AI Demos

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

Access, Region Locks & Cookies

  • Several users in the US see “Our site is not available in your region,” especially in Illinois and Texas; others work around it via VPN.
  • The site explicitly blocks Illinois and Texas, likely due to biometric/AI laws there; some note over‑blocking when ISPs geolocate to Chicago.
  • Users also encounter a heavy-handed Meta cookie prompt; some are unsure whether to accept just to see demos.

Legal & Biometric Law Discussion

  • Commenters link the exclusions to Illinois and Texas biometric statutes covering face/hand geometry and requiring consent and safeguards.
  • Some argue the laws are reasonable; others note ambiguities (e.g., is any face photo a “record”?).
  • There’s concern that Meta may store uploaded biometric data, but also recognition that “every AI company saves all the data” is common.

Seamless Translation: Impressive but Inconsistent

  • Several bilingual users call the voice translation “pretty incredible,” close to their real speech in another language.
  • Others report generic voices that sound nothing like them (sometimes wrong gender or age), or outright mistranslations that feel jarring.
  • Debate arises over whether we really want near‑perfect voice cloning (deepfakes) versus a deliberately imperfect voice.
  • People note it’s “good enough” for casual tasks (travel, directions) but not yet suitable for high‑stakes or artistic translation.

Segment Anything & Other Demos

  • Segment Anything 2 gets strong praise: video cutouts tracking objects across occlusion feel “incredible” and very useful for editing tools.
  • Some mention it’s already integrated into third‑party products and open-sourced via GitHub.
  • Other demos (animated drawings, Audiobox) are seen as fun but “half‑baked,” more like tech toys than products.

Meta’s AI Strategy & Business Angle

  • Many see the core motive as better ad targeting, content generation, and engagement—more personalized ads, auto‑generated creatives, and “AI slop.”
  • Others frame it as “commoditizing your complement”: open, cheap models weaken closed competitors while protecting Meta’s advertising moat and social graph.
  • There’s skepticism that users want AI‑generated feeds, but also acknowledgment that engagement metrics may still go up.

Ethics, Reputation & Employment

  • Strong disagreement over Meta as an employer: some call it top‑tier AI work, others say you need to “have no ethics” to join.
  • LLaMA’s open(-weights) releases are praised by some as a public good and derided by others as PR that doesn’t erase wider harms.