With over a billion active users, social network Facebook now wants to prevent them from uploading embarrassing photos to the site.

Most people are no stranger to the prospect of embarrassing Facebook photos. From the drunken selfies people have taken to commemorate nights that they probably won’t remember to sober silliness, we’ve all been there done that or laughed at others in the same situation.

But these images are not always such a good thing. While they make for good entertainment, drunken photos especially can be incriminating whilst other pictures can get you in trouble with your parents, loved ones or your boss.

That’s why it would be incredibly useful for something to stop us from uploading these embarrassing snaps in the first place. Thankfully, Facebook is working on embarrassment preventing technology of their own. The technology is being pioneered by Yann Lecun at the Facebook Artificial Intelligence Research lab (FAIR). Lecun and his team want to use a form of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to detect whether or not it’s a wise idea to post the photo that you’re uploading. He explains:

“Imagine that you had an intelligent digital assistant which would mediate your interaction with your friends and also with content on Facebook.”

Further uses for the technology include finding out when other people have posted photos of you, without having to wait for them to tag you in them. Lecun says that “You will have a single point of contact to mediate your interaction but also to protect your private information”.

There are clear benefits to the AI that FAIR are working on (their work already examines Facebook users’ behaviour to figure out what sort of content you’re interested in) but some people may be wary of Facebook analysing us so much. Lecun expressed that FAIR’s work is strictly about helping us though (rather than using the data to allow Facebook to sell more ads) so although plenty of people will still have doubts, his words are something to hold onto for when we see the advanced AI in action.

Source: Wired

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