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Ask HN: Would you trust an AI that sees and hears everything you do?

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Re: Ask HN: Would you trust an AI that sees and hears everything you do?

#51

Post by aurintex »

kylecazar wrote: post #47
aurintex wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just to clarify, the “reminder” example was just one possible use case. The idea isn’t to capture everything or pretend to read thoughts, but to offer flexible support based on context you control. Curious though: if there were a way for an AI to understand your thoughts, would that even be something you’d want? Or is the whole concept off-limits for you?

Understood! It's an interesting question -- I've thought about it a lot in the context of some hypothetical brain interface. There are a lot of unknowns but I personally would go for it with the very hard constraint that it be the equivalent of read-only (no agents here) and local (no cloud). As potentially scary as it seems, I would not be able to fight the temptation to participate under those conditions. It would…

A very interesting insight. I hadn't expected that, but of course it opens up new possibilities. Sometimes it would be really interesting to crawl back through older thoughts :)

Re: Ask HN: Would you trust an AI that sees and hears everything you do?

#52

Post by aurintex »

nmeagent wrote: post #49

Consider a world where a sizeable fraction of the population has and uses such a device, such that its presence is assumed and ultimately mandated by authoritarian law enforcement entities, surveillance capitalist firms, and so on. Can you imagine the inescapable nightmare this would become even with the norms of today? Do you really want to offer fuzzy recall of two of five senses to "legitimate legal process", rapa…

I completely understand your concern, and I agree, the kind of scenario you describe would be morally unacceptable. I wouldn’t want to build or be responsible for anything that could enable it.

That said, I often think about how this tension applies to nearly every new technology. Most tools can be used for good or bad, and history shows that progress tends to happen either way. If we had refused to develop technologies simply because they could be misused, we might not have any at all.

I do believe it’s possible to build responsibly through transparency, local-first design, and strong legal safeguards. The EU’s data protection laws, for example, give me some hope that we’re not entirely defenseless.

Do you see this kind of outcome as something we’re tangibly heading toward, or more as a warning of what could happen if we’re not careful?

Re: Ask HN: Would you trust an AI that sees and hears everything you do?

#53

Post by aurintex »

paulcole wrote: post #48
aurintex wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there anything you’re thinking about where this might be useful for you?

No. I think that there is some limit to how much additional information is useful to the AI tools that I use. I don’t know where that limit is and I also think that models are getting better all the time, so storing the data now for later use might be useful. I have no idea how much it would cost to store/analyze 14-18 hours of data a day? I’m assuming that it could be post-processed and delete the useless stuff? Obv…

Thank you, that's a very valuable and encouraging contribution :)

I've also considered the idea of collecting data now that might be useful later. However, at least within the EU, data storage must be purpose-specific.

That’s why I believe everything should be rejected immediately (similar to how wake word detection works), and only the data the user explicitly enables the AI to store should be retained. This reduces the required storage already. And the post-processing: agree, can also imagine something like "compressing the information of one hour" --> and "compress day" ...

Re: Ask HN: Would you trust an AI that sees and hears everything you do?

#54

Post by aurintex »

Forgeties79 wrote: post #45
aurintex wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The core idea is that the AI runs locally on the device, and all data is stored on the device. Therefore, no data will be shared or sold to other companies. Regarding anonymization --> do you mean, what if I pointed the camera at someone else? That would be filtered out.

>what if I pointed the camera at someone else? That would be filtered out I'm no expert at this but that sounds a lot harder to implement than you're implying, especially if it's all locally stored and not checked over by a 3rd party. What's to stop me from just doing it anyway?

That’s why the plan is to invert the usual logic: instead of capturing everything and trying to filter later, the system would reject everything by default and only respond to what the user explicitly enables --> similar to how wake word detection works.

I’ve also thought a lot about trust. Would you feel differently if the system were open source, with the critical parts auditable by the community?

Re: Ask HN: Would you trust an AI that sees and hears everything you do?

