Meta Thinks ‘Social Learning’ Can Fix Smart Glasses’ Privacy Problems

Source Domain: gizmodo.com

Meta officially has several new pairs of smart glasses to choose from, and though they aren’t groundbreaking in terms of features or hardware, they’re making at least one bold choice: they’re dropping Ray-Ban branding.

That might not seem like a big deal on the surface, but in Meta’s case, it may be a bigger one than you think. Most people (Meta likely included) would agree that its partnership with EssilorLuxottica, the originator of Ray-Bans, has been crucial to the success of its AI glasses. That’s not just because designing stylish, comfortable, and functional eyewear is difficult—it definitely is—it’s because Ray-Bans, unlike Meta, are a brand that most everyone is comfortable with.

The reality is, Meta’s track record on privacy is far from impeccable, and with smart glasses, a category that stress tests privacy norms without even trying, the controversies have already been frequent and often self-inflicted by Meta. There’s Meta’s interest in adding facial recognition to smart glasses and its subsequent backlash; its collection of users’ photos and videos that happen to sometimes be of the nude variety; and people’s tendency to use smart glasses for things like cheating or extortion, which isn’t expressly Meta’s fault but isn’t entirely not its fault either.

The Meta Fury were among the company’s recently unveiled smart glasses. © James Pero / Gizmodo

With all of those prevailing winds working against Meta, you’d think Mark Zuckerberg and co. would be working to adjust their approach on smart glasses to address concerns… right? After a recent Q&A with Meta’s CTO, Andrew Bosworth, I’m not so sure.

“I’m old enough to remember when there was controversy about phones having cameras, and this predates even the smartphones that we have today,” Bosworth told Gizmodo in an open forum with press this week. “So, there is this social learning thing that has to happen. [Smart] glasses are very…

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