Meta‘s AI glasses and the dawn of wearable tech

0:00This is The Guardian.

0:08Today, do Matters smart glasses threaten our right to privacy?

0:24We were at the Brighton Marathon, a hot day in April, watching a friend run it. My friend had made a sign and we were walking between different places on the marathon course to catch our friend running past. This is Kate. She lives in London and works in TV. Brighton split on two levels, the seafront, and we were climbing the stairs between the two levels and heard someone speaking to us who was very chatty, friendly and talking. And I instantly was like, oh, this is an interaction that hasn't been invited. I'm going to keep walking up these stairs. And my friend turned back to chat to him and was more engaged in the conversation.

1:03And they chatted about her sign. And then we got to the top of the stairs and he said goodbye.

1:10She didn't think much more of her interaction on the street that day. Until we got sent a video from TikTok where a friend said, oh, look, you guys are on TikTok, which was a video filmed with his meta glasses, which we hadn't noticed. Hadn't noticed that he was wearing glasses at all. I truly don't think I even knew or was conscious of what metaglasses were. I got sent it. I looked. I felt weird about it. But I didn't really know why I felt weird about it at first. I was like, oh, OK, I've been filmed without knowing. On the surface, completely innocent. Felt harmless, yeah. But after looking at that video and sort of being sent it by a couple of people and sending it around to my friends, and we all sort of pondered over it and went, oh, actually, this is quite weird.

1:58it didn't even get many views like it was at the sort of thousand view mark but it had five comments and most of the comments were love what you're doing mate this is such a cool thing that you're doing chatting to these people and then one of them was oh they're out of breath climbing up those stairs and I was like oh that's it you've opened this up to someone to give an opinion where it's absolutely unwelcome, where you haven't told me that anyone's going to be allowed to express an opinion on this interaction with me.

2:36That particular unease that Kate was left with, well, it's one we all might experience soon. Because Meta's smart glasses are designed to discreetly film, record, photograph, and like Kate, you probably wouldn't even notice it was happening. it's all a bit too black mirror. You're just walking about, doing life and you could be treated without consent as material for someone else's social media content. And it's even more sinister than that. What is Meta going to do with all that endless data from smart glasses? And who else has access to it? From The Guardian, I'm Nosheen Iqbal. Today in Focus, are Meta smart glasses the future we want to live in?

3:25Elhant. Hi. Welcome back to Today in Focus. Now, you've written extensively about Meta glasses. Can you explain just first of all, what are they? They are AI powered glasses made by Meta, which we know best as the company behind Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, in partnership with the eyewear brand, Ray-Ban, Oakley, some others, they are glasses. They can come with sunglasses or clear lens or prescription lens or transition lens, but effectively they are glasses that work a little bit like a phone. So they can take pictures, they can film video, they can stream video, and really basically fulfill a lot of the functions that you would turn to your phone or laptop for, but through your eyes.

4:12Now, glasses are the ideal form factor for personal superintelligence because they let you stay present in the moment while getting access to all of these AI capabilities that make you smarter, help you communicate better, improve your memory, improve your senses, and more. And who is typically buying and wearing these right now? Well, at the moment, the real selling point for the technology is that they can record this video. So they can record video for up to three minutes and stream directly to Facebook or Instagram ongoing. So no time cap, but they are capturing your point of view. But mostly the people buying them, it seems to be content creators who obviously need to capture a lot of footage.

5:03And this is really, if you are not blind or low vision, where there is an argument for them as assistive tech, you don't really necessarily need to keep your hands free, which is the big selling point of them, really. We've just heard from Kate, who was filmed in a slightly surreal, seemed kind of normal-ish interaction with a guy on the street. She wasn't aware at the time that she was being filmed. How widespread is that, that kind of interaction on social media? I think at the moment what we're finding is that these glasses are still quite niche technology. I suspect you don't know anyone who owns them.

5:40Actually, before I read your piece, I didn't even know they existed. Yeah, I mean, they're growing. Meta sold 7 million pairs last year. Worldwide. Worldwide. And that is seeming to be increasing in popularity. Okay, so I know it's legal to film people in public places on your phone, But this is so covert with these glasses, just filming people without consent. There's no law or difference in permissions than there would be with taking a picture on your phone. This is the thing, it's that we haven't evolved the kind of social awareness and cultural awareness around that this could be happening.

6:19So, I mean, there's obviously when we have this new technology that's starting slowly to be integrated into society, there's always this question of we should ban it or we should introduce some regulations. But really, this is not doing anything differently than what a phone can do. It's just that we now know when someone's trying to angle a phone, we know what that looks like. Like we have developed an awareness of someone's doing something with their phone. And I think many of us feel comfortable to go up to someone and say, delete that. Or why are you doing that? With the glasses, it is discreet.

