Alipay's Newest Feature: AI-Powered Baldness Detection Amidst Growing Privacy Concerns
Summary:
Alipay, China's leading payment application, has expanded its AI-powered offerings to include a hair loss detector. Users can upload scalp pictures for review by an AI system trained on thousands of medically relevant images. This feature, part of Alipay's "Medical Assistant" suite, adds to an array of utilities that include online and in-store payments, rideshare, bill payments, and shopping, among others. Despite their popularity in the east, such multifunctional apps raise privacy concerns, given their potential for aggregating extensive user data.
Perhaps the detection of baldness using artificial intelligence (AI) isn't something everyone had on their ewallet wish lists. However, that's precisely what Alipay, China's leading payment application, now provides. Beyond merely facilitating payments by linking users' bank accounts for seamless online and in-store transactions, Alipay distinguishes itself as a multifunctional application.
Described as a "superapp" aimed at locals, Alipay comes loaded with a plethora of features including rideshare, mobile phone services, bill payments, access to coupons and travel services, online shopping, and even social media capabilities.
Its newest addition, however, deviates from the usual practicality-based features - an AI-infused hair loss detector. A South China Morning Post's report suggests that users can submit photos of their scalps which are then analyzed by an image recognition system that has learned from thousands of medically significant images. The app subsequently provides suggestions, some of which may even involve medical attention.
Alipay, a creation of Alibaba's fintech subordinate, Antgroup, introduced its AI-driven "Medical Assistant" feature in April 2024. This new hair loss detector is now integrated into the same suite.
The concept behind this amalgamation of a digital wallet, lifestyle services app, and medical tool is reportedly to increase convenience and efficiency. However, these types of apps are yet to gain traction in Europe and North America, despite their popularity in the East.
Elon Musk championing the multifaceted "superapp" concept is known to have expressed his desire for X.com to evolve into an all-encompassing app similar to those available in the Chinese market. But global privacy guardians have persistently been sounding the alarm over the potential for these apps to aggregate user data, leaving user privacy and security vulnerable to the dictates of the app's proprietors and any other entities with data access.
In Alipay's case, the Chinese government has transparently stated that users' data must be accessible by government authorities. Although there's no official disclosure regarding how this data is utilized, it would, in theory, be quite an uncomplicated task to establish and run a user activity database, thereby constructing a real-time tracker for its citizens.
To illustrate, Friend.tech's plans to establish its own blockchain leading to user confusion is a related case.
Published At
6/9/2024 7:52:00 PM
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