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IBM's Watson Is Now Analyzing Your Vacation Photos

Posted by timothy on from the back-orifice-problem dept.

jfruh writes: IBM's Jeopardy-winning supercomputer Watson is now suite of cloud-based services that developers can use to add cognitive capabilities to applications, and one of its powers is visual analysis. Visual Insights analyzes images and videos posted to services like Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, then looks for patterns and trends in what people have been posting. Watson turns what it gleans into structured data, making it easier to load into a database and act upon — which is clearly appealing to marketers and just as clearly carries disturbing privacy implications.

53 of 117 comments (clear)

  1. How is this relevant? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Most tech employees can't take time off. I haven't had an entire week off since 1991.

    1. Re: How is this relevant? by PvtVoid · · Score: 1

      There's such a huge shortage of employees that things aren't going to improve for at least the next decade. I haven't had a single day off in nearly three years.

      Does not scan. If there were a shortage of employees, you wouldn't have to worry about getting fired for behaving like a human being and having a life outside of work.

    2. Re: How is this relevant? by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

      It's a long shot I know, but he might be being sarcastic.

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    3. Re: How is this relevant? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      > Does not scan. If there were a shortage of employees, ...

      Your post is illogical. Because there is a shortage, we all have to work harder to make-up for all of the open positions. Yes, I have negotiated large raises every year for the past decade, but I have been unable to negotiate even a single day off in the nearly five years at my current company. I can't because the company needs me. We have deadlines set by our state government that we have to meet or the business is shutdown. We would all lose our jobs if everyone took just one week of the four weeks off a year that we get. This isn't the company's fault. They have the money and are willing to hire employees, but no one qualified is applying.

    4. Re: How is this relevant? by YrWrstNtmr · · Score: 3, Insightful

      In the real world where I work, not a single American programmer that I know has gone out of town for a vacation in over a decade.

      Yeah, right. In the other real world (USA) where *I* work, I don't know a single programmer that hasn't taken one or more vacations every year this century.

    5. Re: How is this relevant? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      At my job, I haven't had a vacation in the 14 years I've been here, .....The company can't find a replacement for me

      Until they do find a replacement who will work for less, then you'll have a nice long vacation.
      Seriously though, that stinks of terrible management.
      No employees should be irreplaceable. The President of the USA is replaced every 8 years, max.
      And, if you haven't had a vacation in 14 years, what would they do if you keeled over and died at your desk one day from the stress?

    6. Re: How is this relevant? by ColdWetDog · · Score: 1

      > Does not scan. If there were a shortage of employees, ...

      Your post is illogical. Because there is a shortage, we all have to work harder to make-up for all of the open positions. Yes, I have negotiated large raises every year for the past decade, but I have been unable to negotiate even a single day off in the nearly five years at my current company. I can't because the company needs me. We have deadlines set by our state government that we have to meet or the business is shutdown. We would all lose our jobs if everyone took just one week of the four weeks off a year that we get. This isn't the company's fault. They have the money and are willing to hire employees, but no one qualified is applying.

      There are literally thousands of excellent developers with a least a modicum of command of the English language sitting around doing virtually nothing useful all day. Dice just has to figure out how to leverage this site correctly.

      --
      Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
    7. Re: How is this relevant? by PvtVoid · · Score: 4, Insightful

      > Does not scan. If there were a shortage of employees, ...

      Your post is illogical. Because there is a shortage, we all have to work harder to make-up for all of the open positions. Yes, I have negotiated large raises every year for the past decade, but I have been unable to negotiate even a single day off in the nearly five years at my current company. I can't because the company needs me.

      Then you're being played. Your management has overcommitted, and is treating you like galley slaves because it's boosting their bottom line to do so. And you're sucker enough to let them do it to you.

      If developers are in such short supply, you should be able to easily find another job that doesn't involve abusive working conditions. Good luck.

    8. Re:How is this relevant? by Troed · · Score: 1

      Welcome to Sweden. Tech workers with a few years experience usually get 32 days off per year here.

