Facebook, Amazon, Google, IBM and Microsoft Create Partnership on AI • Hacker News Board

Re: Facebook, Amazon, Google, IBM and Microsoft Create Partnership on AI

#221

Post by parasubvert » Thu, Sep 29, 2016, 1:15 PM UTC

DrNuke wrote: post #213

parasubvert wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure what the alternative is, or what even the problem is? Buying/trading/gifting/sharing shit makes the world go 'round.

You would want to support your local communities / markets maybe, now risking to become invisible or outpowered? It is called biodiversity. Very sad and dangerous for evolution a fully Googled or a fully Amazoned or a whatever monopolised world. Also dangerous: fascism and communism are made of the same metal and come from monopoly of minds and costumes.

"You would want to support your local communities / markets maybe, now risking to become invisible or outpowered? "

With Amazon, sure, there's a point, but that battle was lost 30 years ago with Wal-Mart when U.S. consumers decided they didn't give a shit about their local community, they wanted "low prices". Not everywhere, mind you.

"Very sad and dangerous for evolution a fully Googled or a fully Amazoned or a whatever monopolised world."

I'm not sure I agree. Where's the monopoly? High market share isn't the only criteria. It has to be a case where consumers have little to no choice, which is clearly not true today. Plenty of people avoid Google (I try as much as I can). Amazon also isn't the world's only retailer or cloud computing company by a long shot.

These things might be true tomorrow, but future crime ala Minority Report isn't actually a thing. I'm also not sure it makes sense to give corporate welfare to losers that will waste the capital, when these companies are actually giving customers good service (hence their high market share) and being great at technology (the barrier to entry is about knowledge).

Also, given the number of negative articles about Amazon by current and former employees lately, I wouldn't bet on their braintrust staying in one place.

"Also dangerous: fascism and communism are made of the same metal and come from monopoly of minds and costumes."

I think that equating global corporations with fascism and communism dilutes those terms too much. We are a global society of organizations, it is pluralistic, and it is relatively new. I'm not fond of unregulated global capitalism, but at the same time I think it's much riskier to be ham-handed with laws and regs because someone thinks they know better, unless there's a lot of peer-verified research on the issue.

Re: Facebook, Amazon, Google, IBM and Microsoft Create Partnership on AI

#222

Post by sharemywin » Thu, Sep 29, 2016, 1:17 PM UTC

icantdrive55 wrote: post #200

1. These companies have been collecting our information for years now. Some have acces to what we write in are emails, but of course, they never read them, they just scan them for marketing purposes? 2. Why do I feel certain people's information has been looked at, scrutinized, cross checked, collated, etc. by certain savvy insiders. Warren buffet, George Sorrows, any of the financial movers and shakers, information…

If Foursquare can do this imagine what Google, Apple, or facebook can do.

https://medium.com/foursquare-direct/foursquare-predicts-chi...

Re: Facebook, Amazon, Google, IBM and Microsoft Create Partnership on AI

#223

Post by DrNuke » Thu, Sep 29, 2016, 1:29 PM UTC

parasubvert wrote: post #221

DrNuke wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You would want to support your local communities / markets maybe, now risking to become invisible or outpowered? It is called biodiversity. Very sad and dangerous for evolution a fully Googled or a fully Amazoned or a whatever monopolised world. Also dangerous: fascism and communism are made of the same metal and come from monopoly of minds and costumes.

"You would want to support your local communities / markets maybe, now risking to become invisible or outpowered? " With Amazon, sure, there's a point, but that battle was lost 30 years ago with Wal-Mart when U.S. consumers decided they didn't give a shit about their local community, they wanted "low prices". Not everywhere, mind you. "Very sad and dangerous for evolution a fully Googled or a fully Amazoned or a what…

In principle we are going towards some sort of consolidation aka biodiversity annihilation worldwide, so that there will be 5-7 corporations / governments deciding for we all. It would be good if, say, they had a global superior mission (for example: space colonisation). It is not good if they only act for their own shareholders or bureaucrats (who are they? what they want from us if not enslavement and control?). You don't need fascism or communism in the given forms, it is the principle from which they arise that is emerging from these global consolidations again.

Re: Facebook, Amazon, Google, IBM and Microsoft Create Partnership on AI

#224

Post by sharemywin » Thu, Sep 29, 2016, 1:39 PM UTC

kbart wrote: post #155

madeofpalk wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both Google and Apple are extremely important, valuable companies that have had a very significant impact on the world and culture. Google created Google - they more or less are the internet (that and Facebook) for the world. To 'Google' something is a phrase that entered into the vocabulary a very long time ago. Both their enormous presence in Internet/search, plus more cultural things like Youtube makes it unable t…

"What would have actually happened if Apple didn't make the iPhone?" I bet that nothing much different, another company would have made one in 1-2 years timeframe. The idea of "hand phone-computer" was very old (decades in sci-fi and real products in nineties called "PDA"). It just happened that around the time when Apple made the first iPhone, tech was advanced and cheap enough for the mass market. To sum up, it was…

Blackberries predate iphone. But, you couldn't get one cheap with a phone contract. Also, it leveraged everyone's ipod song list. Not to mention the cool factor of the iphone.

Re: Facebook, Amazon, Google, IBM and Microsoft Create Partnership on AI

#225

Post by bbctol » Thu, Sep 29, 2016, 1:41 PM UTC

Taek wrote: post #169

itg wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good, there's enough fear mongering about it when we don't even know where to start when it comes to building an AGI.

