Hill, who has covered privacy for two decades and broke the Clearview AI story, was discussing what changes if face recognition becomes a feature in consumer smart glasses rather than something you seek out on an obscure website. She had just described stopping a sensitive conversation on a train in case a stranger with PimEyes could connect it to her. Her bet is that people would come to want device-free spaces, which is already happening with Meta's glasses being banned in courthouses.
…to make the connection between what I'm talking about and the fact that I'm working on a story about this. I just think we'll have to go through life with that feeling of you're under surveillance all the time by the people around you. They could connect this to you in a way that could haunt you.
…immediately by a pair of smart glasses. And you have to constantly moderate your behavior. Not that I'm advocating for go out and be a social nuisance. Like you won't be able to be normal in public anymore. And like, that's terrifying to me. It could really, really change people's behavior.
And I've always heard this. There's some people that say that would be great. Having to think through everything you do, having to be more careful, that make us a better society. Everyone will be better behaved. But I just don't think that's how the world works. And I've been hearing that and covering privacy for two decades now. In the beginning, there were definitely these kind of radical transparency advocates who would say, oh, you know, we'll reach a time when you won't be embarrassed anymore because we all live our lives online. Make mistakes, and we'll be a more forgiving society because everyone will have their mistakes. But I just don't think we've gone that way. We just love to attack people when they do something wrong. So, yeah, I don't think that we would have a better behaved society. We would just have a constantly punished society. I think people would hate it. I really think people would want to live in a world that didn't have devices anymore and have spaces where you couldn't bring these in, which we're already seeing with Meta's glasses.
The 404 Media podcast is brought to you by NordLayer Browser. NordLayer Browser is an enterprise browser that secures online work without getting in the way of productivity. It gives IT teams full visibility and control over every web-based AI tool, SaaS application, and download across the…
Actually, these perfectly to what I was going to ask now, which is that there is obviously a backlash to these glasses, and they haven't even launched the facial recognition stuff yet. Like it's not even out yet, and people are mad already. And of course, we had the Google Glass stuff, the whole…
Really? Wow. Oh my God.