On one hand, yes, it’s an issue, people are misusing them, ans commit actual acts of crime with it. I also see the problem of feeding a constant stream of high quality video with precise location data to companies that have proven time after time that they cannot be trusted with this data.
But on the other hand, these glasses can be immensely useful. For blind and vision-impaired people, this can read store signs, labels, any text of any packaging they’re looking at, any sign that might not have low vision helper.
It can help people in foreign countries to communicate - translate for each other, translate written things, and so on.
Even for the average Joe it can be super helpful in capturing moments you might miss if you were to pull your phone out. See someone get attacked? Bam, high resolution picture of their face. Video of the entire incident, recorded.
Cracking down on the creeps and forcing Meta to give up absolute control over the glasses would be the right way to go about this. Hell, make Meta call the police whenever someone uses their glasses for creeping! if they can run 24/7 facial recognition on the glass streams, they most certainly can alert the authorities when someone is recording people agains their will…
And there’s also a third issue with this legislation. How do you define the term “smart glasses”? Because right now, 3-4 distinct product groups use the term interchangeably:
the basic mic+speaker combo, used to trigger smart assistants and music playback
the “creep glasses” - glasses with built in cameras on top of the mic+speaker. Made by Meta but also Chinese manufacturers (these ones usually only send data to the connected smartphone, so no Meta spying concerns - there’s even open source, fully local app alternatives for them)
HMD (head mounted display) glasses. These usually have speakers and displays, some provide a level of spatiality or even AR/XR experiences. Most have no cameras at all, or if they do, it’s a limited, down-pointed, low resolu IR camera for hand tracking (see Viture, Xreal, etc)
the true smart glasses - Google’s Project Aura, the rumoured upcoming Apple glasses fall in this category. Glasses with built in processing, completely standalone, with displays, full range of cameras, et cetera,
Which category are we banning? What’s the basis of the ban? Is it privacy and the potential of recording in secret? If yes, are we banning smartphones too? AI note takers (see e.g. Plaude’s pendant recorders)? Cameras hidden in pens, phone chargers? Are we going to ban ultra small USB webcams because someone could easily embed it in their clothing and record secretly?
Are we also to ban IP cameras because most manufa don’t give a flying shit about security and said cameras can be easily accessed even by skiddies? Are we also going to crack down on companies offering stores cheap “analytics” based on CCTV when they’re known to be selling that data as well? Hell, just ban all cameras, and microphones.
We can have all the benefits without many of the downsides if we fixed the perverse incentives on harvesting data. Ban creeper glasses. Regulate and license these glasses as they should be used: medical assistance devices with strict controls on use of data.
The problem never was technological. The problem has always been regulating and limiting how people use tools in negative ways, from guns, cars, drugs, food, etc. For some reason we are blind to the idea of doing more of the same with big tech? This is long overdue.
We can have all the benefits without many of the downsides if we fixed the perverse incentives on harvesting data.
I don’t think this is going to make the perverts stop using it for pervert things; and as far as I can tell that’s the main reason the general public hates these glasses, not the data harvesting angle.
The problem never was technological.
And I think the problem became technological when we made affordable recording POV so covertly
I’m quite torn on this topic.
On one hand, yes, it’s an issue, people are misusing them, ans commit actual acts of crime with it. I also see the problem of feeding a constant stream of high quality video with precise location data to companies that have proven time after time that they cannot be trusted with this data.
But on the other hand, these glasses can be immensely useful. For blind and vision-impaired people, this can read store signs, labels, any text of any packaging they’re looking at, any sign that might not have low vision helper.
It can help people in foreign countries to communicate - translate for each other, translate written things, and so on.
Even for the average Joe it can be super helpful in capturing moments you might miss if you were to pull your phone out. See someone get attacked? Bam, high resolution picture of their face. Video of the entire incident, recorded.
Cracking down on the creeps and forcing Meta to give up absolute control over the glasses would be the right way to go about this. Hell, make Meta call the police whenever someone uses their glasses for creeping! if they can run 24/7 facial recognition on the glass streams, they most certainly can alert the authorities when someone is recording people agains their will…
And there’s also a third issue with this legislation. How do you define the term “smart glasses”? Because right now, 3-4 distinct product groups use the term interchangeably:
Which category are we banning? What’s the basis of the ban? Is it privacy and the potential of recording in secret? If yes, are we banning smartphones too? AI note takers (see e.g. Plaude’s pendant recorders)? Cameras hidden in pens, phone chargers? Are we going to ban ultra small USB webcams because someone could easily embed it in their clothing and record secretly?
Are we also to ban IP cameras because most manufa don’t give a flying shit about security and said cameras can be easily accessed even by skiddies? Are we also going to crack down on companies offering stores cheap “analytics” based on CCTV when they’re known to be selling that data as well? Hell, just ban all cameras, and microphones.
Nope they well just collect data for massive corps. Fix that issue first and then we can talk about the benefits.
How about you read my entire comment instead of rushing to reply after the first sentence?
We can have all the benefits without many of the downsides if we fixed the perverse incentives on harvesting data. Ban creeper glasses. Regulate and license these glasses as they should be used: medical assistance devices with strict controls on use of data.
The problem never was technological. The problem has always been regulating and limiting how people use tools in negative ways, from guns, cars, drugs, food, etc. For some reason we are blind to the idea of doing more of the same with big tech? This is long overdue.
I don’t think this is going to make the perverts stop using it for pervert things; and as far as I can tell that’s the main reason the general public hates these glasses, not the data harvesting angle.
And I think the problem became technological when we made affordable recording POV so covertly