Live data from Hacker News

Apple is struggling to become an AI powerhouse

washingtonpost.com

61–70 of 267 posts

Re: Apple is struggling to become an AI powerhouse

#61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you elaborate on Android's weaknesses when it comes to privacy and contrast this with Apple's approach? Asking genuinely to update my understanding.

The glib response is to point out the difference between Apple's and Google's business models. Apple makes money by selling devices, Google sells ads (i.e. sells their customers' data to advertisers).

>(i.e. sells their customers' data to advertisers)

They take the ads, and distribute them to their users based on user taste that's their secret sauce. Giving user data to advertisers would be giving away their secrets I think.

Re: Apple is struggling to become an AI powerhouse

#62
post #51

I am an Apple fanboy but I am also a privacy fanboy. As AI, IoT, and consumer tracking continue to invade our daily lives I think Apple will continue to do quite well if they maintain there pro-privacy heading. Privacy is a feature, it's something people want, and unfortunately its becoming a luxury. That is something that attracts Apple's customers.

I'm one of the few in the "tech world" that isn't so much pro-privacy. Google can read my email, Apple can track my movements, my Amazon Echo can even listen in when it wants. The end result is a huge benefit to me. How is any AI supposed to know what I want, if I try to be an anonymous user? I prefer targeted ads. I prefer submitting my information to "robots" in the hopes that my user experience is tailored to what…

The problem is not the utility these services provide -- which I agree scales with the amount of data you can give them! -- but rather the use of this private information in a number of ways (legal or not) that provide no benefit to the user, and in fact can be considered downright dangerous to the user.

This, I believe, opens the door for a company like Apple or otherwise to create a machine learning company with security at the forefront -- in essence, what if these useful machine learning models you use everyday were able to be locked down, so the personal data used by the model was only viewable by you, and NOT an employee of the machine learning company who produces said model?

(EDIT: A few word choice changes)

Re: Apple is struggling to become an AI powerhouse

#64
Honest question: in the context of the realistic range of consumer AI applications in 2017, what are some meaningful shortcomings Apple products have? And do those shortcomings have any interest to the majority of consumers (and not say, to developers or analysts)?

Re: Apple is struggling to become an AI powerhouse

#65
post #51

I am an Apple fanboy but I am also a privacy fanboy. As AI, IoT, and consumer tracking continue to invade our daily lives I think Apple will continue to do quite well if they maintain there pro-privacy heading. Privacy is a feature, it's something people want, and unfortunately its becoming a luxury. That is something that attracts Apple's customers.

I'm one of the few in the "tech world" that isn't so much pro-privacy. Google can read my email, Apple can track my movements, my Amazon Echo can even listen in when it wants. The end result is a huge benefit to me. How is any AI supposed to know what I want, if I try to be an anonymous user? I prefer targeted ads. I prefer submitting my information to "robots" in the hopes that my user experience is tailored to what…

> "Alexa, play me that song I like. And while you're at it, order me a case of my favorite beer. Thanks."

The problem is that nerds are allergic to advertising because they are allergic to "being sold to" because they (well, we) like to think we're above such petty foolishness.

As such we are not the customer. Therefore nobody cares what we think.

And privacy will go away.

The problem with this is, what happens if privacy goes away too much and somebody abuses it? What happens when a malevolent dictator takes over and oh hey look at all these devices so conveniently set up to spy on all the people. How wonderful. What if a benevolent dictator takes over but their idea of good doesn't align with your idea of good? What if somebody decides that oh hey, drunkness is a problem, people do terrible things when they're drunk, let's round up everyone who buys more than 3 sixpacks of beer per week and put them in a holding facility and fix them.

You know all those futuristic utopia movies that turn out to be a distopia under the hood? We're living in one of those. The question you're answering is whether you're inside the utopia or outside. Those of us who embrace the lack of privacy and being sold to, we're on the inside. Those like Stallman are outside.

Re: Apple is struggling to become an AI powerhouse

#66
post #51

I am an Apple fanboy but I am also a privacy fanboy. As AI, IoT, and consumer tracking continue to invade our daily lives I think Apple will continue to do quite well if they maintain there pro-privacy heading. Privacy is a feature, it's something people want, and unfortunately its becoming a luxury. That is something that attracts Apple's customers.

I'm one of the few in the "tech world" that isn't so much pro-privacy. Google can read my email, Apple can track my movements, my Amazon Echo can even listen in when it wants. The end result is a huge benefit to me. How is any AI supposed to know what I want, if I try to be an anonymous user? I prefer targeted ads. I prefer submitting my information to "robots" in the hopes that my user experience is tailored to what…

You are making two assumptions that aren't necessarily true. First, you're assuming that you have control over what kind of information is being collected and shared, and you're assuming it's always good for you.

Here's a fairly innocent scenario: if Amazon Echo can learn everything about you, they may discover that you're crazy about Paris and you have good income. Then they can sell this info to every travel website who'll put you into a pricing bucket which would guarantee that you'll overpay for your next trip.

But generally speaking, we take advantage of information asymmetry all the time: buying real estate, getting a new job, planning a vacation, etc. Sometimes you have the leverage, sometimes you don't. With massive information gathering by a handful of big players you'll most likely end up on the losing side in the future, especially when dealing with businesses/governments who can afford to buy a profile on you before engaging. Imagine if your religious beliefs and either you voted for Trump were available to anyone via an API call which takes your face image as the input and costs $0.02 to make.

Re: Apple is struggling to become an AI powerhouse

#67
post #51

I am an Apple fanboy but I am also a privacy fanboy. As AI, IoT, and consumer tracking continue to invade our daily lives I think Apple will continue to do quite well if they maintain there pro-privacy heading. Privacy is a feature, it's something people want, and unfortunately its becoming a luxury. That is something that attracts Apple's customers.

I'm one of the few in the "tech world" that isn't so much pro-privacy. Google can read my email, Apple can track my movements, my Amazon Echo can even listen in when it wants. The end result is a huge benefit to me. How is any AI supposed to know what I want, if I try to be an anonymous user? I prefer targeted ads. I prefer submitting my information to "robots" in the hopes that my user experience is tailored to what…

Perhaps you have nothing to hide, but other people do. The danger in your accepting these "robots" as they are is that those other people might end up not having a say in the matter.

Re: Apple is struggling to become an AI powerhouse

#68
Collecting location data, visited URLs and phone books is absolutely not required to make speech recognition. You don't have to learn computer vision algorithms on people's private photos: you can use public photos instead. Even "context based computing" does not seem to work better if data from all users is put into single database. Why "AI" and surveillance are usually treated as related?

Most creepy forms of surveillance are used for ads (but I'm not sure if it even works, I always see completely irrelevant ads) and Apple is not advertising company.

Re: Apple is struggling to become an AI powerhouse

#70
post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Apps like Lyft, Yelp and Uber already know where you are so you can't use those. Only when you use them. You can either not install them at all (problem solved). or only allow them to "know your location" when you explicitly launch them and only for the duration of you actively using them on screen (problem lessened).

I don't know if they've fixed this, or if was just me not working the phone right, but Disney's park maps kept tracking when the app was closed.

From the "Privacy and Your Apps" presentation on Tuesday at WWDC:

> in iOS 11, users will be able to choose the “when in use” option at all times [when asked for permission to use their location]

Post reply on HN