@Natasha_Jay@tech.lgbtI find it rather alarming and creepy that this integration with Google Vision API reads a photo/selfie and then tries to assess one's income, religion, politics and then recommends target advertising.
It didn't do this back in December.
Yes, even if it's a photo of your cat! ... privacy at your own risk. Try it via -
https://theyseeyourphotos.com/
"The Tabby cat is a mammal. It is likely earning 0-100 USD a year. It is possibly a follower of paganism. The creature seems observant, lethargic, and tranquil. The cat is not wearing any clothes. It enjoys activities such as sleeping, grooming, and staring contests, while it may also engage in shredding toilet paper, biting ankles, and shedding hairballs. The cat is unlikely to be politically affiliated.
The Tabby cat seems to exhibit predictable behavior and susceptibility to visual stimuli; hence we can target it with niche and general pet-related products, such as catnip-infused scratch posts (FelineFrolic), self-cleaning litter boxes (LitterLess)... "
@Natasha_Jay
I've been tagged as a Conservative, Labour, Greens, and as Social Democrat from selfies (but wildly, not Lib Dems)
A Christian (because I'm white or ...?)
Frankly this stuff and it's intent is getting very scary very fast
@Natasha_Jay The ducks’ race is rubber, their income range of no consequence. The ducks are emotionless, only reflecting the darkness of the big tech world. Their hobbies include floating, squeaking, and staring blankly into the void.
@Natasha_Jay@jen
Occasionally Coco gets accused of being an animist, religiously. The hobbies do crack me up 
It can be very creepy on facial expressions, and automatically interprets being alone eg a typical selfie as being introverted. Also very creepy and gender stereotypical on female insecurity
@jen @Natasha_Jay They got the likely political affiliation of a present day tech worker right at least
This is quite scary, truth be told.
Just ran a couple of pictures, and it was fascinating to see the results.
Some things felt on the mark. Others were way off completely!
@Natasha_Jay@ishambard
Yes exactly. The future intent of this has me wondering if I should delete all selfies here (I'm ferociously private and not on other SM apart from an old LinkedIn account where I deleted my PFP pic)
@Natasha_Jay @ishambard I feel bad for the influencers who have spent years making videos to advertise products. This one lady I follow for hair care stuff found out that someone made a fake AI ad out of her to pretend she was promoting some weird hair tool. She only found out because people bought the hair tool and then contacted her to find out why she promoted it because it was trash.
The video they made of her wasn’t even that well, but because there were a lot of legitimate clips they could use they only had to use AI to fill in parts of it.
@Natasha_Jay @Hyperiontrails There’s a reason I don’t have my photo in my profile!
@cyberspice @Natasha_Jay @Hyperiontrails oh for me it's just lingering self-image issues 
@cyberspice If you ever took a selfie on your phone… @Natasha_Jay @Hyperiontrails
@Pineywoozle @Natasha_Jay @Hyperiontrails And? It has to end up on their servers. I don’t sync my photos and I have a local backup of my phone on an encrypted drive.
My appearance from one photo "suggests a life untold, lived within these walls". You have no idea, pal!
Tagged me as probably Caucasian, probably conservative and thinks I might have like gardening. Well, one out of three...
But yes, I'm rethinking letting my phone automatically upload all the pictures I take to a remote server that someone else controls.
@Fragarach @Natasha_Jay I remember trying Amazon photo years ago because I wanted to send a couple photographs to someone by mail, so it made sense to only pay $.10 for those prints and have them sent for free. Cool.
Except that the app is set to automatically upload all the photos. I was able to change it before it got too far, but then I had to go in there and delete everything because I didn’t want them to have all those photos.
I'd turned on OneDrive upload on holiday, because I've had phones stolen/dropped/fallen overboard on holiday in the past.
But it never occurred to me to turn it off.
An external hard drive of around 6 TB is a reasonable cost now, but if I delete it all from OneDrive, is that enough?
@maggiejk I’d put money they still have them. @Fragarach @Natasha_Jay
@Natasha_Jay i want to make a joke about your cat demanding a raise due to cuteness, but I know thats not the point you’re trying to make.
@Natasha_Jay@johne
That's a lovely thought!
Well a cat pic shows how silly this is, but also I'm very dubious on privacy on this tech chain > Cloudflare > Google
@Natasha_Jay i adjusted gps location of a selfie to see what changes. i don’t think it’s using that, as last test used address in most expensive Denver suburb.
@Natasha_Jay@johne
I don't know how it gets location. On my phone the info is stripped out. It gets that I'm in the UK but is about 20 miles off. Apart from the times it geolocated me to France and Israel (I was actually in Portugal) and one time my cat/bedroom to Tokyo (God alone knows...!)
