Whenever I come back to the tree from where I came, I am always greeted by the sparkle of the ring doorbell on the porch of my childhood home. Certainly, the app is pretty clean to notify us with snapshots of curious deer at the family's doorstep, but it cannot banish the question of how easy these devices are to hack and who is watching. Anyway, Amazon wants to add AI to its unsettling equations.
Amazon has announced that AI-generated video descriptions have appeared in ring notifications, allowing users to “quickly distinguish between emergency and everyday activities by phone at a glance.”
The descriptions of these videos are directed towards the point and are designed to focus solely on what the main source of movement captured by the ring device is doing. So the next time a friend in the forest visits, my people may receive notifications that they read something like “the deer is eating your tulips again”.
Beta versions of these video description alerts are already beginning to be rolled out for Ringhome Premium subscribers in the US and Canada. These will be available regardless of which ring camera subscriber has, but only English video descriptions are available now.
So far, it's not something that goes down to it, and it's definitely an accessibility victory for people with visual impairments. However, Amazon wants to leverage AI with a much wider range of capacity.
Jamie Siminoff, founder of the ring and now vice president of product at Amazon, outlined her vision for using AI to monitor multiple points of movement around a user's home. He writes: your property. It brings peace of mind by learning your housing routine, becoming smarter and notifying you only when it is not normal. ”
This is presented as working towards the Ring's “mission to help protect the neighborhood and community.” However, given the company's track record and customer privacy regarding device security, I am not keen on this latest AI innovation.
In 2023, the FTC “claimed the ring for eroding customer privacy by allowing employees or contractors to access consumer private videos and failing to implement basic privacy and security protections. This followed multiple reports that hacked ring devices were used in 'swatting' incidents and spying on children. The 2023 FTC ruling ultimately resulted in a $5.8 million consumer refund last year.
However, these security issues are more than just an issue for Ring's customers. The fact that these devices are designed to see the outside from your front door or porch means it's not easy for anyone to opt out of ring surveillance. With all that in mind, I feel this latest driving force, collecting more data on my people (and nearby forest creatures) daily routines through the AI black box, is vigorous at best.
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