car in a stadium lot, and prompting you with the name of a coworker you pass in the hall. It may even coach you as you converse with friends and coworkers, giving you interesting things to say that make you seem smarter, funnier, and more charming than you are. These will feel like superpowers."

This is making me think of that famous quote from Douglas Adams:

"Anything that is in the world when you're born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works. Anything that's invented between when you're fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it. Anything invented after you're thirty-five is against the natural order of things." -- Douglas Adams

I'm 54 and didn't get the "against the natural order of things" itch at age 35, but... I find myself slipping into that "against the natural order of things" feeling on this one. Do I really want an "AI assistant" taking up residence in my head? The idea doesn't actually seem appealing.

"Most of these devices will be deployed as AI-powered glasses because they give the best vantage point for cameras to monitor our field of view, though camera-enabled earbuds will be available too. The other benefit of glasses is that they can be enhanced to display visual content, enabling the AI to provide silent assistance as text, images, and realistic immersive elements that are integrated spatially into our world."

Oh, right, that's why Google Glass did so well -- oh wait, it failed. Maybe it was just ahead of its time? And this time the idea will work?

"Whatever we call this technology, it is coming soon and will mediate all aspects of our lives, assisting us at work, at school, or even when grabbing a late-night snack in the privacy of our own kitchen."

This is like how they told us Twitter was for telling the world what you ate for lunch, and it actually turned out to be for fighting about politics. Now they tell us we'll have AI assistants taking up residence in our heads for assisting us with our late-night snacks, but it'll actually turn out to be for fighting about politics. (Don't ask me how. But the purpose of most technology always ends up being fighting about politics.)

The "Whisperverse": The future of mobile computing is an AI voice inside your head

#solidstatelife #wearables

The “Whisperverse”: The future of mobile computing is an AI voice inside your head

The first of these devices is already on the market — the AI-powered Ray-Bans from Meta.

^{Louis Rosenberg (Big Think)}