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Facebook is researching AI systems that see, hear, remember everything you do

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Re: Facebook is researching AI systems that see, hear, remember everything you do

#101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HN user asks a simple and direct question to Facebook's VP of AI: > What are you all doing to allow those of us that don’t want to be a part of your utopia to opt out? Answer from Facebook VP of AI: > I encourage you to read the details of the news that doesn't actually answer your question but gives you an idea of how we think I'm glad to see that even on a industry-specific forum like Hacker News, we can't get stra…

I mean, what do you expect. This is public forum, he comes honestly unanonymously in front of huge crowd already in very negative mood towards this. You can't be a VP of such a thing in one of the richest companies globally ever, and not know how to play politics and lawyering safely. pesenti - I have respect that you come forward like this and attempting to push mankind's boundaries. Unfortunately, FB is probably th…

I expect that those who have power should bear the responsibility of being asked hard questions and answering them honestly, because a society which discourages us from asking difficult questions of those in power is doomed to fail.

Re: Facebook is researching AI systems that see, hear, remember everything you do

#102

Apparently whoever paid for the most recent "Facebook is Bad" media hate package, only bought the 3 day ticket. Cheap bastards.

Facebook is consciously aware of the fact that they're optimizing a manipulation engine that has outsized net-negative effects on societies worldwide.

Re: Facebook is researching AI systems that see, hear, remember everything you do

#103
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I encourage you to read the details of the news, in particular how the data was collected with full consent from all (something that most research datasets don’t do well). It doesn’t answer your question directly but gives you an idea on how we think about these issues. AI-powered wearables will have stringent privacy guarantees, both for the wearer and the people around.

HN user asks a simple and direct question to Facebook's VP of AI: > What are you all doing to allow those of us that don’t want to be a part of your utopia to opt out? Answer from Facebook VP of AI: > I encourage you to read the details of the news that doesn't actually answer your question but gives you an idea of how we think I'm glad to see that even on a industry-specific forum like Hacker News, we can't get stra…

> "gives you an idea of how we think"

It's the usual trick to be able to say afterwards: "I didn't say that! You just made up some interpretation. I'm not responsible for your interpretation."

Re: Facebook is researching AI systems that see, hear, remember everything you do

#104
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are you all doing to allow those of us that don’t want to be a part of your utopia to opt out?

I encourage you to read the details of the news, in particular how the data was collected with full consent from all (something that most research datasets don’t do well). It doesn’t answer your question directly but gives you an idea on how we think about these issues. AI-powered wearables will have stringent privacy guarantees, both for the wearer and the people around.

>> It doesn’t answer your question directly

Then how about you try again and answer it directly this time?

Re: Facebook is researching AI systems that see, hear, remember everything you do

#105
post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a static dataset. You'll want to ask that question about "Project Aria". for example, can FB provide a list of recording locations and times, so I can request my image/audio removed? How good is facebook's anonymisation system? what % of faces can be removed (on average) Has every single piece of footage captured with Aria been anonymised?

From https://about.facebook.com/realitylabs/projectaria/ "Participants will only record in either Facebook offices (once they reopen), wearers’ private homes (with consent from all members of the household), or public spaces, and won’t record in private venues without written consent from such places. Before any information gathered in a public place is made available to our researchers, it will be automatically scru…

> So we anonymize all the content collected in public. I don't have the stats for the face blurring algorithm […]

I see some contradiction here.

You don't know "the stats for the face blurring algorithm" but you're saying you "anonymize all the content collected"?

If the stats don't say it's 100% (which is impossible afaik if done by machines) you obviously don't anonymize upfront all the content collected.

Re: Facebook is researching AI systems that see, hear, remember everything you do

#106
post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The question was about opting out of our "utopia", I wouldn't call that a "straightforward question". If you do have a straightforward question, especially about this or another specific project, I can try to provide a straightforward answer.

Great! How do I make sure that nothing about me ever passes through a Facebook server/ETL job/datalake/neural net/whatever? Can that even be guaranteed? Is Facebook generating a shadow profile on me or using data I've generated either myself or through friends that have taken pictures/videos/etc of me, and if maybe, how do I opt out? Facebook just released Ray Ban smart glasses that don't look any different from stan…

No, that’s not a reasonable assumption. Photos or videos of you are likely on Facebook’s servers, uploaded by friends or others when you are in public.