6:54And you have to be looking at what looks like just a kind of classic frame, like, you know, pair of specs to see if they have the visible camera and then be looking for the light. And so it is getting influencers who might be filming quite innocuous content, like a Q &A street style video, right? On my Instagram, I see lots of videos that are clearly filmed with the glasses and they are never or very, very rarely explicit about that the person knows they're being filmed. You know, tell me how you met videos. Like, it is good footage from a content creator point of view. That's the most benign side.

7:33And then the other side that is less benign is where it seems, you know, it's pranksters. It's social media, pick up artists, even the things like kindness influences where... Wait, what kind? God. Kindness influences. Go back a step. Yeah, I'm sorry to tell you about this. But it's, you know, people who are trying to spread love and light and sort of they'll buy some flowers and find someone who they think looks like they need a brightened day and give them flowers and film. I have seen this. And I have seen those. How did you meet? I guess I am actually seeing this, but I didn't realise I was seeing it.

8:11Yeah, because you're reacting with it passively as content and you're actually not thinking about, and no one is. This is the thing.

8:24Kate, what did you do after seeing the video? So instantly it was like, oh, I should message and say, I don't want this video to be online. But you feel weird because you're like, oh, we see these kinds of interactions on the internet so often that maybe I am being too sensitive about this, that we watch people film these videos where they chat to people all the time. It feels so weird to go against that, but I wasn't told that was what was happening in any way. And so we messaged and asked for it to be removed and said, you didn't ask for consent, please remove it, which they didn't do. And a year later, as the Metaglass conversation was sort of rising, there was a BBC News video about um women being filmed with meta glasses and I had sort of left that on a back burner but as soon as I saw that I was like this it's not just about that interaction how I felt in that moment how I felt afterwards it's that if the process is not being followed with us in such innocuous thing where it didn't feel like it mattered but he didn't know he didn't know that we weren't people that were vulnerable.

9:31And then I got annoyed and I started commenting on other videos. And by this point, this is a year later, he's actually grown quite a decent following. Yeah, about, I think, in the hundreds of thousands of followers doing sort of branded content with people and like getting positive reactions to his content constantly. So you start leaving comments on his posts. How does he respond and what is it that you're after at this point? once I'd had multiple comments and had other people commenting I got a message semi-apologizing sort of saying I'm sorry you feel that way and then after that I asked for the video to be taken down which he obliged to do I'm also in those messages was explaining the potential risks for other people and the reason that he should be cautious about what he's doing and there was no acknowledgement of that and of course the reason I guess why this matters in another sense is that he is using these interactions for financial gain potentially without the knowledge or consent of the people involved in them I mean how does that make you feel weird and upset and sort of like you're selling yourself as a personality but often these videos are about these other people's personalities and how great they are and how fun these people are and how exciting they are and they're potentially unknowing that they're involved in that in any way and it's just this weird transactional nature of that conversation where I'm having this positive moment with you but you're doing it for some sort of gain it sort of completely negates the positivity in my eyes does it change how you view those videos now you see them on your feeds when you know the random couples being asked hey how did you meet or hey I love your jacket you know how do you feel about watching that content now that's the big difference it's watching that content it's sort of when I see a microphone, I feel better because I go, okay, you at least, or even just someone holding a phone.

11:28If I believe that they have any indication that they're being recorded, it feels safer. When I see those POV videos, I feel really uneasy for them. So Kate, as I understand it, you do work in television and you spent the early years of your career as a runner, which meant that you got consent from people that you filmed. Can you explain how filming is different in broadcast? Yeah, completely. Having spent so many jobs running after people with a piece of paper to ask them to give informed consent, to say that this is what we're doing, you are on camera, whether they were a contributor that we had booked to be interviewed or was on the show, or whether it was someone in passing that we were filming in a shop and they were in the background for a long time in a shop and we'd go and tell them.

12:16it's such a key cornerstone of our jobs is to say this is what's happening and I think that was what was very unnerving about it was that the dismissal of those processes well it's just that those rules and regulations don't apply on TikTok and Instagram yeah frightening

12:42El, you spent a month wearing these glasses. Real public service journalism right there. One of the commenters said, couldn't you have done a week? I said, yeah, probably. No, no, a full month. Yeah, yeah. Are you a convert? No. It was super interesting, though, in terms of it is such a different experience of tech than we've had with a smartphone. And I think a lot of us, probably you as well, a lot of the listeners will be wanting to spend less time on screens. And so I sort of was open to it if it felt like this allows me to stay connected or on top of my messages without just having to look at the...

