B2. Smart Glasses: 329 People Filmed in Secret

Hello James.

Hello Tristan.

We are two native English English teachers, and today are stories of Meta's new smart glasses. Glasses with a hidden camera — a camera inside the glasses.

Here's a story for you. Are you ready for this one?

I am, of course. Always ready.

May 2025. Police in Barcelona in Spain arrest a man, and they see Meta glasses on his head. They take them, and they realise he's secretly filmed 329 videos of women in the street. So these videos are for his — he's an influencer.

He was posting these videos online to sell his course, his pickup artist course. How to manipulate women, how to trick them to sleep with you. That's essentially what a pickup artist is.

And I saw this documentary based in Miami, in America, and there's multiple influencers of the style that do pickup. You know, they chat to girls with the Meta glasses on. And then the girls are like shocked, because suddenly, you know, they thought he was a nice guy. And then they go online and they've gone viral, and there's like a whole hour-long date of them online. And they were just secretly being filmed all along.

So what do you think of that?

I think it's disgusting. I think it's pretty disgusting.

But it's one level worse than that. So there's a small light on the Meta glasses that flicks on enough to symbolise recording, right? The classic kind of flickering light — 'I'm recording now'. But these people who secretly record, there's a special sticker you can buy that you put over the top of it, or you can have them adjusted. And then it just looks like normal glasses.

So it's not just no consent. They're not even given the chance to see that they're being filmed in any way.

Absolutely. So they're covering the light so that the person believes the glasses are just normal glasses.

That's right.

So it is literally secret.

It's completely secret. Because if there's a phone in your face, you kind of know you're being filmed. But if you don't, then you have the choice, right? You have the choice to modify your behaviour accordingly.

But secretly being filmed — it's going to affect how people interact with each other. For example, I enjoy a joke like the next man.

And you could say I have a more adventurous sense of humour. I'd be terrified of speaking freely. I'm at a house party, or at the pub, just chatting to a group. And by next year or two years, people are going to just start naturally becoming more vanilla and more plain. A bit more afraid to express themselves freely.

It's not just jokes, but it's opinions, political opinions, or you know, like, especially politically charged things like whatever — Israel, Gaza. Easier just to not say anything in case I'm being filmed.

Well, the thing is, if you're with friends and you're joking in a private way, but then suddenly that private joke becomes a public joke, then that is a large problem.

Seven million of these devices have been sold in America so far. On this documentary, I saw this guy — there's like a Meta glasses tracker app. So you can see other people that use the Meta glasses. And so he finds people just around Manhattan in New York, and he asks them about the Meta glasses and, you know, how they feel about wearing them.

And the creepy thing is, like half of the people he interviews are just like, yeah, no problem, man. Like, people point phones at people. This is just the same as that. But they don't see how it's an invasion of privacy, like at all. I found that a bit disturbing.

Absolutely.

So at the moment, many employers are using smart glasses in interviews. You can see how it will be used in the future. They're using the smart glasses to record the interview, but they're also using it as a kind of facial recognition system. And so what they're able to do is to identify the individual, run the background checks on that individual in terms of what their social media says or what they've posted online. And then they're able, within that session, within that interview, within that meeting, to evaluate the person as they are speaking to that person. Which is just incredible.

Another use of this technology, using this facial recognition system — there is a software which enables you to see the micro expressions of an individual. Micro expressions are small little variations in your face which show if you are happy, if you are sad. However, there are more subtle variations. And so they are able to identify if you are lying.

But imagine as well how pickup artists will use that. So basically, they'll have the glasses on and they're trying to chat up women, right? They'll have the glasses on, and then the glasses will see exactly how the woman is feeling. And it will give them a little script in the glasses of like exactly what to say next, and exactly, you know, to mirror her and to reflect how she feels. And then it'll be all weird, like, you know, psychoanalyst, like hypnotising stuff.

It will know who she is. And it will know if like she has no dad, or she got fired, or she lost her house, or whatever problem she's going through. And the pickup artist will say — you'll be like, ''oh, your eyes look, you look quite sad. I think you've been through some tragedy recently. Is that right?'' And she'll be like, ''oh, this guy knows me so well''.

You could insert yourself into like house parties by saying, hey, I know David, your brother's friend, I was at his barbecue like two weeks ago. Do you not remember me? And suddenly she'll be like, ''oh yeah, maybe I do remember you.'' Even if that would be a fake thing to say. Does that make sense?

You've got strangers in the house.