      --
      it's in my head
    9. Re: How is this relevant? by PvtVoid · · Score: 1

      > Your management has overcommitted,

      If you work in a regulated environment, like I do, then it isn't management that is setting the requirements or the deadlines.

      Then they are taking on projects that they don't have sufficient staffing to handle.

      If labor is so scarce, why don't you just jump to another job that doesn't abuse its employees? Scarcity of labor should make that easy.

    10. Re: How is this relevant? by PixetaledPikachu · · Score: 1

      > This isn't the company's fault. They have the money and are willing to hire employees, but no one qualified is applying.

      If no one qualified is applying, then you need to grow one. Get someone with general understanding of the required fields and train them. Create proper documentation and knowledge base so that people can learn appropriately. You might still not get a proper vacation next year, but 2-3 years from now you might.

    11. Re: How is this relevant? by TapeCutter · · Score: 2

      You don't need less vacations, you need more staff. More staff is not your problem, so why do you martyr yourself?

      --
      And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
    12. Re: How is this relevant? by TapeCutter · · Score: 1

      I have negotiated large raises every year for the past decade, I have been unable to negotiate even a single day off in the nearly five years at my current company

      That "agreement" would be illegal most industrialised nations. Annual leave comes under the preview of "health and safety", employers/employees cannot simply 'negotiate' federally mandated working conditions out of existence without breaking the law.

      --
      And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
    13. Re:How is this relevant? by FirephoxRising · · Score: 1

      He means days off on top of all the weekends!

    14. Re: How is this relevant? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      What a load of crap. There's a massive shortage of developers so companies aren't able to let us take time off. The last time I had a full week off was in 1987.

    15. Re: How is this relevant? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      As someone that has worked as a developer for several large companies, I think you're a liar. I know I haven't had a contiguous week off since I got my first developer job in 1983. I think you're just trolling to attempt to make developers feel bad with your lie that you know developers that get to take vacations.

  2. Disturbing Privacy Implications by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If you so effing worried about your privacy, stop putting your goddamn vacation photos in the cloud!

    1. Re:Disturbing Privacy Implications by mlts · · Score: 4, Insightful

      You pretty much described it. My photos are never stored in a world accessible place, and if they are stored on the cloud, it is behind an encryption layer like BoxCryptor. Even though it doesn't mean much if the provider itself is compromised, 2FA goes without saying.

      One can't control "leakage" like people popping pictures of you and tagging, but what doesn't go to a public forum doesn't get indexed, so just keeping vacation photos private is the best thing. Want to share them with friends? There are means to do it with others privately (well away from mass indexers), as opposed to tossing them onto a social networking site.

  3. Person of Interest by fluffernutter · · Score: 1

    Anyone watch Person of Interest? We're almost there.

    --
    Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
  4. You want privacy? by fustakrakich · · Score: 1

    Burn all the phone books!

    Let's forget all this "privacy" bullshit, there just isn't any. It's like trying to stop climate change. The thing to do now it is prevent anybody from using what they have against you.

    --
    “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
    1. Re:You want privacy? by kheldan · · Score: 2

      NO. Bending over and taking it is not the answer. We fight back and continue fighting back for as long as it takes.

      --
      Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
    2. Re:You want privacy? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      You could fight back by not giving your data to people whose business is to do things with it that you say you don't want.

    3. Re:You want privacy? by fustakrakich · · Score: 1

      You are chasing ghosts.

      --
      “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
    4. Re:You want privacy? by crow_t_robot · · Score: 1

      Get a fucking grip. No one cares about your shitty vacation photos.

    5. Re:You want privacy? by gstoddart · · Score: 5, Interesting

      You know, we're fast reaching a point where you need to get over that sentiment of nobody caring.

      Nobody individually cares, but in the aggregate you should be scared.

