It’s why these machines no longer drive through certain kinds of messes… like dog poop for example.īut what’s different about these leaked training images is the camera isn’t pointed at the floor…Įileen Guo: Why do these cameras point diagonally upwards? Why do they know what's on the walls or the ceilings? How does that help them navigate around the pet waste, or the phone cords or the stray sock or whatever it is. Plus, they recognize certain objects on the floor and avoid them. Jennifer: These days, the most advanced robot vacuums can efficiently move around the room while also making maps of areas being cleaned. But they really wouldn't tell us what that meant. They terminated their contract with Scale AI, and also said that they were going to take measures to prevent anything like this from happening in the future. Meaning these machines weren’t released to consumers.Įileen Guo: They said that they started an investigation into how these images leaked. Jennifer: When Tech Review got in contact with the company-which makes the Roomba-they confirmed the 15 images we’ve been talking about did come from their devices, but from pre-production devices. But for whatever reason, iRobot chose not to go either of those routes. Or they could have actually done the data annotation in house. And so their work process would be a little bit more controlled. They could have gone with outsourcing companies that may be outsourced, but people are still working out of an office instead of on their own computers. Jennifer: But there’s more than one way to label data.Įileen Guo: If iRobot chose to, they could have gone with other models in which the data would have been safer. You know, for self driving cars, it's, it's an image of a street and saying, this is a stoplight that is turning yellow, this is a stoplight that is green. But to make all of that data useful for machine learning, you actually need a person to go through and look at whatever it is, or listen to whatever it is, and categorize and label and otherwise just add context to each bit of data. And Baussmann told Insider that "iRobot has strict data processing agreements in place with our service providers that require sensitive data be treated as confidential information.Eileen Guo: The most useful datasets to train algorithms is the most realistic, meaning that it's sourced from real environments. When asked for further comment, Baussman referred Insider to a blog post from iRobot chairman and CEO Colin Angle.Īngle wrote that the test robots contained hardware and software modifications that were never available on the market to consumers. James Baussmann, an iRobot spokesperson, confirmed the photo leak to Insider. Smart-device makers sometimes analyze the data, which can sometimes include personal or sensitive details, to train algorithms to improve their products. The images were leaked by paid Venezuelan contractors at data startup Scale AI who posted them to private groups on Facebook, Discord, and other platforms in 2020, MIT Tech Review reported.Įven though the images did not come from Roomba customers, consumers often opt into getting their data monitored once they purchase "smart" devices as part of company privacy policies. The images included woman in a purple shirt, face blurred, sitting on the toilet, the Tech Review reported, and a child laying on his stomach as he stares at the object recording him. But images from that data got leaked to Facebook, Discord and other social sites, MIT Tech Review reported and iRobot confirmed to Insider. The disclosure comes as Amazon is working to close a $1.7 billion agreement to buy iRobot, raising questions about how tech companies use and protect the data they hoover up.ĭata from these test units was marked by a contractor - noting things like whether the robot successfully made its way around an obstacle, like a coffee table. IRobot, which makes Roomba, said the self-driving vacuums were used by "paid data collectors and employees" as test units that would help the company develop its machine-learning capabilities. Roomba robot vacuums captured sensitive pictures that were later leaked on social media - including one of a woman sitting on the toilet - but the maker of the machines says they were taken by test models, not consumer units, MIT Tech Review first reported. Account icon An icon in the shape of a person's head and shoulders.
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