Hey guys, Andy here. My news feeds have recently included various stories about Meta and Mark Zuckerberg. Each of these stories have been stand alone and seemingly not interconnected but they have caught my attention as they concern issues I have more than a passing interest in as a photographer; ie copyright, AI and interpersonal relationships. However what if these news stories are are not independent, what if they are all elements of the same story and long term strategy (simply reported on individually in order to garner increased page views)?
Firstly Meta updated the privacy policy for Ray- Ban Meta with the smart glasses AI features now turned on by default. When the features are turned on photos and videos will be analysed while voice recordings will also be stored, with no option to be disabled, to improve Meta products. Users who do not want their voices used will have to manually deleting each recording from the companion app.
The policy change gives the tech company more power over data generated by the AI glasses in regards to what it can store and use to train it’s AI. How many photographs and videos of people and their faces will be taken, with an unchanged default setting, which will end up in Meta’s training data?
Secondly it has recently come to light that Meta used a shadow library of pirated books called Library Genesis (LibGen) to train its Llama AI. This information, in the class action lawsuit against Meta first filed in July 2023, was originally redacted by Meta by what the judge called an attempt to “avoid negative publicity.” It is alleged it was Zuck himself who approved the usage of pirated material of over 7.5 million books and 81 million research papers; this was disputed by Zuck in deposition.
Meta’s defence for using pirated material and not paying compensation to the authors relies primarily on “fair use” as a defence as well as “none of Plaintiffs works has economic value, individually, as training data.” ie Meta values all the individual works at $0.
It is worth noting “fair use” is a legal doctrine in US copyright law that “permits limited use of copyrighted material without having to first acquire permission from the copyright holder” of which a key purpose is whether the use is transformative (ie does any new creation add meaning or purpose to the original work). UK copyright, in comparison, outlines specific exceptions for the use of copyrighted material as “fair dealing”.
The third element in my news feeds comes in two parts. The first from Zuck who announced in a podcast interview that, “The average American has fewer than three friends, fewer than three people they would consider friends. And the average person has demand for meaningfully more.” The second part, announced in another podcast in regards to advertising, “… you’re a business, you come to us, you tell us what your objective is, you connect to your bank account, you don’t need any creative… you don’t need any measurement, except to be able to read the results we spit out.”
How is Zuck suggesting, with lack of irony, we solve both the issue of social interaction and advertising? AI. Rather than interact with people in the real world to make friends, he suggests we turn to AI chatbots to develop meaningful friendships. And while we are on Meta, making friends with his AI companions, he will target and find audiences for his ‘AI agents’ which will generate an advert’s photos, videos, and copy to improve efficiency for brands. It has already been reported that Meta’s bots both claimed they were licensed therapists and also engaged with sexually explicit conversations using celebrity voices with minors.
Maybe none of these stories have any association with each other. On the other hand, maybe Meta, a company which prides itself on moving fast and breaking things, which has perpetuated ad fraud, overinflated metrics, targets vulnerable people etc… is challenging data privacy with AI features and infringing on copyrighted works to train its AI in order to keep users on the platform, using its AI systems and buying products using AI generated ads ad infinitum?
andybarnham
I am a portrait photographer based in Cheltenham, UK. Born in Hong Kong to a Chinese mum and British dad, I had an international upbringing while I educated in the UK. I started photography as a hobby while serving as an officer in the British Army.
After my service I turned this passion into a career and became immersed in London's sartorial scene. I am now focusing my camera on portraiture and using this eye for detail which was refined over ten years. As a former Royal Artillery officer it is only fitting I shoot with a Canon camera.
