Amazon’s Ring can now use AI to ‘learn the routines of your residence’ – Source: go.theregister.com

Ring doorbells and cameras are using AI to “learn the routines of your residence,” via a new feature called Video Descriptions.

It’s part of Amazon’s — really, all of the tech giants are doing this — ongoing effort to stuff AI into everything it makes. This particular feature will use generative AI to write text descriptions of the motion activity detected by Ring doorbells and cameras.

As of today, Video Descriptions is available as a beta feature in all Ring doorbells and cameras, but only to Ring Home Premium subscribers in the US and Canada, and only in English. Users must enable the video-to-text capabilities through the Ring app.

Once they do this, as Ring founder and Amazon VP of product Jamie Siminoff wrote in a blog today announcing Video Descriptions: 

The aim, according to Siminoff, is to shift more of the heavy lifting involved with home security to Ring’s AI. This will also include “custom anomaly alerts,” which are generated when “something happens on your property that is an anomaly to your property.”

And here’s where it gets a little bit creepy: “It will learn the routines of your residence, get smarter, and deliver peace of mind by only notifying you when it is something out of the ordinary.”

• Ring dinged for $5.6M after, among other claims, rogue insider spied on ‘pretty girls’
• Amazon sued for allegedly slurping sensitive data via advertising SDK
• No way? Big Tech’s ‘lucrative surveillance’ of everyone is terrible for privacy, freedom
• Anthropic: All the major AI models will blackmail us if pushed hard enough

This gives us pause, as opposed to peace of mind, and sounds like super-charged snooping wrapped in an AI bow. If this kind of information is not properly secured, it could be a treasure trove for thieves, burglars, stalkers, and all other sorts of mischief-makers. In December 2022, a grand jury indictment charged two US men with breaking into Ring accounts to make fake emergency calls to police (“swatting”), then streaming the audio and video as the police arrived.

It’s especially troubling considering Ring’s past troubles with data privacy and security and its cozy relationship with law enforcement.

In April 2024, US regulators ordered Ring to pay out refunds totaling $5.6 million to customers to resolve allegations that cybercriminals and rogue Ring workers alike spied on folks via their home security cameras.

The Register asked Ring where this information about users’ home routines is stored, how it’s secured, and under what circumstances it might be shared with law enforcement.

“We do not log the descriptions generated from Video Descriptions,” a spokesperson emailed in response to our questions.

In the meantime, your humble vulture will continue to stick with dumb doorbells and barky dogs to deliver peace of mind about out-of-the-ordinary occurrences at home. ®

Editor’s note: This story was amended post-publication with comment from Amazon.