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THE OT ALGORITHM
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Hi friends,
This week's issue is about a device that sits right on your face.
Camera-equipped AI glasses are getting smaller, cheaper, and harder to spot. For some of our clients, that's a big deal in a good way. For everyone standing near the wearer, it raises a question most of us haven't answered yet: did I agree to be recorded?
I first came across these in a positive light related to AI-enabled glasses assisting individuals with low vision and other visual impairments. But as the Ray-Bans and Meta ones become more mainstream, I have many concerns.
Let's get into it.
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HOT TAKE THIS WEEK
Same Hardware, Two Very Different Stories
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Not all AI development is good. We know that.
There is genuinely good AI being built in the accessibility space. Lighthouse Guild's On Tech and Vision podcast featured how generative AI is changing daily life for people who are blind or have low vision (this is what I was referring to above). Microsoft's Saqib Shaikh, who leads the team behind the free Seeing AI app, described it as a "talking camera": point your phone and it reads text, describes scenes, and recognizes products. Alice Massa, an occupational therapist at Lighthouse Guild with 50 years in practice, shared that she couldn't shop alone before Seeing AI. Now she reads clothing tags herself. She described a client who smiled for the first time in two years, his wife said, because he could read his Bible on his own again.
That's OT. That's participation.
And notice what they wished for next. Massa imagined a wearable "button" that could cue her about crowds and cars while walking. Shaikh described wanting "a friend sitting on my shoulder whispering in my ear."
That wish is now being sold as glasses. In August, Meta announced it is donating 15,000 Ray-Ban Meta glasses to Vision Ireland, the country's national sight loss charity, with training funded by Meta, so blind and low-vision adults can read text, identify objects, and access information hands-free. (Worth noting: that's the company's own announcement, and it's also good marketing for the product.)
So here's my take.
The same camera that describes the world for one person can discreetly record everyone else in it.
Today's headline is about that second story. And the version of AI glasses that captures people without their knowledge? That's likely not the good kind of AI development.
Both things are true. Our job is to assess both.