Why the fuck are these things legal??? How can one consent to a recording that is already taking place? I’m struggling to find a use case where glasses with cameras on them are useful.
Absolutely insane. These things should be banned. The temptation and ability for abuse far outweighs any benefit they may claim to provide.
If you require LLM powered glasses to show you what to do next in a maintenance job you should not have a maintenance job. That’s what training and officially accredited qualifications are for.
This is without even going into the finer details of fault finding, diagnosis, risk assessment, personal safety (pervert glasses are not impact rated and pose a significant hazard in hazardous atmosphere environments, let alone the distraction of having a clanker chatting in your ear and flashing popups directly in your line of sight.)
If you want to know about the historical significance of an area while you are on holiday, then read about the area you are going to before you go, or buy a travel guide and support a historian or a writer that has spent their life researching the topic.
These glasses pose no purpose than harvesting data and recording people without their consent for the sake of the techbro panopticon.
Dang, why so antagonistic? I wasn’t thinking professional workers. I was thinking about fixing stuff around the house where the person doesn’t have the expertise. Of course you could just look at a book, but that’s always been true. There is no need for almost anything, if you want to be super pedantic. I thought that I had made my views pretty clear and they aren’t too different from what you wrote, aside from the weird looking-for-the-worst-possible-interpretation of my unclear wordsmithing. Sorry if I am replying too strongly, just had flashbacks from my second marriage.
I’m not a mindreader, just don’t like it when people try to defend multimillion dollar corporations known for disrespecting any and every notion of privacy to shill their newest piece of shit tech that serves no purpose but to harvest data by saying “but everyone already [imorally uses a tangentially related piece of technology] so what’s the problem with giving corporations the power to do this without restrictions?”
Feel free to try and fix a piece of equipment using a language model without expertise, nine times out of ten you’ll break it beyond repair or hurt yourself by doing something unsafe.
Not op, but i would say there are definite use cases for smart glasses/“eyes”. Yes, corporations are pushing it without restraint or common sense because capitalism, but the technology in principle is not necessarily evil.
We as a society are just struggling with the implications and long term effects that start to show now of omnipresent surveillance capitalism, and the people with a camera on their face are the most obvious and easy target. That is not to say that humans are not scum who use these for creepy stuff, but there are cameras everywhere, location data, metadata, microphones, GPS, wifi, comms towers, not to mention the software on all those devices.
We are being crept on all the time, but the geek wearing one on their face is too far.
Understandable, but also hypocritical.
Given technological development, eventually we will have actual, invisible implants for these things. Smart eyes, enhanced ears. How will we cope with that? When you cant even tell that you are being actively livestreamed or recorded, or algorithmically analyzed for personal information?
That is not to say that humans are not scum who use these for creepy stuff, but there are cameras everywhere, location data, metadata, microphones, GPS, wifi, comms towers, not to mention the software on all those devices.
I also have an issue with these, and vehemently oppose them at every turn.
The human scum that develop, market and sell these things are also deserving of equal ire. The only difference is that they are the creators, not the direct end users, so they are harder to target with lawsuits due to the sheer size of the corporations and the amount of money being pushed into lobbying for their use (the “but its in the name of public safety!”/ “won’t someone think of the children!” Crowd are always used by these companies to astroturf public opinion through browbeating etc)
Where’s the hypocrisy? I’ve never suggested that these companies get a free pass to spy on people. Just because I’m verbal in my opposition to the use of permanently active cameras disguised as glasses does not mean I am not opposed to the panopticon we’ve been forced to grow up in.
Given technological development, eventually we will have actual, invisible implants for these things. Smart eyes, enhanced ears. How will we cope with that? When you cant even tell that you are being actively livestreamed or recorded, or algorithmically analyzed for personal information?
So by that logic, just because it might happen in the future, we shouldn’t fight against it and work towards getting the rights to walk the streets without surveillance by unknown agents written into law to protect our privacy?
To me that reads the same way as “Why should we do anything to stop climate change when the air we’re breathing is slowly becoming toxic? We’ll all be dead in a couple of decades anyway.” (Hyperbolic but along the same line of a defeatist “what’s the point in making things better now when they’re going to get worse?” arguing.)
I’m not necessarily arguing in favor of them, it just seems to me that we as people have found a convenient scapegoat by venting our frustration on the end user, while the real problem is systemic.
As for the future hypothetical, that was meant as a thought excercise on what is likely to come, and how that will fit in with this social climate. It is only gonna get worse from an anti-creep point of view, and seeking to remain anonymous by not getting recorded seems a losing battle. We should be focusing on countermeasures instead, so regardless of if we know the camera is there, we can feel safe®.
I’m not using the people (i.e. the people spoken about in the original post that we are talking on) using this technology as a scapegoat.
I will happily say that without companies producing these privacy breaching products, the people that misuse them would have one less avenue to exploit and violate other’s privacy.
If you want a thought exercise, instead of “Creeps will use them anyway.” How about “If there are laws put in place to protect people’s right to privacy, creeps would be less likely (or at least less able) to commit these offenses with impunity.” Which in my mind is a far better option than “we promise our always-on cameras aren’t used for nefarious means, you can trust us because we are the company that sells the creep glasses.”
The countermeasures you mention- other than laws preventing their use what are they?
This isn’t a matter of feeling safe “even if we’re being recorded” it’s a matter of “being safe because we are not being recorded by those with immoral intentions.”
To put it in simpler terms with a bit of analogy -Better to keep the gun away from the toddler than wait for them to blow their shit smoove off with it.
Why the fuck are these things legal??? How can one consent to a recording that is already taking place? I’m struggling to find a use case where glasses with cameras on them are useful.
Absolutely insane. These things should be banned. The temptation and ability for abuse far outweighs any benefit they may claim to provide.