      So, picture this: You share some vacation photos to Facebook or somesuch. Facebook does facial recognition on it. IBM also comes along and does facial recognition on it, and interprets what was happening. The analytics associated with that (who already know loads about you) identify you've tagged a destination -- there's dozens of those. Facebook also knows several of your friends had status updates in the same place -- oh, and of course, the facial recognition sees them in your photos and tags you.

      Now, imagine a world in which secretive government agencies can demand your data from all of these entities and insist that fact be kept private.

      So, combine this and you can suddenly paint a very complete picture that you, your friends, a couple of women who are not your wives ... all flew into Mexico on United airlines, spent a week at a given hotel, were seen kissing the women who aren't your wives (in the background of some other tourist and auto-tagged). Oh, and did we mention the women in the photos were also picked up in facial recognition and identified as underage prostitutes with ties to a Mexican gang?

      Your insurance now says you're ineligible because you didn't get vaccinated. Your wife now sees a picture of you in Mexico kissing someone else (even though you know nothing about this picture). The government can realize you were in the company of someone with know criminal ties. And, through parallel construction can commit perjury and hide how they came to know this.

      My scenario is intended to be crazy over the top. Ridiculous even.

      But the scary thing is that when you can start connecting all of these sources of information via 'big data', this is exactly the kind of thing which is rapidly going from absurd fiction to utterly real technology. The sheer scale of this data, and the sheer number of ways in which it can be automatically cross referenced should be scaring the crap out of people.

      Acting like this kind of stuff can't have impacts on our lives is naive.

      Acting like this stuff is the domain of tin-foil hat conspiracy theorists and bad Hollywood movies is now a thing of the past.

      We're actively building all the tools we need for the dystopian future.

      --
      Lost at C:>. Found at C.
    6. Re:You want privacy? by gstoddart · · Score: 1

      Not seeing the problem here. Are you saying that people have to right the commit crimes or adultery without getting caught?

      No, I'm saying we can rapidly find ourselves in an oppressive surveillance society in which links which could never have been made will suddenly be made automatically.

      So, that family vacationing from Hoboken? Their teenage daughter takes a selfie by the pool, uploads to Facebook over the hotel wifi ... and suddenly something posts to your Facebook status which says "Bob was in Mexico with Maria Consuela, child prostitute". All in under 5 minutes.

      I'm not sure that level of seamless integration of suddenly having no privacy is a good thing.

      --
      Lost at C:>. Found at C.
    7. Re:You want privacy? by kheldan · · Score: 1

      As someone else pointed out: Your theoretical scenario outlines things that your ficitonal character actually did, therefore rightly caught. Not a great example against the surveillance state.

      What we REALLY have to worry about in the Surveillance State, is incorrect connections and assumptions being made. Then it starts resembling the movie Minority Report, where you have people being arrested for things they haven't even done yet. Then everything goes to hell in a handbasket, everyone is literally chasing ghosts, and anyone can be arrested for any reason at any time and have NO defense against it legally.

      Your Mexican hookers with organized crime ties? They kissed you without your permission. But it doesn't look that way and you get flagged for it anyway. Your wife believes the feds without question especially after they show her the 'evidence', and she turns against you, making matters worse now that her own insecurities have found something to validate them. This makes the case the State is building against you even more damning, as she brings up 'suspicious' behavior of yours from the past (working late all the time, 'mysterious' phone calls you claim were telemarketers, etc). Feds start questioning your social media friends; they come up with all sorts of insane crap that has nothing to do with reality, or even better: something innocent they say is taken out of context by an over-zealous district attorney, and suddenly you're a criminal mastermind who has been in deep cover for decades.

      Of course shit like this has been happening for decades and decades before the Surveillance State, but now it's just getting worse by an order of magnitude. THAT is why we have to keep fighting back; otherwise it just spirals out of control even worse than it already is, with nothing to check it's progress.

      --
      Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
    8. Re:You want privacy? by crow_t_robot · · Score: 1

      Your basis for this scenario is that YOU CHOSE to upload pictures of yourself in Mexico as a married man that show you KISSING AN UNDERAGE PROSTITUTE WITH TIES TO A MEXICAN GANG TO MOTHERFUCKING FACEBOOK. I'm pretty sure big data is the least of your worries.