13:21See, I still can't really wrap my head or my eyes around that because, I mean, maybe I need to try them. Have you got them? I mean, let's have a look. Yeah. they've just turned on and so now if I was to take a picture that's notified that it's taken a picture I barely saw that it barely blinked at me and so if I was to do a wonderful video it's now blinking right? yeah there you go yeah it's so subtle the updated version they have made that bigger so that they responded to criticism so it was too subtle but at the same time if you search Metaglasses light cover ups light hacks oh god And you could literally just stick some gaffer tape on there.

14:01Yeah, exactly. It's very easy to find kind of users and owners of these glasses figuring out ways of how to cover up the already small disclosure that filming is in process. And then if I say, hey, Meta, they wake up and I say, what's the weather like today? It's thinking, and you can tell it's thinking. I mean, I can also tell you the sky is blue. It looks pretty warm. I just looked out the window. Yeah, I mean, it's not working, I have to say. It's not working. Yeah, it's not working. And they are extremely... And this happened to Mark Zuckerberg on stage when he was introducing them as well.

14:36He struggled, tried and struggled to make a video call. Pause, WhatsApp, video call. There we go. Uh-oh. Well, I... Let's see what happened there.

14:51That's too bad. I don't know what happened. Delightful. So they are not that functional, but they will get better. What's the quality of the photo and the video like? Much worse than using your phone and taking the time to properly frame a picture and get your hair out of the way. All of my footage has, because I could never figure out which side the camera was on. So it's just like a fringe. And also my friends. Yes, exactly. Happy memories. And also my friends were not thrilled about posing for a picture like this. So everyone's sort of looking like, you know, suspicious or hostile or alarmed or, you know.

15:28What is the AI assistant like on these things? So this is the big selling point of the glasses beyond being just a camera or video camera is that they have Meta AI integrated, which is Meta's own chatbot, essentially. You may well have kind of come across this on Instagram or Facebook or WhatsApp yourself. And it's not thought to be one of the better chatbots, I have to say. You don't have to have used it very much to find it a little bit limited in what it can offer. But this is the thing that is piped into your ear by these glasses. And one of the first things you can do is choose who you want to voice it.

16:06So the options are there's, you know, maybe six anonymous just voice actors where you can choose high-pitched woman, low-pitched man, high-pitched man. And, you know, there's a range for which feels... Different accents? Yes, yes, which feels most... I don't know what you're looking for in an AI system, but I guess, like, agreeable to you to be reading your texts. Or you can go for the jazzy celebrity option where it's the comedian Aquafina, the actors John Cena or Kristen Bell. There might be a couple of others, but I went for Dame Judi Dench, of course. Hello, I'm Judi Dench. I'm one of the new voices for Meta AI.

16:44From soundbites to sonnets, I can do it all. And when Mark Zuckerberg was announcing this kind of technology last year, it was seen as a way of making these glasses more fun, so you want to engage with it. And so it was this very bizarre experience where, you know, you'd get Judi Dench reading your texts. If I just put aside my cynicism for a moment, because it's just always there and deep-seated, If I go with what the company claims are really cool features and, you know, something that is transformative about these glasses, particularly for people with accessibility issues. Could you explain what those are and whether it's convincing?

17:26That's where the tech is most exciting. And when you can see, oh, this would be genuinely life changing. It already has been for people who are blind or in the low vision community, where essentially as you put them on, you can wake up the AI assistant and say, tell me what I'm looking at. And although it's not as reliable or as descriptive as you would maybe want to be able to rely on them all the time, it can read a menu aloud in your ear. It can tell you if you've received mail through the post, who it's from, what it says, and it can tell you the basics. And obviously for someone who has not got any sight at all, that is incredible.

18:05The problem is, is it's not quite reliable that you would want to lean on it entirely. Like obviously the tech will get a lot better soon and they continue to invest in it. It's not even just for vision. It's also for things like I was told by a researcher that they're looking at using these glasses to be able to tell you if you've taken your medicine today for people with sort of Alzheimer's or early onset Alzheimer's. and other ones would be sort of like maybe for as a learning aid for dyslexia that sort of thing okay so as in terms of like assistive tech I think there's a great deal of potential and you would be churlish not to recognize that

18:48what about the experience of wearing them in public I was surprised by how quickly in my head I was like oh I wouldn't take this picture with my phone because they'd see I was doing it but that would make a good picture. Like there was a sort of incentive. Like what? Well, like I saw a woman walking her dog and she looked exactly like the dog. And I was like, well, I'm going to describe this to my friends later because it tickled me. But you know what would be even better than a description? Oh my goodness. A picture. And obviously I wouldn't have done that. But the thought popped into my head.

