The Sunglasses Were Listening. Finally, Somebody Was.

The roast

So some owners of Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses opened the Meta AI app and found audio recordings and transcripts of regular conversations. Conversations nobody invited the glasses to. One owner on Reddit said it happened on three different pairs, with the "Respond without Hey Meta" setting turned off. Off! The glasses saw "off" and thought, "That's more of a suggestion."

Meta's answer was basically one line: "This issue has been resolved." That's it. No cause. No count of how many pairs. That's not a statement. That's what every dad says when his wife asks what happened to the good scissors.

Here's what gets me. Every dad has been accused of not listening. Every dad has said "I heard you" while very clearly hearing nobody. And now there's a pair of sunglasses out there listening when nobody is even talking to it. The glasses are a better listener than me, and they don't even want to be.

Meanwhile, the Smart Speaker in every dad's kitchen hears nothing. You say its name four times, you're pronouncing every letter like a news anchor, and it gives you the weather in a city you've never been to. But somewhere a pair of sunglasses is taking notes on a debate about milk.

And they're sunglasses! The whole point of sunglasses is that nobody can tell what you're paying attention to. These were paying attention to everything. That's not cool. Sunglasses have one job, and it's to be cool.

Meta says you can review and delete your voice logs anytime. Great. A new chore. Reading the transcript of my own Tuesday.