There's a lot to be afraid of even if you don't believe that AGI is achieveable. For example, Google has openly talked about manipulating search results to steer potential ISIS recruits away from ISIS. That's a power that they are using without oversight, and who's to say that they aren't doing similar things to influence the outcome of the US national election (they have a vested interest in seeing Hillary win - Hil…

Google isn't "manipulating search results to steer people from ISI," nor have they suggested it. A bunch of advertisements were bought that would link ISIS keywords to videos of anti-ISIS propaganda. It's something anyone in or out of Google could do.

Re: Facebook, Amazon, Google, IBM and Microsoft Create Partnership on AI

#226

Post by JabavuAdams » Thu, Sep 29, 2016, 1:43 PM UTC

hueving wrote: post #54

JabavuAdams wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, the DeepMind people seem quite idealistic. Whether they can maintain that idealism in the face of corporate pressures is another story. The character of the founders and engineers matters. Would you rather have GAI developed by DeepMind / Google, or by Lockheed Martin?

Lockheed Martin, their revenue stream isn't based on mining your personal information and communications. With Google at the helm there is almost no chance this stuff won't be always executing on their servers rather than in your device alone.

The weapons industry is one of the dirtiest and most corrupt around. I'm having a hard time understanding how concerns about which server your AI is running on trump an industry that distorts politics, misappropriates public money, and contributes to the corruption of various regimes.

Re: Facebook, Amazon, Google, IBM and Microsoft Create Partnership on AI

#227

Post by bkjsbkjdnf » Thu, Sep 29, 2016, 1:45 PM UTC

parasubvert wrote: post #194

Taek wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Modern machine learning depends heavily on data. If you have 100x the data, your algorithm is going to outperform a superior algorithm in most cases, because the data is the source of the intelligence. It's a big, scary barrier for startups, for innovation, and we're running the risk of creating data superpowers that can't be competed with. Some algorithms don't perform well until they have a threshold of data. When…

"THERE IS NO OVERSIGHT!" Should there be? I'm not quite sure. I mean, personally I feel a lot safer managing my own data privacy with what I give these companies, rather than having a government do it for me. And I'm not exactly a libertarian, I just think it's rational that this should be decentralized, the risk of a company turning against "us" is a lot less than a government, given history. "I've switched away fro…

> I mean, personally I feel a lot safer managing my own data privacy with what I give these companies, rather than having a government do it for me

What a fallacious statement. How is government oversight of these companies going to prevent you from applying your own magical 'data privacy management' spells?

Re: Facebook, Amazon, Google, IBM and Microsoft Create Partnership on AI

#228

Post by sharemywin » Thu, Sep 29, 2016, 1:46 PM UTC

JamesBarney wrote: post #131

xenobioticants wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

'it really is a giant among giants.' You're confused. That would be Alphabet, not Apple. To put it in perspective for you, Google has: ~90% of the search market ( https://www.statista.com/statistics/216573/worldwide-market-... ) ~90% of the smartphone market ( https://techcrunch.com/2016/08/18/gartner-androids-smartphon... ) ~50% of the online advertisement market ( http://www.emarketer.com/Article/Google-Still-Domin…

I think of this as Google is great at creating value, and Apple is great at capturing value.

Google captures a lot of value in search ads.

Re: Facebook, Amazon, Google, IBM and Microsoft Create Partnership on AI

#229

Post by wu-ikkyu » Thu, Sep 29, 2016, 1:54 PM UTC

ptero wrote: post #207

thr0waway1239 wrote: post #138

I was starting to get worried about the data collection already happening individually at these big companies. Now that they have announced a partnership which potentially combines all this data together, I feel so much better! The funny thing is, the companies are ALWAYS going to put a positive spin on this. Not very different from the WhatsApp "we won't show ads, ever" messaging. Now I am in the camp which says "Fo…

They chose their initial partners somehow and did not include OpenAI. Maybe they thought this would make everything too transparent, maybe they see little financial benefits (those are private companies in general aiming to benefit shareholders), whatever. I see no problem with this. I wish OpenAI plays there eventually, but even now some of the partners go beyond what I would expect from a private company on fosteri…

Why does it matter whether it is a government agency that has those data sets versus a private corporation?

Re: Facebook, Amazon, Google, IBM and Microsoft Create Partnership on AI

#230

Post by parasubvert » Thu, Sep 29, 2016, 2:21 PM UTC

bkjsbkjdnf wrote: post #227

parasubvert wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"THERE IS NO OVERSIGHT!" Should there be? I'm not quite sure. I mean, personally I feel a lot safer managing my own data privacy with what I give these companies, rather than having a government do it for me. And I'm not exactly a libertarian, I just think it's rational that this should be decentralized, the risk of a company turning against "us" is a lot less than a government, given history. "I've switched away fro…

> I mean, personally I feel a lot safer managing my own data privacy with what I give these companies, rather than having a government do it for me What a fallacious statement. How is government oversight of these companies going to prevent you from applying your own magical 'data privacy management' spells?

"How is government oversight of these companies going to prevent you from applying your own magical 'data privacy management' spells?"

That depends on what is being overseen by the government.

I have no issue with EU-style or Canadian-style privacy regs for PII. I think that encourages local innovation by ensuring data can stay within a legal geographical territory.

Where I take issue is "AI is scary, please stop these companies from doing things" and by implication thinking that a government (a) is an organization I trust more than the company with what should be done with my data (a massive leap), or (b) provides value by preventing/limiting that organization from offering a services I want based on AI because non-customers somehow think it's scary or might lead to some nebulous monopoly power.

I'm not saying no government oversight is every warranted ever, I'm saying that there's a lot of fear-based desire in this thread for "government save us from Zuck!!" which isn't helpful when people don't even know what specific regulation they're looking for and what the systemic consequences of that would be.