It’s mea culpa time as the Macalope is here again to talk about Meta, AR glasses, and the icky mess that is humanity. First off, here’s to today’s college kids! When the Macalope was in college he… well, let’s just say mistakes were made. He was decidedly not doing experiments to point out the flaws in modern technology.
Someone Put Facial Recognition Tech onto Meta’s Smart Glasses to Instantly Dox Strangers. Two students at Harvard used Meta’s currently shipping Ray Bans in concert with PimEyes, a facial recognition technology, in order to scare the crap out of us.
Look, the Macalope is already afraid of teens. The way they dress, congregate in groups, whispering conspiratorially about who’s “brat.” He doesn’t need any help, Ivy League students.
Obviously, this is disturbing and, credit to the students, it’s meant as a cautionary tale, not a business plan. Although, there is little doubt this is someone’s business plan somewhere.
This is why the Macalope says it is time to bring back Glasshole shaming. You remember Google Glass, right? Driving Glass out of existence may be the last great war society has collectively waged. We hated them and we banded together to destroy them. It was beautiful.
And now? We cheer for these new devices. Last week the Macalope wrote about Meta’s Orion prototype, taking a look at the variety of opinions about the device. And even he neglected to bring up the privacy issue, focusing instead on the aesthetics. Yes, Meta’s Orion pass better for regular glasses than the Vision Pro. Meta’s Ray Bans pass even easier for regular glasses.
Is that something we want, though? It’s all well and good if they’re being used for harmless entertainment, walking directions or idly looking up what “brat” is supposed to mean, anyway. But that’s not all they’re going to be used for.
Remember how Facebook got started.
It all began in 2003, when Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg created an online programme called “Facemash,” which allowed users to objectify fellow students by comparing photos of their faces and selecting who they deemed as “hotter.”
Who knew that rewarding someone for making something gross by turning them into a billionaire would be a mistake?
Immediate, in-the-wild privacy violation is simply the next logical step. Social media companies do not care about your privacy except for the way it tastes as it slides past their tongues. So sweet.
While this be-horned pundit neglected to mention privacy in last week’s column, it wasn’t addressed much by the pundits the Macalope linked to in it, either. While we may have won the Battle of the Glasshole Fields, we have lost the War of the, uh, Privacy Ring, I don’t know. That kind of got away from the Macalope. It is simply taken for granted that these devices and capabilities are coming and there is nothing we can do about it.
Or is there?
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[dons funny nose and non-privacy-invasive glasses]
While many have lauded Orion at the expense of the Vision Pro, at least the Vision Pro doesn’t move the needle on quietly violating people’s privacy much. Yes, it’s bulky. Yes, it has weird eyes. No, no one would mistake them for eyeglasses. But if someone is wearing a Vision Pro, you know they’re wearing something that could be recording you. With Meta’s Ray Bans and many other devices to come, you’ll only know by the weird, prolonged stares. Which, let’s face it, you’re probably going to get from the kinds of people who’d wear these with the intent to immediately look you up online whether they’re wearing them or not.
Maybe this ship has sailed. Maybe it’s too late to stand together one more time and say “NO!” to wearing these things in public. But we should consider the consequences of just rolling over.