Facebook’s AI Will Tell You When Any Picture of Your Face Gets Uploaded
The social network is extending the tentacles of its already powerful facial recognition algorithms. The Washington Post reports that Facebook is rolling out three new facial recognition features today. They will:
— Describe who is in a picture to visually impaired people.
— Alert you if anyone uses your likeness in a profile photo.
— Notify you whenever the site’s AI sees an image of you uploaded, whether it’s tagged or not.
The first seems seems like a great accessibility move. The second seems sensible, as it will help weed out fake accounts and impersonation attempts. And, arguably, the third point also seems like a decent privacy idea, finally providing a way to keep tabs on any number of photos of you that may get uploaded to Facebook without your knowledge.
Still, as ever with facial recognition technology, there’s room for some skepticism. Here’s a counterpoint from Tom Simonite of Wired:
Informing you of their existence is also good for Facebook: more notifications flying around means more activity from users and more ad impressions. More people tagging themselves in photos adds more data to Facebook’s cache, helping to power the lucrative ad-targeting business that keeps the company afloat.
If you tend toward that line of thinking, you can opt out of Facebook’s facial recognition on your account. If you do, it disables all these features, as well as stopping auto-tagging when you upload your own pictures.
Deep Dive
Artificial intelligence
DeepMind’s cofounder: Generative AI is just a phase. What’s next is interactive AI.
“This is a profound moment in the history of technology,” says Mustafa Suleyman.
Deepfakes of Chinese influencers are livestreaming 24/7
With just a few minutes of sample video and $1,000, brands never have to stop selling their products.
AI hype is built on high test scores. Those tests are flawed.
With hopes and fears about the technology running wild, it's time to agree on what it can and can't do.
You need to talk to your kid about AI. Here are 6 things you should say.
As children start back at school this week, it’s not just ChatGPT you need to be thinking about.
Stay connected
Get the latest updates from
MIT Technology Review
Discover special offers, top stories, upcoming events, and more.