3 ms·

Banray.eu: Raising awareness of the terrible idea that is always-on AI glasses

37 points by ChrisArchitect 7mo ago

ChrisArchitect 7mo ago
Associated blog with some background: https://monocultured.com/blog/banray-raising-awareness-of-the-terrible-idea-that-is-always-on-ai-glasses/ https://monocultured.com/blog/banray-raising-awareness-of-th...
brookst 7mo ago
As someone with pretty good prosopagnosia, I am also unsettled and disturbed at all of y’all’s hardware acceleration for facial recognition. I was 30 before I realized that when people recognize each other, it’s not from clothes and hair, or voice, or some kind of cognitive memory like “Bob has big ears and a wide nose”. So, while I’m sympathetic and supportive of concerns about AI glasses, please also realize that to a subset of the population (about 1% IIRC), most of you already have a weird and privacy-violating skill, right there in the neurons.
- analog31 7mo ago
  We don't continuously share and sell the info we gather, and none of us have any hope of recognizing more than a tiny fraction of the population.
- Juliate 7mo ago
  Comparing a natural ability to some kind of privacy-violating skill sounds a bit a hard sell. Kind of like selling hard won skills as some kind of gate keeping. Improving the quality of life of people cannot be done at the expense of the basic social needs of everyone else.
  - brookst 7mo ago
    I wasn't saying any of the words you seem to be putting in my mouth. I was simply noting that there's a natural range of both abilities and expectations in this area, and it is a little entertaining that even the hint of a suggestion of an implication that maybe face recognition is perceived differently by different people provokes such a strong, fact-free response.
    - Juliate 7mo ago
      I'm sorry if that sounded disparaging. I totally get that face recognition is an issue for some. And that some tech may be of help with that. But if said tech implies putting everyone at risk (because the privacy is not properly implemented in this tech, and because it is even obviously weaponised as it is today), it is a hard sell.
gcanyon 7mo ago
Is the terrible idea "always-on AI glasses" or is it "giving all the data they collect to Meta with no proper regulation in place"? My phone and laptop already collect a ton of data that is more than I would like to share with a company that thinks of me as a product. But that data collection is unavoidable as a side effect of very useful functionality. We need to focus on trust, not restriction.
- Juliate 7mo ago
  How can we still believe in the trust idea when 1/ accidental leaks happen every single day and 2/ corporations do not even hide any more their intent and uses of the collected data? (Pokemon Go being the « funniest » recent one) At some point, the regulatory/legal backlash will require hard personal responsibility (that is, jail consequences) for this to be taken seriously at the corporate and technical levels and so trust to be reinstated.
- toofy 7mo ago
  > We need to focus on trust, not restriction. we could probably focus on both. without sounding too cynical, by now we would be fools to continue trusting certain companies/industries. we’re victims in an abusive relationship, “they won’t hit us next time, they promised.”
quotemstr 7mo ago
Pick a technology --- AR, robotics, AVs, SMRs, the cookie header --- and you'll find a well-funded and sanctimonious ecosystem of NGOs, regulatory bodies, and compliance departments dedicated to ensuring nobody uses it. The pretext for these bans is always that unassailable cluster of feel-good yet vague virtues like privacy or the environment that you can make mean anything you want, but the reality on the Continent is just a rotating series of excuses for the catechism of "no, non, nein". And it's never enough to just regulate the EU. Oh, no. The EU is the world's moral guardian, a "regulatory superpower", humanity's conscience. Obviously EU regulation should apply worldwide. The rest of humanity can't be trusted to care about privacy and the environment enough, right? Well, I'm sick of it. How about they start saying ja to something? How about they walk about HOW we incorporate fledging technological capabilities into society instead of trying to freeze our information environment in 2008 amber? At this point, when thinking about how we deploy new technology, I'm inclined to just leave Europe behind. Seal it off from the world of innovation with firewall rules and geofencing. The alternative is to suspend technology, the only thing that's ever in all history improved the human condition, for the sake of small-minded, small-hearted people who like mankind less than they love nein.
- hagbard_c 7mo ago
  While I agree on some points - the sanctimonious regulatory-industrial complex feeding a large army of NGOs etc - I don't see this issue - always-on camera glasses feeding their data to the data parasites out to monetise every aspect of your life and death - as the best one to vent your frustrations. I shun these companies - from Google to the Fruit Factory, from TCFKAFacebook to the current crop of 'AI' incumbents - and I certainly don't want other with their always-on faceware to fill the void my absence in their registers has left. Yes, I know about 'shadow accounts' which these companies supposedly have on people like me but at least I can try to reduce their ability to build up a profile on me. I can not do that if the denizens of whatever locality I happen to show my face happily signal my presence to their digital overlords.
- Juliate 7mo ago
  Saying ja/oui to something, is saying nein/non to something else. If all you have is taking sides with what ought to be dismissed, or rather, discussed and controlled, rather than let alone wild at the expense of most people, that's a choice that is yours.
monocultured 7mo ago
Hi all, Fun to see my small project end up on hn. I think the project page and the blog post outlines most of why I'm doing this, but I'm happy to answer any questions or such. Cheers.

