Personal Audio Data and Video Data: AI and Ethics (Cars, Apps, AI Gadgets)

#ai #ethics #cars #apps

A recent Forbes article reported that a car manufacturer that supplies autonomous electric vehicles has gathered substantial video data for AI. While this isn’t unique to AI cars, other apps on phones and gadgets collect data as well. However, today, I’m focusing solely on AI car data.

I will later address the ethical issues surrounding AI apps that stealthily record data. Let’s concentrate on car data collection today.

Some Insights to use such data ethically.

— Is it ethical to collect video data from vehicles without informing the owners or users? Yes, the car’s speed, directions, steering, clutch, brakes, accelerator — everything is recorded? Is it?

— If you trust the company, there’s no harm in sharing your data.

— Is it ethical to provide video data to an AI company that also records voice, places visited, and personal information?

— Since this data includes audio, names, and sometimes the people or places visited, keep in mind that much of it is also accessible through certain other apps such as map apps. However, some map apps do not record audio data. Additionally, some maps lack access to information about who is in cars, among other things.

— Many apps ask users to allow access to location, photos, audio, the voice recorder, and more. Does your car also request data like other apps and gadgets do?

— Sometimes, these videos show the locations of schools or colleges where parents pick up their children.

— Sometimes, this data includes details about their wives’ office hours, including late nights.

— Sometimes the videos feature distressed individuals with smoking details.

— Sometimes, the videos reflect the political implications and orientations of the people using the car — not ideal when the car, and thus the AI manufacturer, is politically biased.

— Sometimes, this data can reveal personal choices for food, restaurants, and hotels, guiding the journey to visit advertising hotels, malls, shops, and more, even if this path is longer.

— It may influence the recommendation systems for the user’s car or associated accounts.

— Employing AI in this manner is unethical.

— Car manufacturers might choose to coordinate these details, which can be concerning since these AI cars are autonomous.

— Car manufacturers can use these AI insights to assess car users based on political classifications.

— Sometimes, even their romantic relationships can be logged into AI.

— How to soothe it all — GPS? Turn off the audio; only the exterior of the car should be recorded, not the noise and details from inside. Doing it this way will be effective if the owner adheres to ethical perspectives.

What should car manufacturers and app developers do in such conditions?

— Don’t steal data.

— Inquire about ethical concerns, focusing only on the positive aspects. Then, leverage AI.

— If you’re using personal data, obtain permission; if not, delete the personal data.

— Or create synthetic data by replacing all names and locations with pseudonyms and fictitious places. This kind of synthetic data, if needed for LLM, should prompt the user to ask and thank the data donors afterward.

In conclusion, we need to ask these questions not only to car makers but also to apps on phones and other devices. We all know we can switch off our phones, so it’s better to trust the system in which no sharing mode is active.

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