“Undercover AI Tools Caught Red-Handed Training on Actual Images of Children”
“AI Tools Are Secretly Training on Real Images of Children”
“As parents post millions of baby photos and videos to Instagram and Facebook, a disturbing form of artificial intelligence is silently tracking and processing images of cherubic faces. And so far, parents have little idea it’s happening.”
Welcome to our new reality where parents’ innocent activities – sharing pictures of their children on social media platforms – are unknowingly fueling the rise of a more advanced form of machine learning. How so? The adorable snaps you choose to share of little Johnny’s first tooth are being used to train a generation of AI in recognizing and processing little human faces. More importantly, a majority of parents are apparently completely unaware of this slightly creepy reality.
Want laughably “personalized” ads? You’re welcome. The mountains of data, including your baby’s beautiful face, are gobbled up by these algorithms. Seriously, imagine a marketer behind each billboard in town, personally crafting an ad that tugs at your heartstrings. Picture the ads being about baby products, too, because they know what you hold dear. Sounds slightly dystopian, doesn’t it?
And to top it all off, guess who is playing the role of clueless participant? That’s right, all of us. As we innocently post pictures of our kids, we are literally serving our kids on a silver platter to this omnipresent big data machine. Not your standard Saturday afternoon activity, is it?
Ah yes, the fine art of balancing privacy with technology. On one hand, it’s advanced technology, exciting, new, and full of possibilities. On the other hand, it involves your child’s pictures being used as a learning tool by AI – all without your explicit permission. It may be the modern world, but it definitely leaves a foul taste.
How about those tech companies who are behind this artificial intelligence? They argue that this data use complies with privacy laws since the information is often anonymized. Plus, they claim, AI doesn’t know it’s a kid’s face. But, isn’t it ironic that the AI learned it was a kid’s face in the first place from those very pictures?
This is not to stoke fires of paranoia or to cease sharing those moments that make Facebook tolerable amidst the cat videos and ill-informed political rants. It’s just a friendly reminder that while sharing the little joys of life, we might be handing over a little too much for machine learning’s less-than-cuddly needs. To paraphrase an old saying: “What we don’t know can’t hurt us” …or can it?