Robot vacuums have always seemed like kind, friendly little boys to me, but maybe that’s because I haven’t used them much. I love the idea. I just found out that you can take a picture of you in the bathroom and upload it to social media without you knowing.
Irene Guo Appears in MIT Technology Review (opens in new tab) We’re looking at how a photo like this one, taken from an iRobot Roomba vacuum with a clear view of the user’s face, made its way to social media. (opens in new tab)The photos include very candid shots of people doing personal things at home, including images of women and children in restrooms. twitter thread (opens in new tab) Contains detailed instructions and helpful links.
The sensitive images were apparently taken from the position of the robot vacuum cleaner and should have gone to collect the data. One of his affected users, he told MIT Technology Review, said he was a product tester for the iRobot Roomba J series, and he let the robot walk around his house in hopes of improving the product to collect information. I explained that I was collecting
It’s one thing to expect your information to be sent back to a secure company looking to train a cleaning AI, and it’s one thing to know those images are also uploaded to social media. MIT Technology Review found that once iRobot collects all the data, it sends it to a data annotation company. One such company is his Scale AI, which hires remote contractors to help evaluate uncensored data.
This encouraged workers to share images among themselves on social media, which of course paved the way for the wider world. Many users felt this was a breach of trust, if not a deal as a tester. . Fittingly, iRobot has stopped working with his Scale AI.
Unfortunately, iRobot has not done more to help those affected or restore their confidence. CEO Colin Angle responded to his MIT Technology Review report in a LinkedIn post. (opens in new tab) I didn’t acknowledge the problems or dangers involved in providing these uncensored images to gig workers.
In the first part of his Linked In post, Angle talks about how good the company’s Roomba is, and attributes this to data collected from testers like this one, and then goes on to say that they’re not consumers, they’re data. to collect
It’s nice to know that this hasn’t happened with consumer iRobot products, but the lack of accountability to testers makes me not want to go out and get a Roomba anytime soon.
The LinkedIn post also accused MIT Technology Review of sharing the censored version of the image in the article, but iRobot was willing to share the uncensored image with strangers and eventually made it online. Given that, this makes no sense at all.
