The Obtain: Causes to be optimistic about AI’s vitality use, and Caiwei Chen’s three issues

Yet one more factor

A Roomba recorded a lady on the bathroom. How did screenshots find yourself on Fb?

Within the fall of 2020, gig staff in Venezuela posted a collection of photos to on-line boards the place they speak store. The pictures had been mundane, if typically intimate, family scenes—together with a very revealing shot of a younger lady in a lavender T-shirt sitting on the bathroom, her shorts pulled all the way down to mid-thigh.

The pictures weren’t taken by an individual, however by growth variations of iRobot’s Roomba robotic vacuum, an organization now owned by Amazon. They had been then despatched to Scale AI, a startup that contracts staff around the globe to label information used to coach synthetic intelligence.

In 2022, MIT Expertise Overview obtained 15 screenshots of those non-public pictures, which had been posted to closed social media teams. The pictures communicate to the rising apply of sharing doubtlessly delicate information to coach algorithms. Additionally they reveal a complete information provide chain—and new factors the place private info may leak out—that few shoppers are even conscious of. Learn the total story.