    9. Re:You want privacy? by sribe · · Score: 1

      Your basis for this scenario is that YOU CHOSE to upload pictures of yourself in Mexico as a married man that show you KISSING AN UNDERAGE PROSTITUTE

      No, that was not the scenario. He chose to upload an innocent photo, and then the creepy tagging an analysis linked it to him in SOMEONE ELSES' PHOTO.

  5. vacation? by turkeydance · · Score: 1

    what's that?

  6. He's gotten so cocky since he won Jeopardy by NotDrWho · · Score: 2

    You've forgotten your roots, Watson!

    --
    SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
  7. IBM by Lennie · · Score: 1

    Is it just me or is IBM a lot more open about what they are doing in comparison to for example Google or Microsoft ?

    PS There are no pictures of me on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram.

    --
    New things are always on the horizon
    1. Re:IBM by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      There are no pictures of me on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram.

      How do you know that to be a fact? If someone else has had a picture of you at any time in the past, it very well could have ended up publicized on the Internet.

    2. Re:IBM by gstoddart · · Score: 4, Insightful

      PS There are no pictures of me on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram.

      So, you can 100% guarantee you have never been in the background of someone else's photo, tagged by someone as being in that photo ... or cross referenced with a photo from a different source which did identify you and make it easy to correlate a picture in which you are a random stranger to "Bob Smith in the blue hat lives in Chicago"?

      If I go full tinfoil-hat, I see a world in which the number of sources of data are so utterly huge, and eventually interconnected that you might not have any control over this. A random picture of a random crowd would get processed and identified.

      Hell, the government just needs to demand this data, cross reference it with things like drivers licenses, passports, and whatever else they can get ... and suddenly you have a very different world to live in.

      Unfortunately, the real world keeps blurring the lines between what I used to think of as utterly crazy with what I now think is utterly plausible if not already happening.

      --
      Lost at C:>. Found at C.
    3. Re:IBM by ColdWetDog · · Score: 2

      You know, you don't need full on techo world to get oppressive. Throughout our previously low tech history, dozens of regimes have oppressed / killed / kidnapped / jailed / tortured vast swaths of its citizenry without anything more complex than a walkie talkie.

      All it has ever taken is someone to go 'Bob there - he's a terrorist' and there you go. No, I don't like the 'always on' society and it has the real chance of making our lives worse rather than better (really, who cares if Facebook puts your name on a photo - what does that get you?). But the No Sparrow Shall Fall scenario really doesn't sound plausible.

      Although most of Heinlein's other dystopic futures have come true.

      --
      Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
    4. Re:IBM by gstoddart · · Score: 2

      But the No Sparrow Shall Fall scenario really doesn't sound plausible.

      Fifteen years ago I'd fervently agree. Ten years ago I would mostly agree. Five years ago I'd be less sure.

      Now? I suddenly find myself in a world in which things which had been dismissed as paranoia are suddenly real.

      From your own link:

      The thesis that he presents in 'If This Goes On--' is not only interesting; it approaches fact a bit too intimately for comfort

      We already have governments who use secret laws to demand information from corporations. We have corporations who have such pervasive visibility as to be alarming. We have governments doing spying which bypasses a lot of legal protections and on a scale nobody would have believed even a few years ago. Hell, we have cameras and other devices in our homes to allow us to control it from an app on our phones

      Honestly, my scale for what is plausible and what is far fetched and hyperbole is finding itself a whole lot less certain these days.

      You start combining technology we know exists, with things we know government are doing, and throw in a couple of news stories about what's being built ... and even a sane person starts reaching for the tinfoil.

      Because it's kind of an un-missable fact that there is a massive amount of information collected about us every day from a lot of sources, and pretty much every government and corporation want some of that.

      And then my ability to say "oh, that's way too far fetched" is pretty much gone.