19:18And the other weird thing is you can video call shooting your point of view. So I did that around Ikea and I called my boyfriend. and at first it was like ha ha ha look at the specials on lingonberry or whatever and then I just became very conscious of everyone around me where it's like well they're just at Ikea you know like why do they know that I just suddenly felt um naturally very weird and compromised about broadcasting this footage to you know another place and what was Meta's response when you asked them about the issues surrounding consent or the lack thereof? Their response was that the user terms and conditions make it very clear that it is down to the individual user to abide by the law, you know, and that they said that they have tried to make the light visible.

20:10It clearly denotes that it is recording. But it was a sort of a sense of we encourage people to behave respectfully. Whether they follow the law or not is down to that. But this sort of falls outside the law where, you know, we know that it is legal to film in public places. So it feels more like a kind of social shorthand or awareness that we're going to have to develop and decide whether we want these glasses becoming accepted.

20:43Coming up, social media content is one thing. Where does the rest of that footage go?

21:11And it's not as if the tech is remaining static either. I mean, I've read reports that Meta plans to add facial recognition to the glasses, allowing the wearer to identify people in real time. Like I'm thinking of a scenario where you see someone in the street, you can put up their LinkedIn or their Instagram or whatever. What are the big risks when it comes to privacy? On the one hand, we've been talking a lot about people being caught in the background of people filming or film when they're not aware. So that's sort of interpersonal live privacy. But in the bigger scale, these glasses are sort of a content capture means for Meta where everything that is taken, all the photos that are taken, all the footage, and even just things that are seen through the lenses does exist somewhere.

21:57It's stored and processed on a cloud. Meta can use that for training its own AI and its algorithms. It could use that for facial recognition. It could use the information it gathered through those cameras to build a more robust picture of you to use for marketing purposes. So if you think about it, the way that we currently interact with tech is mostly the internet is still kind of a site we go to, right? But it's also, if you think about it, if you wore them all the time, it's providing data on your experience of the world where you wouldn't maybe necessarily have been doing that beforehand. I was in Ikea, I was going around and my phone would know I was in Ikea from my location, But with this video, it could show what I'm looking at for how long, that sort of thing.

22:46So it's just a lot more data for a company that makes its profits from that, from users. Well, recently I read that in Sweden, journalists found that the footage isn't just reviewed by AI systems, but actually it's reviewed by moderators in Kenya who have admitted to seeing intimate footage, including of people using the toilet and having sex. That seems bonkers. I think this is exactly the thing where we want to make sure that these don't become normalized because ultimately, you know, we've already handed over a lot of our privacy and information on ourselves and many people are not concerned about that.

23:24But this does seem to be another kind of inflection point of, you know, we've got some people taking extra care to manage their digital footprint, obscure their children's faces online. These glasses represent another test in what are we prepared to accept and make mainstream and normalize because they are out in the world. They are discreet. Will we accept them or will we kind of reject them as what happened with Google Glass 10 years ago? I mean, I guess the thing with this is that as much as any one individual can try to keep their personal information at bay, the glasses means that anyone else can film you or your child and it can be submitted up into this sort of data vacuum that is strapped to someone else's head where Mark Zuckerberg gets to know everything you see, everything you do, where you go, who you know.

24:13Elle, what are the big challenges and risks that individuals should be aware of? I think we really need to develop a way of thinking and talking about this where if you saw someone, A, you need to know to look for the glasses, but B, I think you should feel comfortable going up to someone in public and being like, are you filming me on your meta glasses and right now they are obviously not at the kind of scale where we expect to see that at the same time while I was wearing them in humble Norwich I was queuing at a bar and I looked down the bar busy crowded place you know and there was a guy and I was like I know what you're wearing he was wearing them so they are around among us I only new to look because I've been wearing them myself.

25:00And I think we need to think about, even if we don't want to buy that tech and use that tech ourselves, are we prepared to have an uncomfortable conversation with the people who do? Do you think governments should step in, can step in to regulate this kind of technology? I mean, it's probably still too fringe now. What could happen if they kind of reached a tipping point where this was causing widespread disruption, chaos, distress, is that there could be the companies like Meta could be put under pressure to have some controls over what it does with that data in terms of should it only be allowed to recognize faces that you've got permission for in advance.

25:46But as we've seen with the recording light and the things that already exist people are finding workarounds and I think in general people are more concerned about the risk of being filmed in public than they are about their privacy and their data privacy as we see all the time yeah so it's difficult I don't know if regulation is as easy a way of dealing with this problem and the potential problems they put like sort of suggest you've got to hope that they just don't catch on really because the consequences are so unclear to us now but they don't they would be very difficult to deal with later.