On October 30th, a young woman stumbled upon an obscure iPhone hack and posted about it on Twitter. When you type ‘Brassiere’ into the iPhoto search engine, it reveals every selfie and/or photo involving cleavage.
Why is the iPhone compartmentalizing your pictures so particularly? Let alone, cleavage shots?
We hadn’t noticed the feature before but we unanimously agreed that it’s truly creepy. We typed in “Br” and saw this—photos of broccoli (who knew that an image of filet, pomme frites and a side of broccoli would be distinctly categorized?) and then there were brides—lots of weddings this year.
Here’s how to do it: Type any small combination of letters and iPhoto anticipates a list of words, categorizes your photos and depending on the word, it gives you a short or an exhaustive list of assorted folders beginning with those letters.
Here’s how the iPhone does it: It’s called machine learning. We discovered this feature was in the iOS 10.0 that launched in 2016! The artificial intelligence is in the iPhone software. And it turns out that it cannot be disabled. In fact, we called Apple, and the genius said, “There’s nothing you can do.”
There are two things to take away from this information. First, AI is everywhere and all around us. Even if you’re a software genius, this technological advancement is omnipotent and is only going to become smarter and more powerful.
Second, social media carries a heavy weight when it comes to learning about new information. With the millennial generation especially, social media and push notifications seem to be the primary source of knowledge.
These newfound facts should inspire you to always be inquisitive about the technology involved in your life.
It’s not just the iPhone’s software, but also the various mediums that invade your privacy; Facebook, Gmail and Google all play a guilty role.
So here we have it; iPhone catalogs your photos down to the entrée. If this really bothers you… invest and/or dust off your camera and snap more! As we toyed around with our iPhones, we noticed images that lacked an exact location in one of our employee’s photo library. She happened to take these photos with an actual camera. Ah Hah! Photos taken on an iPhone will be organized via the artificial intelligence with date, location, object, events, etc. Yet, photos captured on a digital camera dodge the AI’s feature and are only labeled by time and date they were uploaded on your phone. Resist the need to take a photo of your aesthetically pleasing meal, the view of your hike, or a group photo at your Bff’s birthday party using your iPhone. Be the fun photographer with a real camera. You’ll be a hit!
Or, if you don’t have a camera, put your phone down and be present. Doesn't that sound lovely? There's nothing better than unplugging or switching your phone to airplane mode for a little bit. Your mind and body will thank you.
Be Well! X