PenPenWrites

Last year I wrote a post about checking with the parents (your adult kids) before posting pix of their kids (your Grands) on a social media site. I was neither prescient nor alone in calling attention to the photo-posting issue. Debates about publishing photos online have been going on since social networks became an integral part of our daily lives. It’s a pretty one-sided debate right now: 75 percent of parents share photos of their children online. (I’m sure the grandparent stats are even higher, especially pictures of those adorable toddlers wading through puddles in bright yellow galoshes.)

Dangers have always lurked from the dark side of the web, particularly concerns that online predators could harvest personal data. I’m writing about the issue again because a recent set of AI (artificial intelligence) apps take “sharenting” (parents sharing photos of their kids online)  to a higher level of concern.

Writing in the NYTimes,  Brian X. Chen, a tech reporter (and a recent dad), sounds this alarm in a personal way:

 Parents like me have joined the “never-post” camp because of a more recent threat: apps that can automatically generate deepfake nudes with anyone’s face using generative artificial intelligence, the technology powering popular chatbots.

In other words, AI apps generating fake nudes, amid other privacy concerns, make “sharenting” far riskier than it was just a few years ago.

The dangers are greater as kids grow from toddlers to teens. That’s a whole other and disturbing problem. Even for very young children, though, Chen suggests ways to make photo-posting safer.

art credit: David C. Driskell

photo credit: Palo Coleman