Whether you realize it or not, our whole lives sort of revolve around AI. Be it a Google search, Netflix recommendations, or social media search.
Our everyday life revolves around AI tools which are used by almost all social media platforms. Advancements in AI and Machine learning have made our lives fairly easy and increased our productivity in a way.
Owing to these benefits, many companies and organizations ranging from startups to well-established businesses have introduced AI into their platforms. This has increased their business productivity, which in turn has helped businesses grow their revenues. But, the widespread adoption of AI and Machine learning, especially by social media platforms, raises a question of whether our privacy is taken seriously by the companies we trust or not.
Let’s explore how companies are planning to use and implement these technologies in the coming future.
> Recently, Google announced that they are introducing generative AI and machine learning into google docs and Gmail. Apparently, they are adding features to google docs where a user is asked to prompt a topic they would like to write about and let Google’s AI do its magic. Whether you want to write an article or a CV, just prompt it to the AI and voila! You will be given a full-blown article, CV, or whatever you seek.
> We have Meta using AI and have plans of transitioning into the Metaverse. Metaverse is said to be the next generation of the internet featuring more immersive environments which consist of Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, AI, and Machine Learning. Meta is also planning to bring AI personas into its chat features which will allow its user to incorporate the AI into their WhatsApp and Facebook channels allowing their business to have their own automated AI-powered customer service and feedback channels.
All of this looks good on paper, but there is so much more that doesn’t meet the eye. Now, let's look at times when companies like Meta, and Amazon ended up breaching privacy and misusing data via AI.
> Mark Zuckerberg, the cofounder of Meta (Facebook), was sued by a Washington DC lawyer over having direct knowledge of policies that allowed firms to have data of millions of Americans.
> Amazon was sued for a hefty $25 million over violating child privacy policy by Alexa. Amazon’s voice assistant kept a record of a child’s voice and location data, saved on its Alexa even though it was asked to delete the information. Separately, the company agreed to pay $5.8 Million in refund on alleged privacy violation, involving its doorbell camera ring.
> Recently, chat titles from the users of ChatGPT got leaked, it is important to take user privacy and data protection seriously, not only by the platform but also by the users. This case makes us rethink about using the platform again as we have lost the trust of our privacy.
Just looking at these points, it is easy to question the safety of one’s privacy.
Many people often question social media platforms listening to their conversations, the reason being the targeted ads being so relevant to the person viewing them. It is hard to know whether these platforms are listening to our conversations or not, because we aren’t aware of the listening technologies they use.
Of all the information we could gather, it's most likely a work of algorithms these platforms have. They track data like the types of ads you click on, the time you spend reading a caption, and the amount of time you spend looking at a picture or a digital ad.
So, if your explore tab is full of dog videos that means you have interacted with those kinds of videos and Instagram thinks that you like watching that kind of content. All these use cases make us question whether we can really trust these platforms and tools that we do dearly share our lives with? Questions like "Social media platforms and tools are listening to our conversations and whether they are keeping track of our whereabouts?" are often in the user’s mind.
There are no proper answers to whether the companies are using it for their benefit or not. But in the end, none of us know what's to come and what AI can pull off and, “What if AI takes over and causes havoc” to create a Black-Mirror like reality?” is a question that’s lingering on people’s minds even now!.
What are your thoughts on AI's breach into our lives? Let us know in the comments below!
(Author: This article is written by Karishma Chandnani & Gaurav Mukherjee for TechDoQuest.)