Yeah, exactly. Because if you have a big party, you could maybe invent a situation using kind of Instagram posts and TikTok posts to say, I was at this social gathering, to create that kind of connection. Oh, this is not the first time I've met this person. To create a false sense of sincerity.

I mean, you could say at the house party, or at the event, at the gathering, people have to take their glasses off as they go in. But you know, these devices will change form and they'll evolve.

Soon they won't just be glasses. They'll just be like a small little piece of plastic you keep in your front pocket, or it has a small camera attached to it, like a super small camera. And then people are going to become very private with their tight-knit community naturally.

Even worse. So we were saying before about lying, and about how you can tell if somebody else is lying, and about how you can recognise their facial expressions. Imagine if this type of technology is used by the police for pre-crime. Imagine if you have the possibility to record somebody's face, and then because of their facial expression, you pre-determine that person is going to commit a crime, and you arrest that person for a crime they have maybe not even committed.

For example, you can be very angry in the street. And as long as you don't cause a disturbance, the police will leave you alone. But imagine if you're very angry in the street and the police notice this through facial recognition. Perhaps they detain you until you relax, or until you chill out.

Or I think we'll all be in jail, or we'll all have like no emotion and we'll become like Koreans. Koreans are fantastic at not showing emotion. Not true.

But you're right. So we'll be very aware, hyper aware, of the smallest of changes in our facial expression and our body language, and we'll learn to control it.

Absolutely. Because we know that we're always being watched.

Totally. And that's like I was saying before, like I'd be too scared to, you know, just have a laugh with the lads in the pub. But this is the next level, what you're saying. It will go on to even having to control one's body language.

Well, at the moment, they often use kind of camouflage at protests to stop AI systems from recognising faces. So if you go to, I don't know, a pro-Israel march, sometimes people will paint kind of like black squares on their face, which makes it more challenging for the camera to identify who that person is. So maybe there'll be another level of that where we all wear masks.

Yeah. So what you're saying about these glasses being able to identify people — there were two students at Harvard University, and they connected a pair of Meta glasses to face recognising software. And so the glasses sent a live video to Instagram. A computer program would watch that video, and then when it saw the face of the person in the video, it searches the internet for photos of that person, collects their information from public websites, from Facebook. So just from that video, the Meta glasses knows their name, their age, their home address, phone number.

And to test it, they walked around and they just went up to random people and they were like, oh yeah, like we met before, right? Like this older woman, she's like, oh yeah. And they know that she works — she's like a lecturer, and she is like an activist in some way. You know, shakes her hand.

So you'll be able to know everything about everyone just by looking at them. Which is horrible.

Absolutely horrifying. Yeah, it's horrible. I don't want anybody to know who I am. Really, I want to get to know people, and to discover a person's personality, and to learn about that individual, and to gain my own personal opinion. Imagine if I only listened to the people who were negative about that person — maybe I would already judge that person by what other people said. And for myself, I'm certain people hate me, that's fine. But judge me as an individual, not by, you know, other people's opinions.

Well, yeah. So you just have people walking around, not talking to each other and just judging each other. Looking at that person, quick judgment. Looking at that person, quick judgment. People just like walking around, like quietly, not talking. Little judge here, little judge there.

Do you think that what is captured on film on your Meta glasses stays private? Do you think that?

Absolutely not. I don't think anything we do online is private.

So moderators for Meta are in Kenya — many of them work in Kenya, in offices there. And so video recordings from Meta around the world, from these glasses, are sent to workers in Kenya. And their job is to watch the video, to label it, to help train the AI.

What did they see?

Sure, you can probably guess.

Well, yes. People with no clothes on.

Well, this is — yeah, well, we've been dancing around this subject, but this is definitely the elephant in the room. That people will use these glasses to record people naked, or going to the toilet, or using changing rooms, or being at the swimming pool. And it will be perverts recording women, if we'll be totally honest.

Yes. But the people in Kenya are seeing — it's not other people, it's like Meta glasses capturing the owner of the Meta glasses.

Oh wow, really?

Having sex. Yeah, because the Meta glasses are just, you know, just on the side, right? They just put them on the desk.

Okay. Well, yeah, because that makes sense. Because like, if you have sunglasses in a room, you don't think, oh, my sunglasses are watching me. But you're right. I mean, like, if you put your glasses in a room and they're active, they will see everything you do in that room. Now, because I'm a saint, obviously, I never do anything bad. But I could imagine another person, you know, like yourself.

You're never naked. Being a deviant.

Always fully clothed.

Always fully clothed, top to bottom, with socks and gloves.

