Facebook Developing AI to Stop Embarrassing Photo Uploads

Have you ever posted a photo of your drunken antics on Facebook, only to regret it later? The folks at Facebook are working on a somewhat creepy solution.Believe it or not, Facebook HQ has its own artificial intelligence research lab, and one of the major projects in the works is an AI that would use facial recognition and other cues to warn users that they may be uploading photos or generating posts that they probably don't want their parents, co-workers, or bosses to see.

Yann LeCun, head of the AI department and an expert in machine learning, says that Facebook AI is already at work, using facial recognition to identify friends and family in photos you upload so that they can be accurately tagged. According to LeCun, the technology would also detect when other users upload photos of you, which he says enhances privacy control and prevents others from impersonating you on social media.

But it's not just Facebook using this technology. It, along with Google, Yahoo!, Microsoft, and other tech giants are using similar tech to traffic ads and content tailored to the the tastes and behaviors of users, and this deep learning trend will only become more ubiquitous as computer speech recognition becomes more advanced.

So, the same newsfeeds and search engines that bring you dumb urban legends and hilarious cat videos are also studying you, but hey - at least they're learning to take care of you like a good buddy! That makes it less creepy, right?