Privacy Concerns Mount as Project Reveals AI Can Find Locations in Photos

A project created by three Stanford graduate students apparently shows that artificial intelligence (AI) can geolocate where a photo is taken, an ability that has sparked concern.

The students designed the project, called Predicting Image Geolocations (PIGEON), to find locations using Google Street View, NPR reported on December 19.

When presented with personal images that were unfamiliar, for the most part, the program guessed the correct location. The outlet continued:

Like so many applications of AI, this new power is likely to be a double-edged sword: It may help people identify the locations of old snapshots from relatives, or allow field biologists to conduct rapid surveys of entire regions for invasive plant species, to name but a few of many likely beneficial applications.

But it also could be used to expose information about individuals that they never intended to share, says Jay Stanley, a senior policy analyst at the American Civil Liberties Union who studies technology. Stanley worries that similar technology, which he feels will almost certainly become widely available, could be used for government surveillance, corporate tracking or even stalking.

The students had played the Swedish game GeoGuesser, in which players geolocate images, and they wanted to try and create an AI player that could surpass human attempts at the task.

“The Stanford students trained their version of the system with images from Google Street View,” the NPR report said, adding that PIGEON notices small clues that humans do but also others, such as minute differences in foliage, soil, and weather.

A Los Angeles-based company known as Channel 1 recently said it is moving towards becoming the first news network to use AI-generated news anchors, Breitbart News reported Thursday.

On a more personal level, a chatbot and avatar-powered system known as Digi is trying to push the idea of AI “girlfriends,” per Breitbart News.

“In a trend that will leave young American men even more isolated, the company claims its technology is the ‘future of AI romantic companionship,'” the outlet stated on December 22.

During an interview in October, AI pioneer Geoffrey Hinton told 60 Minutes, “I think we’re moving into a period when, for the first time ever, we may have things more intelligent than us.”