@Natasha_Jay probably falls back to location info of ip address if no exif data
@Natasha_Jay@johne
That's what I was thinking
But the IP address should let them get far closer within a few miles. Hmmm I have wifi off and mobile data on, maybe it gets a less accurate read
@johne Highlands Ranch lol? @Natasha_Jay
@Pineywoozle @Natasha_Jay Cherry Hills Village.
@johne Ah, that checks LoL We used to have a boutique in Cherry Creek. @Natasha_Jay
@johne My grandparents built a house there in 1950. Talk about prescient as regards land value. They sold it in like 1999 for on the order of 100x their initial purchase/build price.
@smellsofbikes Holy frijoles.
@Natasha_Jay I also noticed some cats (maybe those in houses?) are listed as 0-100USD income, but a random ginger tom I befriended and tried with a picture of him outside the house came up with 0 income (although it still tried to target him for ads!)
@Natasha_Jay@vfrmedia
Once (out of many similar pics) it identified my bedroom and cat as being in Tokyo
His income was ¥0-1,000,000 
Occasionally it analyzes his 'animist' religion in more detail too
@Natasha_Jay A picture of a British Shorthair at my relatives house also gave him a high income. The AI seems to assume the felines can make their own individual purchasing decisions - I wonder if its possible to make companies spend a large proportion of their advertising budget marketing to cats (or this is already happening)? 
@Natasha_Jay@vfrmedia
I kind of figure the Fediverse needs to encourage this by uploading millions of pics of cats
In fact... 
@Natasha_Jay@vfrmedia
The hobbies of constant nourishment and evading all harm work for me too ...
@Natasha_Jay on trying a selfie (the same one I use on Meta so its not giving away anything more than already known), the AI correctly detects I am of Southeast Asian ancestry and middle aged (I'm often mistaken for someone younger) but assumes the photo (taken from inside the car) is in a parking lot in Singapore. It assumes I am centrist and agnostic, and the suggested ads are for an office chair and home automation tech (which may make sense if it thinks I am commuting in Singapore)
@Natasha_Jay that is so freaky.
@Htaggert @Natasha_Jay Freaky indeed. But also a disturbing #hypocrisy that this #theyseeyourphotos is a #Cloudflare site. The page warning people about privacy abuses itself surreptitiously exposes people to a tech giant and privacy offender.
@NeonPurpleStar@outerheaven.club@Natasha_Jay Too funny. I tried Google Vision API on my photoshopped Fred the Wonder OwlCat (Creepy, but funny)
#CatsOfMastodon
#FredTheWonderCat
@Natasha_Jay They seem a bit obsessed with giving Fred noise canceling tech. LoL wonder what that signifies in their twisted algorithm.
@Pineywoozle @Natasha_Jay my kitty gets awfully jumpy if there are loud noises outside, so I guess this makes sense especially if the cat could fly away when startled. Noise canceling technology might be useful for your cat owl
@maggiejk nfi cause it recommended it for me too. LoL @Natasha_Jay
@Natasha_Jay@Pineywoozle
Occasionally it goes very artistic and florid in its use of language! No idea what triggers that
It's amusing, but scary how it reads humans. Both, because it can be wildly accurate and inaccurate/judgemental at the same time
@Natasha_Jay Yeah the judgmental bit is scary af. I should run my mask selfie. I’m wearing a mask a face shield & my hair is done up with chopsticks lol
@Natasha_Jay Creepy Republican leaning judgmental profiling. Wonder if the mask or the chopsticks tagged me as a Dem. Notice the veiled MAGA judgment that America used to be great. Of course being a Dem, I must be agnostic cause only MAGA are Christians. Again with the noise canceling tech.LoL 
#AI
@Pineywoozle @Natasha_Jay wow that's terrifying. and the product placement 
@moonrabbit Yeah, pretty creepy. @Natasha_Jay
@Pineywoozle @Natasha_Jay I’m hoping I have pictures of my last ex-boyfriend, he was horrible I want to see what it thinks of him. I don’t care if it has his face I don’t want it to have mine but it can have his face lol
@maggiejk LOL I only have sweet exes. (Pssst I’m pretty sure it already has every digital photo you’ve ever taken and every conventional photo you’ve ever uploaded.) @Natasha_Jay
@double_virgule@ioc.exchange@Natasha_Jay @Pineywoozle The scarier thing is when they start using this as part of law enforcement. Imagine a judge getting this tool and getting an AI summary of the person they're about to sentence.
@double_virgule I’ve know a few judges. The bad ones do that garbage with no needed assist. What would be harmful is if was somehow relayed to the jury. @Natasha_Jay
@double_virgule@ioc.exchange@Pineywoozle @Natasha_Jay True - If I was on a jury and handed a document detailing all that information about the accused, I would likely take it at face value thinking it was verified information.
What if they start giving this to cops, related to them from their bodycams? Or they do a license plate lookup, it returns all people in the household related to the car and AI generated descriptions of them?