People are recording everything all the time with their phones anyway. That said, yeah, fuck these pervert glasses. I can see legit AR use cases like:
I’m sure there are more, but those are benevolent uses I can think of. As far as just walking around recording people, fuck that.
If you require LLM powered glasses to show you what to do next in a maintenance job you should not have a maintenance job. That’s what training and officially accredited qualifications are for.
This is without even going into the finer details of fault finding, diagnosis, risk assessment, personal safety (pervert glasses are not impact rated and pose a significant hazard in hazardous atmosphere environments, let alone the distraction of having a clanker chatting in your ear and flashing popups directly in your line of sight.)
If you want to know about the historical significance of an area while you are on holiday, then read about the area you are going to before you go, or buy a travel guide and support a historian or a writer that has spent their life researching the topic.
These glasses pose no purpose than harvesting data and recording people without their consent for the sake of the techbro panopticon.
Dang, why so antagonistic? I wasn’t thinking professional workers. I was thinking about fixing stuff around the house where the person doesn’t have the expertise. Of course you could just look at a book, but that’s always been true. There is no need for almost anything, if you want to be super pedantic. I thought that I had made my views pretty clear and they aren’t too different from what you wrote, aside from the weird looking-for-the-worst-possible-interpretation of my unclear wordsmithing. Sorry if I am replying too strongly, just had flashbacks from my second marriage.
I’m not a mindreader, just don’t like it when people try to defend multimillion dollar corporations known for disrespecting any and every notion of privacy to shill their newest piece of shit tech that serves no purpose but to harvest data by saying “but everyone already [imorally uses a tangentially related piece of technology] so what’s the problem with giving corporations the power to do this without restrictions?”
Feel free to try and fix a piece of equipment using a language model without expertise, nine times out of ten you’ll break it beyond repair or hurt yourself by doing something unsafe.
My condolences to your last marriage.
Not op, but i would say there are definite use cases for smart glasses/“eyes”. Yes, corporations are pushing it without restraint or common sense because capitalism, but the technology in principle is not necessarily evil.
We as a society are just struggling with the implications and long term effects that start to show now of omnipresent surveillance capitalism, and the people with a camera on their face are the most obvious and easy target. That is not to say that humans are not scum who use these for creepy stuff, but there are cameras everywhere, location data, metadata, microphones, GPS, wifi, comms towers, not to mention the software on all those devices.
We are being crept on all the time, but the geek wearing one on their face is too far. Understandable, but also hypocritical.
Given technological development, eventually we will have actual, invisible implants for these things. Smart eyes, enhanced ears. How will we cope with that? When you cant even tell that you are being actively livestreamed or recorded, or algorithmically analyzed for personal information?
I also have an issue with these, and vehemently oppose them at every turn.
The human scum that develop, market and sell these things are also deserving of equal ire. The only difference is that they are the creators, not the direct end users, so they are harder to target with lawsuits due to the sheer size of the corporations and the amount of money being pushed into lobbying for their use (the “but its in the name of public safety!”/ “won’t someone think of the children!” Crowd are always used by these companies to astroturf public opinion through browbeating etc)
Where’s the hypocrisy? I’ve never suggested that these companies get a free pass to spy on people. Just because I’m verbal in my opposition to the use of permanently active cameras disguised as glasses does not mean I am not opposed to the panopticon we’ve been forced to grow up in.
So by that logic, just because it might happen in the future, we shouldn’t fight against it and work towards getting the rights to walk the streets without surveillance by unknown agents written into law to protect our privacy?
To me that reads the same way as “Why should we do anything to stop climate change when the air we’re breathing is slowly becoming toxic? We’ll all be dead in a couple of decades anyway.” (Hyperbolic but along the same line of a defeatist “what’s the point in making things better now when they’re going to get worse?” arguing.)
I’m not necessarily arguing in favor of them, it just seems to me that we as people have found a convenient scapegoat by venting our frustration on the end user, while the real problem is systemic.
As for the future hypothetical, that was meant as a thought excercise on what is likely to come, and how that will fit in with this social climate. It is only gonna get worse from an anti-creep point of view, and seeking to remain anonymous by not getting recorded seems a losing battle. We should be focusing on countermeasures instead, so regardless of if we know the camera is there, we can feel safe®.
I’m not using the people (i.e. the people spoken about in the original post that we are talking on) using this technology as a scapegoat.
I will happily say that without companies producing these privacy breaching products, the people that misuse them would have one less avenue to exploit and violate other’s privacy.
If you want a thought exercise, instead of “Creeps will use them anyway.” How about “If there are laws put in place to protect people’s right to privacy, creeps would be less likely (or at least less able) to commit these offenses with impunity.” Which in my mind is a far better option than “we promise our always-on cameras aren’t used for nefarious means, you can trust us because we are the company that sells the creep glasses.”
For your reading pleasure;
https://www.svd.se/a/K8nrV4/metas-ai-smart-glasses-and-data-privacy-concerns-workers-say-we-see-everything
https://techcrunch.com/2026/03/05/meta-sued-over-ai-smartglasses-privacy-concerns-after-workers-reviewed-nudity-sex-and-other-footage/
https://natlawreview.com/article/smart-glasses-and-privacy-wearable-surveillance-and-disclosure-issues
https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/ice-facial-surveillance-glasses
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/immigration-officers-meta-ai-glasses-b2937382.html
The countermeasures you mention- other than laws preventing their use what are they?
This isn’t a matter of feeling safe “even if we’re being recorded” it’s a matter of “being safe because we are not being recorded by those with immoral intentions.”
To put it in simpler terms with a bit of analogy -Better to keep the gun away from the toddler than wait for them to blow their shit smoove off with it.
Why is any of the surveillance that already exist everywhere around you, legal?