Reading List
The most recent articles from a list of feeds I subscribe to.
"Podslop" is flooding listening platforms like Spotify; Podcast Index: of ~11K new podcast feeds in a recent 9-day span, ~39% were likely for AI content shows (Ashley Carman/Bloomberg)
Ashley Carman / Bloomberg:
“Podslop” is flooding listening platforms like Spotify; Podcast Index: of ~11K new podcast feeds in a recent 9-day span, ~39% were likely for AI content shows — Over the past nine days, 39% of new podcasts were likely AI-generated, according to the Podcast Index. — Welcome back to Soundbite.
Meta Solved Their Problem With Kenyan Contractors Seeing Footage of AI Glasses Wearers on the Toilet
Remember the appalling but utterly-unsurprising story two months ago where a team of investigative reporters in Sweden uncovered a company in Kenya contracted by Meta to review video content captured by Meta’s “smart” glasses? They spoke to some of the workers, who told tales of reviewing footage of Meta glasses users getting undressed, having sex, and taking dumps. This is a rather seedy job, and a big surprise to most of the people wearing Meta’s AI glasses, who are under the impression that “AI” does not involve human beings in Kenya seeing what their glasses capture.
Well, Meta has fixed the problem. Chris Vallance reports for BBC News:
Meta is under pressure to explain why it cancelled a major contract with a company it was using to train AI, shortly after some of its Kenya-based workers alleged they had to view graphic content captured by Meta smart glasses.
In February, workers at the company, Sama, told two Swedish newspapers they had witnessed glasses users going to the toilet, and having sex.
Less than two months later, Meta ended its contract with Sama, which Sama said would result in 1,108 workers being made redundant.
Meta says it’s because Sama did not meet its standards, a criticism Sama rejects. A Kenyan workers’ organisation alleges Meta’s decision was caused by the staff speaking out.
There’s no mystery here. The “standard” that Sama didn’t meet was keeping their mouths shut about the dignity-shredding nature of the entire operation. Like that fact that it even existed, let alone the gross privacy-invasive footage they witnessed. The deal wasn’t just for Sama’s workers to do the work, it was to do the work and keep it on the down-low. Go to Meta’s AI glasses website and try to find the part where they warn you that footage is subject to review by teams of contractors in third-world countries, Mechanical Turk-style. If you look hard enough, you’ll find oblique allusion to “review may be automated or manual (human)” in their legal small print, but their large-scale human review of video footage and recordings isn’t part of the brand or marketing image for their glasses.