Associated blog with some background: https://monocultured.com/blog/banray-raising-awareness-of-the-terrible-idea-that-is-always-on-ai-glasses/ https://monocultured.com/blog/banray-raising-awareness-of-th...

brookst 7mo ago

As someone with pretty good prosopagnosia, I am also unsettled and disturbed at all of y’all’s hardware acceleration for facial recognition. I was 30 before I realized that when people recognize each other, it’s not from clothes and hair, or voice, or some kind of cognitive memory like “Bob has big ears and a wide nose”. So, while I’m sympathetic and supportive of concerns about AI glasses, please also realize that to a subset of the population (about 1% IIRC), most of you already have a weird and privacy-violating skill, right there in the neurons.

analog31 7mo ago
We don't continuously share and sell the info we gather, and none of us have any hope of recognizing more than a tiny fraction of the population.
Juliate 7mo ago
Comparing a natural ability to some kind of privacy-violating skill sounds a bit a hard sell. Kind of like selling hard won skills as some kind of gate keeping. Improving the quality of life of people cannot be done at the expense of the basic social needs of everyone else.
- brookst 7mo ago
  I wasn't saying any of the words you seem to be putting in my mouth. I was simply noting that there's a natural range of both abilities and expectations in this area, and it is a little entertaining that even the hint of a suggestion of an implication that maybe face recognition is perceived differently by different people provokes such a strong, fact-free response.
  - Juliate 7mo ago
    I'm sorry if that sounded disparaging. I totally get that face recognition is an issue for some. And that some tech may be of help with that. But if said tech implies putting everyone at risk (because the privacy is not properly implemented in this tech, and because it is even obviously weaponised as it is today), it is a hard sell.

gcanyon 7mo ago

Is the terrible idea "always-on AI glasses" or is it "giving all the data they collect to Meta with no proper regulation in place"? My phone and laptop already collect a ton of data that is more than I would like to share with a company that thinks of me as a product. But that data collection is unavoidable as a side effect of very useful functionality. We need to focus on trust, not restriction.

Juliate 7mo ago
How can we still believe in the trust idea when 1/ accidental leaks happen every single day and 2/ corporations do not even hide any more their intent and uses of the collected data? (Pokemon Go being the « funniest » recent one) At some point, the regulatory/legal backlash will require hard personal responsibility (that is, jail consequences) for this to be taken seriously at the corporate and technical levels and so trust to be reinstated.
toofy 7mo ago
> We need to focus on trust, not restriction. we could probably focus on both. without sounding too cynical, by now we would be fools to continue trusting certain companies/industries. we’re victims in an abusive relationship, “they won’t hit us next time, they promised.”

quotemstr 7mo ago

Pick a technology --- AR, robotics, AVs, SMRs, the cookie header --- and you'll find a well-funded and sanctimonious ecosystem of NGOs, regulatory bodies, and compliance departments dedicated to ensuring nobody uses it. The pretext for these bans is always that unassailable cluster of feel-good yet vague virtues like privacy or the environment that you can make mean anything you want, but the reality on the Continent is just a rotating series of excuses for the catechism of "no, non, nein". And it's never enough to just regulate the EU. Oh, no. The EU is the world's moral guardian, a "regulatory superpower", humanity's conscience. Obviously EU regulation should apply worldwide. The rest of humanity can't be trusted to care about privacy and the environment enough, right? Well, I'm sick of it. How about they start saying ja to something? How about they walk about HOW we incorporate fledging technological capabilities into society instead of trying to freeze our information environment in 2008 amber? At this point, when thinking about how we deploy new technology, I'm inclined to just leave Europe behind. Seal it off from the world of innovation with firewall rules and geofencing. The alternative is to suspend technology, the only thing that's ever in all history improved the human condition, for the sake of small-minded, small-hearted people who like mankind less than they love nein.

hagbard_c 7mo ago
While I agree on some points - the sanctimonious regulatory-industrial complex feeding a large army of NGOs etc - I don't see this issue - always-on camera glasses feeding their data to the data parasites out to monetise every aspect of your life and death - as the best one to vent your frustrations. I shun these companies - from Google to the Fruit Factory, from TCFKAFacebook to the current crop of 'AI' incumbents - and I certainly don't want other with their always-on faceware to fill the void my absence in their registers has left. Yes, I know about 'shadow accounts' which these companies supposedly have on people like me but at least I can try to reduce their ability to build up a profile on me. I can not do that if the denizens of whatever locality I happen to show my face happily signal my presence to their digital overlords.
Juliate 7mo ago
Saying ja/oui to something, is saying nein/non to something else. If all you have is taking sides with what ought to be dismissed, or rather, discussed and controlled, rather than let alone wild at the expense of most people, that's a choice that is yours.

monocultured 7mo ago

Hi all, Fun to see my small project end up on hn. I think the project page and the blog post outlines most of why I'm doing this, but I'm happy to answer any questions or such. Cheers.