The Impact of AI on Personal Safety--Someone Is Using An AI Photo of Me!

THE PHOTO

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In this episode, Vanisha R. Dailey discusses her personal updates, including her upcoming grad school journey and a recent vacation. She shares a concerning story about someone using an AI-generated photo of her on social media, highlighting the implications of digital identity theft and the risks associated with modern technology. The conversation emphasizes the need for awareness regarding privacy and the potential dangers of sharing personal information online.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction and Personal Updates
• 3:53 The AI Identity Theft Incident
• 12:40 Concerns About Digital Privacy and Technology
• 14:55 Outro

Transcript

◦            Hey, hey y’all welcome back to yet another episode of Please Say The Dailey. I am your host. Vanisha R. Dailey. How are you all doing? How is spring treating you? Aside from the allergies right? Anyone that is not impacted by seasonal allergies… you are a very lucky one to say the least..

◦            Earth day was a couple of days ago. Have you ever calculated your carbon footprint? If not, today is a good day to do it. We should all be mindful and aware of how our daily habits and our lifestyles impact our environment and natural resources. 

◦            Some quick updates in my little world: I went on vacation to Tampa a couple of weeks ago to spend time with some friends, which was really nice. When I tell you that reset was so needed because not only was I dealing with an extreme bout of insomnia, But I had also gotten super sick for the first time in like two years. Everyone in the house got sick— it was likely something that Onawa brought home from Her first soccer practice of the season. But thankfully, I’m getting back into the groove of things: next to my agenda, I have to start focusing in on the fact that I will be starting grad school in August, so queue up the search for grants and scholarships, because as many of us know, higher education comes with a hefty price tag sadly— and in this current political climate, or any climate, for that matter, no one wants to rack up on more student loans… or at least not me.

◦            Once again, I received some great messages from you all about my previous parenting episode and I love that you all are engaging—thank you! So before we get into things if you have not already, please rate, subscribe, and share this podcast with someone— DOWNLOAD IT too because it helps with my listener analytics—PRECIATE CHA!! and remember if you want to leave comments, questions, or you would like to help sponsor my podcast just scroll down to the description box below and all of the links will be there for you along with anything that I mention within this episode. So let’s get into it!

◦            TRANSITION

◦            Let me start this off with a story time on how I found out that someone is using an AI generated photo of me on social media. last week, my neighbor who has never directly approached me before asked me if I have a Facebook account out of the blue. I had just gotten back home and was gearing up to leave out again, but she randomly came up to me like “excuse me, are you on Facebook?” I said “yes” and she asked me what my name was on there and I told her. she started to look a bit confused at this point and asked “does your name start with queen on there?” I said no, but one of my sisters has that in her name, and then she asked if my sister has locs— and I said well not that sister, but none of my sisters live here. And she’s like “yeah and how would they even know that I am your neighbor?” Which was my exact thought. But she basically said that she received a friend request from this person and she wanted to check with me first to see if it was me or someone that I was acquainted with. But like I said, I was in the process of leaving the house, and I was already short on time, so I didnt get a chance to ask more questions, because I was definitely curious to see this person that she was talking about. but the last thing that I remember her saying is that this person looked a lot like me.

◦            Then about three days after that incident had happened, someone from my high school— actually I’m not even 100% sure that we went to the same high school but somehow we are acquainted in my hometown and we share quite a few mutuals —But he sent me a screenshot on Instagram and he’s like “hey sis is this you?” and it was a woman that was claiming to be some spiritual worker or something like that, you know those messages that you get from scammers when they’re like do you mind if I tell you what kind of energy I’m picking up? It was on some mess like that. But I’m looking at the thumbnail of this person, and I said to him that looks A LOT like me in that photo, but that’s not me messaging you. So I asked him to send me a close-up photo of this person, but he was taking too long, and I realize that the Facebook name was in the screenshot— so of course I start doing my own research literally standing in the parking lot of the grocery store. There were a couple of pages that popped up for this person, but the one that had the same exact profile photo is the one that I clicked and tell me why the photo that this person is using looks like an AI generated photo of me. 

