The Download: iRobot privacy scandal, and AI that makes images

When Greg unboxed a new robot vacuum cleaner in December 2019, he thought he knew what he was getting into. As a beta-tester, he anticipated allowing the preproduction test version of iRobot's Roomba J series device to roam around his house, collect data to help improve its artificial intelligence, and provide feedback about his user experience But what Greg didn't know--and does not believe he consented to--was that iRobot would share test users' data in a sprawling, global data supply chain, where everything (and everyone) captured by the devices' cameras could be seen by low-paid contractors. Nearly a dozen iRobot testers have come forward in the weeks since MIT Technology Review published an investigation into how the company uses images captured from inside real homes to train its AI. They feel misled by the company's failure to adequately protect their data, and have been left wondering where the accountability actually lies. When OpenAI released its text-to-image AI model DALL-E in 2021, it paved the way for other programs designed to take a short description of pretty much anything, and spit out a picture of what you asked for in seconds.