Always. When you go to sleep, like you have the full pyjamas and the hat, you know, the little nighty hat, the pyjama hat.

Like Scrooge.

Absolutely.

So Meta says, "Ah, but the faces are blurred." But in interviews with the people in Kenya, they say the blurring technology, it doesn't always work. And about all of these — you know, filming people without their consent — apparently Meta, they just say, "Oh well, you have to follow the privacy guidelines." That's it.

Well, I mean, for Meta, that's all they have to say.

Well, yeah, because you're agreeing by using the glasses that they can basically do whatever they want.

Yeah. So in summary — benefit for humanity, or a load of BS, or creepy, or good, or useful? What's your consensus?

Personally, I'm going to buy a pair and then go to the local swimming pool and film all the beautiful women.

And then you leave them on your counter, and the finale of your video will just be you sleeping like completely naked for about 10 hours, live streamed. And you've done it to yourself as well.

Great. Of course. Obviously, it's just absolutely crazy. I mean, I'm not a fan. I think that technology is obviously coming in. I think you're right when you said before about like the smaller version. I don't think necessarily glasses are going to be that widespread, because they're still glasses. But I think like a small thing, like on your lapel, or like a small little kind of spy camera kind of device — I can definitely imagine that happening. Really, I can.

Yeah. I mean, all you need is just a really small camera and your earphone. Someone's on a date. Like there's a nerd, very underconfident, but he's got his Meta glasses and he's on a date, or he has his earpiece in, and the earpiece, the earphone, is telling him what to say next. And then whilst they're like walking around the park, like the earpiece gets like hooked on a bush and just falls out, or a dog nicks it and runs off. And then suddenly he's just like shaking. He's just like, I don't know what to say next.

But the crazy thing, and the sad, sad thing is, yeah, you'll never be able to build like real relationships like that, because it will always be insincere. It will always be inauthentic. It will always be based on lies. Because if somebody told me that — let's say in some crazy world that I was speaking to somebody and we built up a good connection, and then even as a friend, I later discovered they were using this type of technology — I would never trust them ever again, for anything.

Well, it's just simply the natural increasing and expanding of the fake. So much writing is fake now. YouTube videos, all the fake documentaries and all the fake commentary videos all over YouTube now, which is all just an AI script and an AI voice.

By the way, everyone out there, we are real human beings. And that's why you should listen to this podcast over so many of the other apparent English speaking podcasts. We're actually native speakers, which is pretty fun. We're actually humans, which is pretty fun. We make mistakes, which is pretty fun. And also, I said that your mum's funny, and I don't think AI would ever say a "Yo Mamma" joke.

But so, it's an extension of the fake, you know? So already these expressions, these human expressions, are now fake, right? But it will be faking in real time — basically faking in real communication, in the moment, out in a cafe. That will also be fake, as long as people can see like a little script in their AI glasses.

Yeah, I mean, I just think it's going to be a big problem. I really think so.

Real time speaking being faked. And someone actually did that at the London High Court. Okay, in a very important court case. They realised someone giving evidence in the stand had a bit of a delayed response. And they're a bit like, what's happening here? He seems to pause too much. So the defence lawyer was just like, take your glasses off. He was hooked up, there was an earpiece. And he was actually just saying the answers through someone else. He said he was just talking to his taxi driver. But he was literally faking a court case using the glasses. And that has actually happened.

That's crazy. It's not just about manipulating people, pretending to be someone you're not. It's about actually manipulating the law. Which is why the only way forward is to tell the truth. If you tell the truth in every situation, or at least don't lie, you'll be fine.

And I am just really glad that I was born in the 1980s, and a big part of my life was before all of this technological — do you know, I really feel for students. I mean, like imagine being 14 and thinking, okay, how do I plan my future? How do I go into the workplace?

Because we both studied music. AI songs are like amazing. And they're made in like five minutes. I remember, and I'm sure you do as well, spending days writing a song which is bad at the end and you put in the bin, and AI creates a better song in five minutes for free.

And maybe, you know, people consider some of the Beatles albums, right, to be the best albums ever. Radiohead as well. So you'll be able to make an album as good as that in five minutes.

Imagine.

Exactly. And it'd be like crazy.

And mixed and mastered. And it would just be this perfect kind of recording.

And yeah, it'll be all artificial.

So if you have an opinion, guys, leave a comment. We respond to every comment. What do you think? Do you have — are you one of these creeps in the shadows with the glasses? And if you are, own it. Tell us why it's good. Or tell us why you don't like it.

Absolutely. Okay guys, see you next time. Ciao.