What I can assure you though is that if you are not a user, we are not recognizing you in these pictures and videos. We won’t do that without explicit consent from users.

Re: Facebook is researching AI systems that see, hear, remember everything you do

#107
post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the features outlined in the article for this post was for the glasses to remember things that other people said. How would such other people who don't want to be recorded for these purposes opt out?

That’s a good question and I don’t think we have all the answers yet. But I expect that many functionalities will need to request and get consent from 3rd parties.

If you can't answer this particular question after you've already advertised that feature there are only two possibilities to explain this knowledge gap:

1. You don't think upfront about the consequences your products have for people's privacy.

2. You don't care about the consequences your products have for people's privacy, and leave the particular details for the lawyers of how such products could still be distributed legally.

Which of this explanations should we prefer?

Re: Facebook is researching AI systems that see, hear, remember everything you do

#108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great! How do I make sure that nothing about me ever passes through a Facebook server/ETL job/datalake/neural net/whatever? Can that even be guaranteed? Is Facebook generating a shadow profile on me or using data I've generated either myself or through friends that have taken pictures/videos/etc of me, and if maybe, how do I opt out? Facebook just released Ray Ban smart glasses that don't look any different from stan…

No, that’s not a reasonable assumption. Photos or videos of you are likely on Facebook’s servers, uploaded by friends or others when you are in public. What I can assure you though is that if you are not a user, we are not recognizing you in these pictures and videos. We won’t do that without explicit consent from users.

Thanks Jerome, I really do appreciate your answer and I know I'm probably not the most fun person to talk to.

I do have a follow-up on this if you'll entertain me: why is it that Facebook stores content of people that it doesn't recognize?

Granted, I'm but a lowly web developer, but it seems like creating business logic that automatically removes content with people that aren't Facebook users would be pretty straightforward to implement. You've already solved the hardest part of that problem, the facial recognition, so why not go all the way?

Moving forward, you'd have a really simple approach to privacy that's transparent and people understand without needing to get into the weeds.

Receiving assurance that I'm not being recognized in photos and videos isn't very comforting when I see Facebook releasing products like the "smart" Ray Bans. Recognizing people in images is only one of many types of data that Facebook gleans from that content, and I don't want anything involving me being processed in any way by that company, whatsoever.

Re: Facebook is researching AI systems that see, hear, remember everything you do

#109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great! How do I make sure that nothing about me ever passes through a Facebook server/ETL job/datalake/neural net/whatever? Can that even be guaranteed? Is Facebook generating a shadow profile on me or using data I've generated either myself or through friends that have taken pictures/videos/etc of me, and if maybe, how do I opt out? Facebook just released Ray Ban smart glasses that don't look any different from stan…

No, that’s not a reasonable assumption. Photos or videos of you are likely on Facebook’s servers, uploaded by friends or others when you are in public. What I can assure you though is that if you are not a user, we are not recognizing you in these pictures and videos. We won’t do that without explicit consent from users.

What does "we are not recognizing you" mean? Of course you can't "recognize" someone you don't know, so what do you try to say here?

Do you gather data about those "unknown" persons.

Do you try to match information about "unknown" persons form different sources?

Re: Facebook is researching AI systems that see, hear, remember everything you do

#110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, that’s not a reasonable assumption. Photos or videos of you are likely on Facebook’s servers, uploaded by friends or others when you are in public. What I can assure you though is that if you are not a user, we are not recognizing you in these pictures and videos. We won’t do that without explicit consent from users.

Thanks Jerome, I really do appreciate your answer and I know I'm probably not the most fun person to talk to. I do have a follow-up on this if you'll entertain me: why is it that Facebook stores content of people that it doesn't recognize? Granted, I'm but a lowly web developer, but it seems like creating business logic that automatically removes content with people that aren't Facebook users would be pretty straight…

> Recognizing people in images is only one of many types of data that Facebook gleans from that content, and I don't want anything involving me being processed in any way by that company, whatsoever.

Which is a basic right under GDPR.

No private entity is allowed to store or process data about you for their purposes without your consent.

Did FB just said they are doing it though?

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