Robot vacuum cleaners have always seemed like nice, friendly little guys to me, but that may be because I haven't used them much. I love the idea of a little guy that bumps into things and cleans my house. But now that I know that I can take pictures of my bathroom and upload them to social media without my knowledge, the idea seems less appealing. It's a bizarre level of bullying that I wouldn't wish on a mechanical servant.

Eileen Guo of MIT Technology Review (opens in new tab) examines how a photo from iRobot's Roomba vacuum cleaner (opens in new tab), in which the user's face is clearly visible, was uploaded to social media. The photos include very candid shots of people doing personal things in their homes, such as women and children in the bathroom. Guo also created an excellent Twitter thread (opens in new tab) with further explanations and helpful links.

The sensitive images were obviously taken from the location of the robotic vacuum cleaner, which was likely done so for data collection purposes. One affected user told MIT Technology Review that he was a product tester for iRobot's Roomba J series, and that he let the robot walk around his house to gather information to improve the product.

It's one thing to expect your information to be sent back to a secure company trying to train a cleaning AI, and another to know that those images are also being uploaded to social media, MIT Technology Review said iRobot collects all the data, sends it to a data annotation company, it found. One such company is Scale AI, which hires remote contractors to help evaluate uncorrected data.

This resulted in workers sharing images with each other on social media, which of course spread to the wider world. Many users felt that this was a violation of their trust, if not their contract as testers. There are at least 15 leaked images, but there are likely many more that have been shared. Appropriately, iRobot has discontinued its partnership with Scale AI.

Unfortunately, iRobot has done nothing more to help those affected or restore their trust. CEO Colin Angle responded to the MIT Technology Review report in a LinkedIn post (opens in new tab), but did not acknowledge the problems or dangers associated with providing such uncensored images to gig workers. It seems like a dangerous idea with little liability or recourse.

Angle spent the first part of his Linked In post talking about how great the company's Roomba is and attributed this to data collected from such testers.

While it is good that this has not happened with regular consumer iRobot products, the lack of accountability for testers makes me not want to go out and buy a Roomba anytime soon.

The LinkedIn post also accuses MIT Technology Review of sharing a censored version of the image in its article.