Meta founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg depicted in his company's AI smart glasses. Shutterstock This week, Meta unveiled three new types of smart glasses, each controlled by a wrist band and boasting a “voice-based artificial intelligence assistant that can talk through a speaker and see through a camera,” according to the New York Times.
Given the tech industry’s past record of rolling out products before assessing potential harms and misuse, it’s worth contemplating how these new glasses, which Meta founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg claims will eventually “deliver personal superintelligence,” may be used for nefarious purposes.
The ability to livestream from Meta glasses is already a product feature, and as more of the devices propagate in the market, it should be anticipated that they will be used in extremist attacks, just as smartphones and GoPros have been in recent years. Tech platforms have struggled to contain livestreamed extremist attacks.
In March 2019, in Christchurch, New Zealand, a man motivated by white supremacist ideology fulfilled a promise he made on the extremist forum 8chan when he used a helmet mounted with a GoPro to film himself killing a total of 51 worshippers at two mosques while livestreaming on Facebook.
While Meta reported that under 200 people watched the initial livestream, the video propagated across the platform and on to other social media networks, eventually inspiring others to livestream, or attempt to livestream, their own attacks, such as the Poway synagogue shooter…
Published: September 19, 2025 3:05 pm
Source: Tech Policy Press — Read original