AGENCIES: An artificial-intelligence app that allows users to insert their faces in place of film and TV characters has caused controversy in China.
Zao has sparked privacy fears and suggestions it could be used to defeat systems using facial recognition.
It appeared in China on 29 August and has proven wildly popular.
But it has led to developers Momo apologizing for its end-user agreement, which stripped users of the rights to their images.
And as the app went viral, Zao’s owners aired fears users were devouring its expensively purchased server capacity.
Its popularity has also lead to assurances from Alipay, part of the Chinese web giant Alibaba, saying that it’s impossible for so-called deepfake videos created by the app to be used to cheat its Smile to Pay facial-recognition system.
Comment