Of course, the concept of Artificial Intelligence looking at you and processing information about you is not particularly new. Facial recognition utilizing AI techniques has been employed for years in surveillance, security and even recreational past times such as organizing family photo albums. It is a useful tool when you want to find all the old photos with Aunt Betty in them.
But now, AI is really looking at both you and your surroundings as well. Actually, the concept of recognition has moved beyond faces to basically everything. Object recognition is now commonplace with apps that recognize plants and birds based on images or sounds available as straightforward add-ons to your smart phone. Recognition has moved to a realm of being able to recognize what might be missing based on context or things that may seem anomalous based on previous AI experiences or learnings.
This really circles back to the entire concept of AI training and the materials used in order to facilitate that training. The company Zoom, as an example, now clearly states that, with consent, video calls made using their platform can be kept by Zoom for pretty much any and all uses including product development, AI training and the like. The consent must be turned on or off in the meeting organizer’s preferences and settings.
The concept I am trying to highlight is that AI had been pervasively used in video surveillance that primarily occurred in public places where privacy may or may not have been assumed. Public places are public places. Now AI has taken the leap to the camera attached to any computer using most any application connected in some way outside one’s personal network. And, if you are not the owner of the meeting and just a participant, you may even be aware that you are being used to train AI.
It will be interesting to see how explicit some of these settings, permissions and disclaimers become as the race to train AI through a broader set of information sources accelerates. It really may be necessary to read the fine print associated with everything. Or just ask your digital assistant if an app is OK to use.