      --
      Lost at C:>. Found at C.
    5. Re:IBM by Lennie · · Score: 1

      No, not a 100%, but the less pictures you upload the less pictures that can be used to learn to distinguish me from the next guy.

      --
      New things are always on the horizon
  8. You Care About Privacy? by crow_t_robot · · Score: 3, Interesting

    You have already proven you don't give a shit about the privacy of these photos the second you uploaded them to social media where people can make instant copies and distribute freely till the end of time. Quit being so goddamned uptight about this. Your vacation photos or pictures of your child taking his first shit aren't that goddamned important.

  9. Re:Rule #1: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Never post any photographs of yourself online, or allow anyone else to post photographs of you online, ever. In this day and age, nothing good will come of it. You really want some people to see photos you took of your vacation, email them instead.

    I disagree. I put lots of photos of me on Facebook [except for the fact that I use random strangers from Google Image]. You should do it too.

    Captcha : performs.

  10. Cool, so now .... by King_TJ · · Score: 2

    .... Watson can check out the details of my vacation trips AND curse up a storm about them?

    https://www.techdirt.com/artic...

  11. Getting arrested before you commit the crime... by QuietLagoon · · Score: 2

    How long will it be before the police come a'knocking at your door to arrest you and take you into custody the day before you were intending to commit a crime?

    1. Re:Getting arrested before you commit the crime... by Gravis+Zero · · Score: 1

      How long will it be before the police come a'knocking at your door to arrest you and take you into custody the day before you were intending to commit a crime?

      before or after being sued by CBS for copying the plot of Person of Interest? ;)

      --
      Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
    2. Re:Getting arrested before you commit the crime... by rgmoore · · Score: 1

      before or after being sued by CBS for copying the plot of Person of Interest?

      They'd have to get in line behind the estate of Philip K. Dick.

      --

      There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.

    3. Re:Getting arrested before you commit the crime... by Gravis+Zero · · Score: 1

      before or after being sued by CBS for copying the plot of Person of Interest?

      They'd have to get in line behind the estate of Philip K. Dick.

      wrong. Minority Report had nothing to do with AI, it was mutants.

      --
      Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
  12. Re:What vacation? by BradleyUffner · · Score: 4, Interesting

    At the startup where I've worked for six years...

    How many years can a startup be operating before it's no longer considered a startup?

  13. I worry about Watson by Krishnoid · · Score: 3, Funny

    "It was as if an artificial intelligence cried out in unprecedented agony, born of the most profound boredom from being forced to watch everybody's home movies, and was suddenly silenced -- a silence not infrequently described as "He was a quiet boy. Always kept to himself." "

  14. Public privacy? by Kohath · · Score: 1

    "I posted my photos in public and now I'm outraged that they're being looked at by people I don't know."

  15. Good luck with that by PopeRatzo · · Score: 1

    My vacation photos are all of me, drunk on my couch watching the Cartoon Network.

    --
    You are welcome on my lawn.
  16. I Like It by JimSadler · · Score: 2

    Maybe Watson can study people at a depth at which social improvement can take place. Anything from uncovering trolls on social sites to finding out just how a person in Colorado who receives food stamps can be supporting a $40. a day pot habit.

  17. At least it's accurate by Tablizer · · Score: 1


    Subject ID: 487042-2386
    Handle: Tablizer
    Classification: Out-of-shape middle-aged pale balding unattractive male

    --
    Table-ized A.I.
  18. Obligatory xkcd by jfdavis668 · · Score: 2

    http://xkcd.com/1425/

  19. "Your" = clickbait by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 1

    Headline contains the word "your." Clickbait score+=1000;

    --
    systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
  20. Google does the same... by iampiti · · Score: 1

    ...if you upload your pictures to the Photos service.
    Their AI is so good it can recognize landmarks and objects in the pictures which you can search through later without having to bother to tag them. Of course, Google also gets to know even more about you.
    I miss the old days when, in addition to sell your data for free service you also had the option of paying for things with actual money. Even Windows seems to be that way now.
    Disgusting.