Kylie Jenner looks a lot like Meta’s glasses: there’s no denying they’re popular, but that doesn’t mean they’re not also controversial. (Ask Club Chalamet. Actually, don’t.)

It is undeniable that smart glasses with camera and video have been sold: at least 7 million pairs last year. Now, a new wave of attention (and scrutiny) has followed the launch of a new style of glasses: an oval-frame pair designed by Jenner.

When he debuted them late last month, there was an immediate reaction. One person commented: “Predator glasses” on his Instagram ad. another said. “What a terrifying product for a WOMAN to endorse.” A British advocacy group bought a bus advertisement mocking the glasses with Jenner’s image and the slogan “we’re always watching you.” I’ve reached out to Jenner’s team for comment.

Sentiment against AI glasses could be rising simply because the glasses are becoming more popular – they’re something that young people actually encounter in the world. (I wrote about “Computah” in June; he uses Meta’s more traditional Ray-Bans to make funny videos that aim to “program” people.) They can also come with the potential discomfort factor. There is a whole genre of pickup artists who post videos using them. I wrote about other people making nasty pranks on bespectacled service workers and posting on TikTok and Reels.

And at a Madrid music festival last week, pop star Lorde launched an expletive-laden tirade about them, saying: “Don’t put your glasses on. It’s not sexy.”

Interestingly, since the launch of her eponymous frames, Jenner doesn’t seem to wear them much in public. At the World Cup final, she wore what appeared to be different oval and conical sunglasses, and at a Knicks game, she used an old-school point-and-shoot camera to take photos of her boyfriend, instead of Meta glasses.

She wore them in a recent Instagram post promoting her swimsuit line.

The glasses, which can record video and take photos hands-free, have always been controversial: how could camera glasses not be? But it seems to me like we’re at a new level of discourse about them, where young people bemoan their impact on society and also buy them.

What seems new here is the AI ​​element, which is being beefed up in the glasses. In general, there is widespread anti-AI sentiment among young people, but they continue to use it. (Life is complicated; there is no need to judge).

Of course, the most controversial AI element in the glasses is one that doesn’t exist in them (yet): facial recognition. Meta has been kicking around this feature for years. Whether this actually happens could depend on public reception, so it now matters how Meta and its executives are conveying it.

That’s where Meta’s recent posts about glasses come in.

NameTag would identify the people you know

It’s a relatable dilemma: You’re talking to someone at a party and you can’t remember their name. Or, even more brutal, you completely forget about them and they inform you that they already met you before (ugh).

This social agony is what Meta says it aims to solve with facial recognition in its AI-powered smart glasses. It hasn’t launched facial recognition, but seems very interested in doing so. Wired reported that a recent software update for the glasses included code (that didn’t actually work yet) for a feature called NameTag that could help you identify people you’ve met before.

But is the “cocktail party problem,” as Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth called it in a recent interview on Nicholas Thompson’s podcast, a big enough problem that we should be willing to make privacy concessions in a world where facial recognition glasses at parties are normalized?

A Meta spokesperson told me that facial recognition is not yet a done deal.

“We haven’t made a decision on the feature called NameTag and it’s not available on glasses that people can buy today,” said Meta’s Carl Woog. “If we decide to make something like this available, it will be our responsibility to do so with a thoughtful approach that protects people’s privacy.”

It seems difficult to reconcile the idea of ​​facial recognition in glasses with personal privacy.

In the podcast interview, Bosworth also discusses the benefits of glasses for the blind, as well as people who have trouble remembering faces or names due to a brain injury or other cognitive problem.

Facial recognition could have real benefits for the blind

That podcast interview wasn’t the first time Meta executives or other company communicators brought up the disability benefits of glasses as a topic of conversation.

I think the people who work at Meta really care about the potential benefits for people with disabilities. The Meta division that makes the glasses, Reality Labs, has its origins in Meta’s acquisition of CTRL Labs, a company working on wearable devices with neural interfaces aimed at helping people who couldn’t write. In June, Meta pledged to provide free glasses to any of the 130,000 blind military veterans who requested them.

“There are many people working at Reality Labs who have dedicated their professional careers to creating cutting-edge technology that can help people who have real needs, whether it be limited vision, hearing or mobility, and we are inspired by these efforts,” Woog said.

Still, Meta glasses aren’t primarily sold as handicap aids: They’re fun toys for general consumers. And the disability debate also creates a kind of false tension: If you’re concerned about the privacy implications of facial recognition glasses, you might be against helping the blind. I have to believe that there is a middle ground; You can worry about both.

Meta knows that public sentiment is crucial to achieving widespread acceptance of AI features like facial recognition. For now, it looks like she’ll have to work on her messaging if the recent reaction to Kylie’s glasses is any indication.