Unexpected Encounter: The Dangers of AI and Privacy

A Surprising Encounter with Technology

On a recent Friday afternoon, Kashif Hoda found himself waiting for a train near the bustling Harvard Square. As he stood there, a young man approached him, seeking directions. Mr. Hoda noticed the man’s distinctive, nerdy appearance, characterized by his thick-framed glasses. What he didn’t realize at that moment was that those glasses were actually the Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses, equipped with a small white light that signaled they were actively recording.

Just a few minutes later, as Mr. Hoda’s train was arriving, the bespectacled young man, AnhPhu Nguyen, a junior at Harvard University, approached him once more.

“Do you happen to be the person working on minority issues related to Muslims in India?” Mr. Nguyen inquired.

Mr. Hoda was taken aback. Although he currently worked in biotechnology, he had a background in journalism and had previously written extensively about marginalized communities in India.

“I’ve read your work before,” Mr. Nguyen continued, his enthusiasm evident. “That’s super cool.”

They exchanged a brief handshake, but Mr. Hoda had to cut the conversation short as his train was about to board. Later, he reflected on the peculiar encounter in a social media post, noting how unexpected it had been.

However, a month later, the strangeness of that interaction revealed itself in a shocking way. Mr. Hoda learned that he had unwittingly become a part of an experiment designed to demonstrate the alarming ease with which artificial intelligence tools could be manipulated to identify individuals, access their biographical details, and potentially unveil personal information such as phone numbers and home addresses—often without the subjects realizing it.

A friend reached out to Mr. Hoda, informing him that he had appeared in a video that was going viral. It turned out that Mr. Nguyen and another Harvard student, Caine Ardayfio, had developed glasses capable of identifying strangers in real-time. They had showcased their invention by demonstrating it on two unsuspecting individuals at the subway station, including Mr. Hoda, whose name was mistakenly captioned as “Vishit” in the footage.

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