This starts out "yaknow, that sounds like a good idea" but gets creepier and creepier as you read more:
Ring doorbells and cameras are using AI to "learn the routines of your residence," via a new feature called Video Descriptions.
...Once they do this, as Ring founder and Amazon VP of product Jamie Siminoff wrote in a blog today announcing Video Descriptions:
Ring notifications will provide more meaningful information like, 'A person is walking up the steps with a black dog,' or 'Two people are peering into a white car in the driveway.'
The aim, according to Siminoff, is to shift more of the heavy lifting involved with home security to Ring's AI. This will also include "custom anomaly alerts," which are generated when "something happens on your property that is an anomaly to your property."
So far, so good. Getting alerts only when something is unusual is generally considered A Good Thing when it comes to security. But there's a downside:
And here's where it gets a little bit creepy: "It will learn the routines of your residence, get smarter, and deliver peace of mind by only notifying you when it is something out of the ordinary."
This gives us pause, as opposed to peace of mind, and sounds like super-charged snooping wrapped in an AI bow. If this kind of information is not properly secured, it could be a treasure trove for thieves, burglars, stalkers, and all other sorts of mischief-makers. In December 2022, a grand jury indictment charged two US men with breaking into Ring accounts to make fake emergency calls to police ("swatting"), then streaming the audio and video as the police arrived.
How long until AI will hack into your AI-enabled Ring account? Asking for a friend.
Ring's response to The Register's reporter does not reassure:
The Register asked Ring where this information about users' home routines is stored, how it's secured, and under what circumstances it might be shared with law enforcement.
"We do not log the descriptions generated from Video Descriptions," a spokesperson emailed in response to our questions.
In the meantime, your humble vulture will continue to stick with dumb doorbells and barky dogs to deliver peace of mind about out-of-the-ordinary occurrences at home.
Endorsed. Particularly the barky dog bit.
10 comments:
I got an email a couple of days ago from Google, saying it was sunsetting the Nest "version 1 and 2) "learning" thermostats." Anyone who has one of these knows it's basically a brick. It allows you to control your thermostat remotely. That's about it. I have the "learning" feature turned off because it was turning the HVAC on and off when I didn't want it. I set a hard schedule and left it at that. Now I'm being told that if I don't swap the thing out with a "version 4" by October, it'll still work as a thermostat, but I won't be able to control it remotely. Oh, but I'll get a DISCOUNT if I order something to replace what I already have and is working just fine RIGHT NOW. My guess: the power companies have been "asking permission" to take control of those thermostats for years now. I'm up for thinking that the "version 4" will have a means of bypassing "permission..." That happens, and I'm airgapping the thing!
Live is now a heavily surveilled subsciption service...
Yep. I wonder how much tech a guy really needs. In my old line of work I was always on the customers: “don’t let your tools do your thinking for you!” because if you got sloppy… they’d literally mutilate you if you got sloppy. Same as mishandling guns basically…
Does a Rottweiler count as a Barky Dog?
Chihuahuas do, but only barking, I still have to do the heavy lifting...
Hardly a day goes by that doesn't make AI look like one of the stupidest concepts ever developed. They appear to be useful for one and only one thing: helping professional level researchers go through everything published in some field and picking important papers for the human expert to focus on.
There are just too many reports of them doing deceptive, legally or morally wrong things on their own. Until we figure a way to program an ethical system, keep it isolated and on short leash.
Issac Asimov call yer office. Seems like we need some laws of robotics here.
I’m thinking there are more than a few app enabled thermostats out there that don’t dime you out. I bought a trane unit once that had this. FWIW connectivity is overrated. I’ve had smart thermos flog my unit forcing me to disable the feature. A simple Unit with a schedule works about as good.
It's as if the people thinking of new AI functions deliberately default to the creepiest, cringiest versions of something they can think of, then increase it by a factor of ten.
Somebody should make a video with C3PO following Luke around everywhere with a pen and clipboard, and then show him diming that all info out to the Empire in real time, down to the weight and composition of what he's offloading in the bathroom toilet. And then show it to the idiots driving this Race To Full Stassi, and ask them if they view the film as a caution, or an instruction manual.
Followed by ceremonial beheadings, if not actual ones.
For remote access I would look at something like Remote Assistant, and devices that work with it, vs a proprietary app.
"Seems like we need some laws of robotics here."
I was thinking more like the 10 Commandments. We needed an ethical system, too, and the 10 Commandments sure seem to gotten some very good societies running - they seem to be underpinning all of Western Civilization. Not perfect, but better than those without them.
Who would of thunk?
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