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Slack AI Training with Customer Data

slack.com

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Re: Slack AI Training with Customer Data

#201

Post by hackernewds »

clwg wrote: post #138
koolba wrote: post #61

> We offer Customers a choice around these practices. If you want to exclude your Customer Data from helping train Slack global models, you can opt out. If you opt out, Customer Data on your workspace will only be used to improve the experience on your own workspace and you will still enjoy all of the benefits of our globally trained AI/ML models without contributing to the underlying models. Why would anyone not opt…

Because they don't seem to make it easy. It doesn't seem as a individual user I have any say in how my data is used, I have to contact the Workspace Owner. When I do I'll be asking them to look at alternative platforms instead. "Contact us to opt out. If you want to exclude your Customer Data from Slack global models, you can opt out. To opt out, please have your Org or Workspace Owners or Primary Owner contact our C…

You can always quit your job right? /s

Re: Slack AI Training with Customer Data

#202

Post by chefandy »

FuckButtons wrote: post #191
chefandy wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nah. Whoever decided to create the reality their counsel is dancing around with this disclaimer is the actual problem, though it's mostly a problem for us, rather than them.

It’s a problem for them if it looses customer trust / customers.

If it impacted their business significantly, it would restore some of the faith I've lost in humanity recently. Frankly, I'm not holding my breath.

Re: Slack AI Training with Customer Data

#203

Post by DougBTX »

afc wrote: post #147
zmmmmm wrote: post #43

> For any model that will be used broadly across all of our customers, we do not build or train these models in such a way that they could learn, memorise, or be able to reproduce some part of Customer Data This feels so full of subtle qualifiers and weasel words that it generates far more distrust than trust. It only refers to models used "broadly across all" customers - so if it's (a) not used "broadly" or (b) only…

Especially when a few paragraphs below they say: > If you want to exclude your Customer Data from helping train Slack global models, you can opt out. So Customer Data is not used to train models "used broadly across all of our customers [in such a way that ...]", but... it is used to help train global models. Uh.

To me it says that they _do_ train global models with customer data, but they are trying to ensure no data leakage (which will be hard, but maybe not impossible, if they are training with it).

The caveats are for “local” models, where you would want the model to be able to answer questions about discussions in the workspace.

It makes me wonder how they handle “private” chats, can they leak across a workspace?

Presumably they are trying to train a generic language model which has very low recall for facts in the training data, then using RAG across the chats that the logged on user can see to provide local content.

Re: Slack AI Training with Customer Data

#204

Post by zemo »

pyromaker wrote: post #59

>Our mission is to build a product that makes work life simpler, more pleasant and more productive. I know it would be impossible but I wish we go back to the days when we didn't have Slack (or tools alike). Our Slack is a cesspool of people complaining, talking behind other people's backs, echo chamber of negativity etc. That probably speaks more to the overall culture of the company, but Slack certainly doesn't hel…

HN isn't really a bastion of media literacy or tech criticism. If you ever ask "does [some technology] affect [something qualitative] about [anything]", the response on hn is always going to be "technology isn't responsible, it's how the technology is used that is responsible!", asserting, over and over again, that technology is always neutral.

The idea that the mechanism of how people communicate affects what people communicate is a pretty foundational concept in media studies (a topic which is generally met with a hostile audience on HN). Slack almost certainly does play a role, but people who work in technology are incentivized to believe that technology does not affect people's behaviors, because that belief allows people who work in technology to be free of any and all qualitative or moral judgements on any grounds; the assertion that technology does not play a role is something that technology workers cling to because it absolves them of all guilt in all situations, and makes them, above all else, innocent in every situation. On the specific concept of a medium of communication affecting what is being communicated, McLuhan took these ideas to such an extreme that it's almost ludicrous, but he still had some pretty interesting observations worth thinking on, and his writing on this topic is some of the earlier work. This is generally the place where people first look, because much of the other work assumes you've understood McLuhan's work in advance. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Understanding_Media

Re: Slack AI Training with Customer Data

#205

Post by patrickk »

__loam wrote: post #192
m463 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why would anyone not opt-out? This is basically like all privacy on the internet. Everyone WOULD opt-out, if it was easy, and it becomes a whack-a-optput game. note how you opt-out (generic contact us), and what happens when you do opt-out (they still train anyway)

Opt out should be the default by law

This is how GDPR works, explicit opt-in consent is needed from the customer.

https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/uk-gdpr-guidance-and-re...

Re: Slack AI Training with Customer Data

#206

Post by andy_ppp »

metadat wrote: post #190
Shadowmist wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’d be better off just not having chat than switching to Teams.

But the business will suffer by most likely being less successful due to less cohesive communication.. it's "The Ick" either way.

The idea that Slack makes companies work better needs some proof behind it, I’d say the amount of extra distraction is a net negative… but as with a lot of things in software and startups nobody researches anything and everyone writes long essays about how they feel things are.

Re: Slack AI Training with Customer Data

#207

Post by amne »

Shadowmist wrote: post #180
hackernewds wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are these kinda things opt-out? And need to be discovered.. We're literally discussing switching to Teams at my company (1500 employees)

You’d be better off just not having chat than switching to Teams.

we use Teams and it's fine.

Just don't use the "Team" feature of it to chat. Use chat groups and 1-to-1 of course. We use "Team" channels only for bots: CI results, alerts, things like that.

Meetings are also chat groups. We use the daily meeting as the dev-team chat itself so it's all there. Use Loops to track important tasks during the day.

I'm curious what's missing/broken in Teams that you would rather not have chat at all?

Re: Slack AI Training with Customer Data

#208

Post by M4v3R »

hackernewds wrote: post #160
afc wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Especially when a few paragraphs below they say: > If you want to exclude your Customer Data from helping train Slack global models, you can opt out. So Customer Data is not used to train models "used broadly across all of our customers [in such a way that ...]", but... it is used to help train global models. Uh.

Why are these kinda things opt-out? And need to be discovered.. We're literally discussing switching to Teams at my company (1500 employees)

If you switch to Teams only for this reason I have some bad news for you - there’s no way Microsoft is not (or will not start in future) doing the same. And you’ll get a subpar experience with that (which is an understatement).

Re: Slack AI Training with Customer Data

#209

Post by metadat »

andy_ppp wrote: post #206
metadat wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the business will suffer by most likely being less successful due to less cohesive communication.. it's "The Ick" either way.

The idea that Slack makes companies work better needs some proof behind it, I’d say the amount of extra distraction is a net negative… but as with a lot of things in software and startups nobody researches anything and everyone writes long essays about how they feel things are.

Good point, could be that it reduces friction too far in some instances. However, in general less communication doesn't seem better for the bottom line.
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