A Photographers question on Ai Image Analysis & Ai Data Collection,- Concent, Rights & Implicaions

[tosha 187]

As a photographer is use Dropbox to transmit, store and handle my files.

lately when running a search for the word "FIRE", the search function returned multiple pictures from my archive with flames in them.

Question 1:

has my Photography Archive been subject to Ai image analysis? (which it obviously has been...) 

   - what kind? - by what tools? 

and most importantly,  where did i concent to any of it? (yes i read the 'Legal' page thoroughly)

disclaimer: as an event photographer i am involved in all kinds of Private, Open & Deeply personal moments from peoples lives, i have an Etheic Moral and Legal duty to protect my clients, partners, models, childrens & friends privacy, dignity and basic right not to have their likeness and very life be used to feed some data set somewhere withiout their knowlege and concent. i use Generative Ai tools as part of my personal and professional creative research, i see the potential, but am also aware of the possible implications. 

Question 2:

has my Phototography Archive (my body of work) been compromised, sold, copied or in any other way transfered to any third party without my concent?

i think you get where im going with this....

am i doomed to have my stuff be fed to the Ai data machine by simply having it on the internet?

i am only asking because i am already extremely doubtfull of my future as an Artist and Creative Professional.

i love Dropbox a lot and use it all the time and recommend it to everyone, i really hope i don't soon grow to regret it...

would love to hear your thoughts.

~T187.

[Rich]

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@tosha 187 wrote:

lately when running a search for the word "FIRE", the search function returned multiple pictures from my archive with flames in them.

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Perhaps this will shed some light on the feature and how it works:

• https://dropbox.tech/machine-learning/how-image-search-works-at-dropbox

[Emmet · Accepted solution]

Hi @tosha 187, 

Thank you for reaching out today with your questions. To begin, Dropbox search has the ability to search files based on a keyword, even if that isn't in the filename or metadata. This is done when you upload photos as content is identified in the image, but this information is only used to improve retrieval of files in your account, and no-one else's. This is detailed in our image search Help Center article. There is a more in-depth discussion of how image search works here, and goes through the machine learning that powers it. 

Under the Dropbox AI Principles, customers will have full control of their data and we will not use customer data to train AI models without their consent. Your data is, and has always been, completely within your control. 

One thing to note, is that our AI team is currently developing Dropbox AI in a file preview. This tool summarises text-based, audio or video files and allows Dropbox AI to answer questions about these files. This is powered by OpenAI and files previewed under this are shared with OpenAI. These files will not be used to train OpenAI's models and only files you choose to send will be shared with them. This feature is currently in Alpha, and is not widely available as of yet. 

I hope I've been able to answer all of your questions, and if you have any other concerns, please don't hesitate to reach out. 

Regards,

Dropbox Community Team 

[Balthouse]

I also, would like to know when I agreed to have my photographs analyzed by dropbox ai.  I dont recall ever doing so, and I am deeply annoyed that this was just thrust upon us.

[Mylocationstv]

as a longtime Dropbox user I'd like to see greater AI capability w my libraries more sophisticated searches- verbally activated commands would also be useful  in searches..."Hey Dropbox find such and such file/folder/image" etc...if there is more material on how to utilize/develop these options please advise.