Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The World Will Be Our Skinner Box

thefrailestthing.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 82 posts

Re: The World Will Be Our Skinner Box

#61

Post by skybrian »

nafey wrote: post #59
skybrian wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a third party. Google/Amazon is providing the service.

What if you hire a maid for a day from a service, and you find out that they have been keeping tabs on your dietary habits and daily routine and reporting it back to their employer? That's closer to what Google is doing.

The speaker is just the user interface. You've effectively hired a large corporation to work in your house. Alexa doesn't work for Amazon, Alexa is Amazon.

Google at least makes this explicit with "Ok, Google".

Re: The World Will Be Our Skinner Box

#62

Post by api »

matt_kantor wrote: post #32
api wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The quantitative difference in spreading velocity and general bandwidth is so large it becomes qualitative and looks a lot like a phase change. We burned stuff long before modern steam turbines and internal combustion engines...

The same sort of thing could have been said (and was) when the telephone and printing press were invented, to pick just two examples.

It's been an ongoing process but there can be thresholds where phase shifts occur. We are experiencing an exponential rise in connectivity.

Re: The World Will Be Our Skinner Box

#63

Post by ozmbie »

mikestew wrote: post #31
narrator wrote: post #8

Kind of reminds me about how they say the highest level of automation of self-driving cars will be no steering wheel. Who decided that that was higher on the scale and a good thing? The "progress" defined here is complete control over all actions of individuals in society by an AI god. These scales by which progress toward the future is measured are a key ingredient of social engineering. One task that Free Software…

The "progress" defined here is complete control over all actions of individuals in society by an AI god. Umm, no, the "progress" is machines that I don't have to micro-manage anymore. Imagine an oven in your house that you had to constantly adjust to keep it at the desired temperature. No, that would be stupid, we've solved that problem decades ago. Now imagine a car that you had to control by hand with the necessary…

"Hey, oven, make your interior 425F so I can bake a pizza”

Oven: “Sorry mike. I can only go to 400F unless you upgrade your ovenware plan to $2.99 a month. Or use an ovenware family brand pizza! For every 3 ovenware brand pizzas you cook, you get a chance to win a free pie! Oh by the way on your trip to Dusty Springs tomorrow stop by Chad’s Bakery for their famous pies.”

Re: The World Will Be Our Skinner Box

#65

Post by AndrewKemendo »

core-questions wrote: post #43
mauld wrote: post #30

This is scary, but it is important we recognize that we can be controlled and have our behaviour modified by altering our environment - and that is can be a good things. Who hasn't delete Steam from their computer for a few weeks, thrown out junk food or set up a good workspace in order to promote a behavior in ourselves we want to cultivate, to be more like the person we want to be? The important thing is that in th…

The key thing to keep in mind here is incentives and motivation. You have a motivation toward self improvement, you make a change to your environment, monitor it, and see what happens. You want to increase your physical fitness, awareness, education, life position, finances, etc. and you make corresponding changes where you and yours are the primary beneficiaries. Google has a motivation to deliver value to their sha…

No, it doesn't have to be, but I have very little faith in Google to make any choices that even border on altruistic when it's far more profitable to exploit us.

I think there's a case to be made here that Google's motivations can mirror those of the users and that it's in Google's best long term interest for that to be the case.

It seems obvious to me that a company that can be aligned with their customer's desires will have the most longevity, which may mean forgoing temporary, short term revenue gains.

I'm not so naiive to think that it currently is the state of things, or that it's simple for this to be the case - quite the opposite. Rather, my point is that there is no law of economics that guarantees users and corporations must be in conflict or that corporations will always do better financially by exploiting users to the users' detriment (or that a competitor that does that will beat one that doesn't).

Re: The World Will Be Our Skinner Box

#66

Post by liftbigweights »

mauld wrote: post #30

This is scary, but it is important we recognize that we can be controlled and have our behaviour modified by altering our environment - and that is can be a good things. Who hasn't delete Steam from their computer for a few weeks, thrown out junk food or set up a good workspace in order to promote a behavior in ourselves we want to cultivate, to be more like the person we want to be? The important thing is that in th…

How come you wrote "behaviour" in the first sentence and "behavior" in the second sentence?

Re: The World Will Be Our Skinner Box

#67

Post by AndrewKemendo »

narrator wrote: post #8

Kind of reminds me about how they say the highest level of automation of self-driving cars will be no steering wheel. Who decided that that was higher on the scale and a good thing? The "progress" defined here is complete control over all actions of individuals in society by an AI god. These scales by which progress toward the future is measured are a key ingredient of social engineering. One task that Free Software…

The "progress" defined here is complete control over all actions of individuals in society by an AI god.

I know you're using hyperbole here, and many people will disagree with what I'm going to write next, but that's exactly what I think the long term goal of technology should be. Not just individuals but all of our systems as well.

Re: The World Will Be Our Skinner Box

#68

Post by pacala »

skybrian wrote: post #61
nafey wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if you hire a maid for a day from a service, and you find out that they have been keeping tabs on your dietary habits and daily routine and reporting it back to their employer? That's closer to what Google is doing.

The speaker is just the user interface. You've effectively hired a large corporation to work in your house. Alexa doesn't work for Amazon, Alexa is Amazon. Google at least makes this explicit with "Ok, Google".

Exactly. You've hired a monstrously large entity to snoop on all your activities. This is in no way equivalent to hiring a human person, which has orders of magnitude smaller information and economic footprint. An analogy that keeps things in proportion:

'You've effectively hired KGB/CIA to work in your house, the human assistant is just the interface'.

Re: The World Will Be Our Skinner Box

#69

Post by skybrian »

pacala wrote: post #68
skybrian wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The speaker is just the user interface. You've effectively hired a large corporation to work in your house. Alexa doesn't work for Amazon, Alexa is Amazon. Google at least makes this explicit with "Ok, Google".

Exactly. You've hired a monstrously large entity to snoop on all your activities. This is in no way equivalent to hiring a human person, which has orders of magnitude smaller information and economic footprint. An analogy that keeps things in proportion: 'You've effectively hired KGB/CIA to work in your house, the human assistant is just the interface'.

It's more like putting your money in a bank. Yes, anything you use the bank for, the bank knows; you don't expect a bank teller to keep anything secret from the rest of the bank. And yes, the government can find out your transactions with a warrant. Still, people do keep their money in banks.

Banks are more regulated than Internet companies, though, so maybe there is something to be done there.

Re: The World Will Be Our Skinner Box

#70

Post by PeterisP »

ryanwaggoner wrote: post #56
pacala wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the definition of a third party.

Who is the second party?

The digital "assistant". If we're using the analogy of assistants, then the same logic applies as with real assistants.

The device doing its job can have my information, but sending it back to the mothership, even if it's for the purposes of improving the service for such devices in general, then it's the equivalent of a real assistant babbling about my private stuff to their colleagues, which is immoral and a fireable offence.

Post reply on HN