Privacy and Environmental Risks of Viral 80s AI Trend
· Technology · The Hindu, Hindustan Times
The viral 80s AI trend, which uses generative AI to reimagine modern selfies as retro portraits, poses significant privacy and environmental risks. Users uploading high-resolution images to third-party platforms risk exposing biometric data and facial geometry, which may be used to train facial recognition models without consent. Indian politicians, including Piyush Goyal, Kiren Rijiju, Shivraj Singh Chouhan, and Himanta Biswa Sarma, have participated in the trend alongside various celebrities. Beyond data privacy, the process of generating AI images leaves a digital footprint that contributes to environmental concerns. OpenAI’s privacy policy notes that user data is enabled for model training by default across its various plans.
Why it matters
Users participating in AI-driven social media trends risk the permanent loss of biometric privacy and the unauthorized use of their facial data for model training.
Read the original report — The Hindu
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