Can a robot vacuum turn into a spy?
This is what the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) thinks, which has had several photographs taken by this type of device at its disposal.
Snapshots that have leaked on the Net, reveals the MIT Technology Review.
The images that MIT makes available to illustrate its article are of low quality.
There are scenes of everyday life.
But some of these images may come as a surprise.
In one of them, we see a child lying in a hallway, with his face clearly visible.
In another, a woman is sitting on the toilet with her shorts down.
The robot doesn't seem to care about privacy.
Images to train the AI
These photos were taken in 2020 and posted in private groups on social media, including Facebook and Discord.
They come from the Roomba J7 series designed by the iRobot brand.
They were transmitted to the company Scale AI, responsible for analyzing and exploiting them.
The start-up has sent them to various subcontracting companies around the world.
Purpose ?
Workers had to label a stream of images to train the artificial intelligence, says MIT.
The fifteen images recovered by MIT come from a batch distributed by members of a Venezuelan company on private groups.
This did not prevent their wider disclosure.
Scale AI and iRobot have denounced this practice.
The manufacturer insisted that these were “specially equipped development robots”.
They “are modified with software and hardware that are not present on the production robots that consumers buy”.
In other words, no risk of finding a camera on a consumer version of a Roomba or Braava model.
iRobot, which was acquired by Amazon last August for $1.7 billion, wants to reassure customers and future buyers.
The tests that were carried out were aimed at improving the recognition of its environment by the robot.
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