Facebook's AI Eyes Your Camera Roll: A New Feature, But at What Cost?
So, Meta is rolling out a new feature for Facebook users in the US and Canada. Basically, it sifts through your phone's camera roll to find those "hidden gem" photos you might have forgotten about – you know, those shots buried under screenshots and random pics.
Think of it like this: your phone's camera roll is a messy drawer, and Meta's AI is offering to tidy it up and show you the diamonds in the rough. It uploads your unpublished photos to their cloud, aiming to suggest edits and create collages that make your pictures more "shareworthy." It sounds helpful, right?
However, here's where things get a bit tricky. If you decide to use this feature, Meta's AI gets to peek at all those photos. Now, Meta assures us that they won't use these photos to train their AI... unless you edit them with their AI tools or actually share them. So, they're holding onto your data and using it if you allow it.
Last year, they were already using public photos and texts posted since 2007 to train their AI. This new feature will ask if you want to "allow cloud processing to get creative ideas." It is a good idea that they warn users, but I don't think they really clarify the part where your photos might be used to train Meta's AI.
They say the feature is for people who love taking pictures but want to polish them up before posting. I can see the appeal, but I think everyone should consider what they are giving up for a little bit of convenience.
Source: The Verge