A student project has discovered another power of AI: It can be good at locating(定位) where photos are taken.
The project is called Predicting Image Geolocations(or PIGEON). It's the work of three Stanford students. They designed it in order to recognise locations on Google Street View(谷歌街景). The team showed the AI a few personal photos it had never seen before, it could tell where they were taken.
PIGEON works well because it can pick upon all the little things in photos. It can notice small differences in leaves, soil and weather. The group says the technology can be used in many ways. It could recognise roads or power lines that need fixing. It may also help researchers do surveys of invasive(入侵的) plants in an area.
However, this new power is likely to be a double-edged sword. It could be used to reveal people's private, personal information, says Jay Stanley, an expert at the American Civil Liberties Union.
Stanley worries that companies might soon use AI to find out where you've traveled. Governments might check your photos to see if you've visited certain countries. Stalking (跟踪) is also a possible threat, he says. People have long been able to remove GPS location information from photos they post online. That may not work any more. Luckily, the Stanford students are well aware of the risks. Because of these worries, they haven't given the public entry to their program.
Stanley thinks the use of AI for identifying locations will become even more powerful in the future. What will that mean? Well, be very careful about what's in the background in the photos you post online, he says.