◦            If you listened to my previous episode “navigating digital identities, relationships, and sexuality”, where I was talking about this digital sociology program that I will be starting this fall, this story is yet another perfect example of the influence of modern technology on our culture— because we are witnessing a shift in what it means to fall victim to identity theft— or better yet, an expansion of that definition because now you’re able to steal a person’s face— their actual appearance, which is a part of identity.

◦            This is actually my first time ever running into an issue with someone portraying themselves as me on social media. It was eerie just how much the photo looked like me. If you’ve known me  for a while, you remember when I had my locs— the photo that she’s using is exactly how I looked back when I lived in Oregon and I was wrapping crystals —as a matter of fact, she’s wearing a crystal around her neck, which I even question whether that was AI generated as well, because as we know how AI works, it will take an idea and build upon it. I always wore crystals around my neck during this period, and I also had long locs that I always dyed different colors. 

◦            On her Facebook account, she only has two photos up, and those photos don’t even look alike. The main profile photo is the one that looks like me, but the second photo is of someone else— maybe it’s her, or maybe it’s another AI photo…who knows. BUT I will let you all be the judge on whether this photo looks like me though—I will post the photos in the description box below, and I want you to leave me a comment by clicking the link in that same description box that says I want to hear from you. Do you think this is AI generated? Has this ever happened to you?

◦            And see, this is exactly why modern technology in digital media can be so scary, because we post photos of ourselves all the time. 

◦            Do you all remember a couple of years ago when there was this really popular photo app where you could upload a few photos of yourself, and it would create like 10 different really cool AI photos? They’d have different themes— even different color schemes and styles? Well, Since then, there have been countless other photo apps that can also generate photos for you —but when the first wave of this first started, there were people who kept saying “don’t upload your photos to that app, because they can randomly use your photos for whatever they want to in the future.” But here’s the thing, I need you all to understand that we are not safe when using digital technology, or really even any kind of modern technology in general. My photos that were used to create those AI photos on that person‘s account were never uploaded to an AI photo app like that. This is also why I am finding myself starting to shift away from posting my daughter on social media, because having a digital footprint never disappears, 

◦            But even with that thought in mind, I have friends that have never publicly posted their children online, but direct messaging systems on any app are not safe, nor are our email accounts and personal text messages. Moreover, most of us are iPhone users, and at this point, I wouldn’t be surprised if they have the same feature on android phones, but if you are taking pictures of people with said iPhone, or even of your pets for that matter—your iPhone has facial recognition, and it’s keeping track of ev-ery-thing!

◦            There are way too many sneaky hackers and industries that have the ability to Weaponized our information in a multitude of ways because most of it is not directly protected by policy and law— if anything when we sign up for these apps, and we agree to the terms and services, we are ultimately signing our rights away and giving these companies the okay to do whatever they want with our information without us being able to hold them accountable for wrongdoings. and don’t get me started on how you can ask ChatGPT where a photo was taken, and it will give you a location down to the geographical coordinates. Look, I have a lot to say about this technological shift in our society that all of us are a part of in some way, even if we are not on social media, but I will save that for another episode…

◦            But to close off this AI story, I haven’t had a chance to update my neighbor on what I found out about this situation, but I’m just highly concerned about how these scammers have the ability to tap into just about whatever avenue that they want to— how is this person literally connecting with not just people that I know in person or people I’ve crossed paths with at some point in time, but they are also connecting with people who are actually in close proximity to me distance wise— I mean, you can’t get much closer than an actual neighbor who lives right next to you on the other side of the wall, right? If that’s not a cause for concern.. then I don’t know what is.

◦            Transition

Okay so this is actually part one of two episodes that I’m about to hit yall with for this weekend, so I want you to please rate, share, subscribe to my podcast—do all of the things, and leave me a comment below; I want to hear from you! Until next time!