#55

Post by Froedlich »

aurintex wrote: post #38
kylecazar wrote: post #34

The invasion of privacy is the obvious problem. But it isn't going to be functionally very useful to me either. You're going to capture hours of walking and/or seemingly doing nothing, exchanging pleasantries/small-talk/banter. Without access to my thoughts, this is stuck in some superficial layer -- useless other than to maybe surface a reminder of something trivial that I forgot (and that's not worth it). Life happ…

Just to clarify, the “reminder” example was just one possible use case. The idea isn’t to capture everything or pretend to read thoughts, but to offer flexible support based on context you control. Curious though: if there were a way for an AI to understand your thoughts, would that even be something you’d want? Or is the whole concept off-limits for you?

If it was local - implanted, or on my body, it might be a useful tool with the correct training.

If it was networked, it would need to have much tighter security than the current internet.

If it was just a terminal to some corporate server running unknown software for purposes I wouldn't necessarily agree to, nope, nope, nopity-nope. Even if it didn't start off as a device for pushing propaganda and advertising, there's no realistic expectation that it wouldn't evolve into that over time.

Re: Ask HN: Would you trust an AI that sees and hears everything you do?

#57

Post by ponector »

aurintex wrote: post #11
conartist6 wrote: post #7

Trust it with what? Trust it to do what? There's one thing AI can't do, and that's actually care about anyone or anything. It's the rough equivalent a psychopath. It would push you to a psychotic break with reality with its sycophancy just a happily as it would, say, murder you if given motive means and opportunity.

I imagine it helping me remember things or stick to my habits. For example, if I want to lose weight and have a weak moment, it could remind me—like when I order a burger. It could also help me use my time better. If it knows what I’ve been doing lately, it might give me useful tips. So overall, more like a coach or assistant for everyday life.

For a personal coach version there should be a module which can deliver electric shock to the owner in case rules have been violated.

Re: Ask HN: Would you trust an AI that sees and hears everything you do?

#58

Post by Forgeties79 »

aurintex wrote: post #54
Forgeties79 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>what if I pointed the camera at someone else? That would be filtered out I'm no expert at this but that sounds a lot harder to implement than you're implying, especially if it's all locally stored and not checked over by a 3rd party. What's to stop me from just doing it anyway?

That’s why the plan is to invert the usual logic: instead of capturing everything and trying to filter later, the system would reject everything by default and only respond to what the user explicitly enables --> similar to how wake word detection works. I’ve also thought a lot about trust. Would you feel differently if the system were open source, with the critical parts auditable by the community?

I mean maybe this is just ignorant of me but can you really build an app where the AI is completely disabled out the box, is totally locally controlled by the user, who is then able to customize its activation with such granularity/control that it will only film them and not other people? Is that something one can actually build and expect to be reliable? Can this actually work…?

I mean generally speaking yes open source but the issue is that if it’s open source then people can easily disable the safeguards with a fork so idk I feel mixed on it. I’m still leaning towards yes because in general I am for open source. But I’d have to think about it and hear other people’s takes

Re: Ask HN: Would you trust an AI that sees and hears everything you do?

#59

Post by sph »

aurintex wrote: post #26
sph wrote: post #15

Long answer: fuck no. Not even if it was free. Not even if it was libre software.

So even if it were open source, that wouldn’t be a reason for you to trust it? Just curious: what would have to change for you to even consider it? Is it more about the concept itself, or the way it's implemented?

Literally nothing would change my mind: I do not care to have anything that sees and hears everything I do. It's not a problem I will ever have, and the issues and vulnerabilities of such a thing are too many to even consider.

Re: Ask HN: Would you trust an AI that sees and hears everything you do?

#60

Post by fleeting900 »

Sometimes I feel like I live in a parallel universe to these guys who see value in things like this.

Where my life is mundane shit that most of the time I don’t even need the current generation of tech anywhere near. Walking the dog. Playing with and looking after my kids. Everyday conversations and intimacy with my wife. Barbecues with friends. Work.

And these guys lives are just working out, coding, and cooking on-trend dishes with expensive cookware, all to be relentlessly optimised.

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