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Europe is in danger of regulating its tech market out of existence

foreignpolicy.com

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Re: Europe is in danger of regulating its tech market out of existence

#701

Post by scarface_74 »

TimeBearingDown wrote: post #688
scarface_74 wrote: post #601

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Web apps have ways to track users, but users have ways to mitigate this via adblockers and privacy features in their browser. https://coveryourtracks.eff.org/ exists to help users check their own browser fingerprint. Full apps on the other hand have many more ways to fingerprint users which aren’t as well known, such as “your free storage, your current volume level (to 3 decimal points) and even your battery level (t…

There is also a battery status API for web apps

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Battery_Sta...

Web audio api

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Web_Audio_A...

Re: Europe is in danger of regulating its tech market out of existence

#702

Post by remram »

xvector wrote: post #695
remram wrote: post #691

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We can't regulate social networks or ban AI because of heart transplants?

[flagged]

I don't know how you jump from "innovation doesn't happen in a vacuum" to "we will never innovate again if we regulate social network use by teens".

Re: Europe is in danger of regulating its tech market out of existence

#703

Post by shermantanktop »

bamboozled wrote: post #303
shermantanktop wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are they separable? Teens in particular appear to be bad for each other's mental health. Connectivity increases that effect, anonymity makes it worse, likes and other status features makes it worse still. Not sure where you draw a line between not quite bad enough and too bad.

It doesn’t help there are algorithms designed to keep them looking at things that aren’t great for them to be looking at though does it. Can you provide an example in the past wheee this has existed before outside of big tech ?

I wasn’t arguing that this was just as bad before. It’s clearly all made worse and accelerated by social media calling engagement and ad dollars above all.

Historically the victims of contagion have been oldsters in a moral panic. This time I think it is actually true - there’s a mind virus loose.

Re: Europe is in danger of regulating its tech market out of existence

#704

Post by vrighter »

no_wizard wrote: post #690
simonh wrote: post #683

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s no exemption from prosecution for racial bias because it was done by an algorithm. If a company uses such an algorithm, AI or not, they will be open to prosecution for it.

The differential nugget is that LLMs and similar tech are auditable. You can audit the models, test for bias etc in a way that scales.

how do you audit the loaded die at the end of all llms?

Re: Europe is in danger of regulating its tech market out of existence

#705

Post by FredPret »

pembrook wrote: post #692
_nalply wrote: post #662

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You used the term "highest level of disposable income in the world". Sorry to be so blunt, but it's not helpful if you look only at the average. A better metric would be the median because it is well known that the super rich distort the disposable income in some countries (the US, but also some European countries). I see in plutocraticish environments the rich and powerful sometimes very deftfully prevent measures i…

Not sure if you checked the link, Wikipedia has both Mean equivalised and Median equivalised charts. Americans rank #1 on both mean and median. So the point about the super rich distorting the mean is irrelevant. > But somehow it is just easier to live as a poorish person in many European countries. Perception and narratives are not reality. In fact, typically in economic matters it takes almost a decade for the publ…

The other thing is - though US median performance is high and average performance is much higher - it's not just a couple of billionaires pulling up that average.

It's millionaires - tens of millions of them.

There's something special about a system that can create so many extremely successful people.

Re: Europe is in danger of regulating its tech market out of existence

#708

Post by Moldoteck »

LtWorf wrote: post #674
Moldoteck wrote: post #473

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not a slight exaggeration, it's a huge exaggeration to try to make your point valid.

Try to find a job as a software developer in europe in a company with more than 50 developers that isn't foreign owned.

How would this change what I've said and you've said? Instead of providing real stats you just throw random affirmations and expect people to believe them

Re: Europe is in danger of regulating its tech market out of existence

#709

Post by Anamon »

yalok wrote: post #326

One of the clearest examples of this to me is the requirement to show consent to store cookies. This just simply ruined web surfing experience, where now every site has to show a popup of all kinds of shapes and forms. Why not let the users decide in whole-sale, if they wish? like with this extension - https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/accept-all-cookies/...

AFAIK there is no general requirement to ask for consent. For example, to store session tokens or language preferences. A lot of sites probably wouldn't have to show cookie consent prompts, if they don't share profiling data with third parties or do other shady stuff, but still show them because they're afraid of doing it wrong or because everybody else seems to be doing it. It's been a while since I read the text of the law, but I remember thinking that the line from which consent was required seemed reasonably drawn and that websites who cross it are right to be forced to declare what exactly they do. There was a post about this recently, titled something like "there is no cookie banner law".

An option for a general setting may be nice. I personally approximate it by only accepting cookies from whitelisted domains, and using ad blocking filter lists to hide cookie consent prompts.

Re: Europe is in danger of regulating its tech market out of existence

#710

Post by surgical_fire »

xvector wrote: post #694
surgical_fire wrote: post #677

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> innovation Target Advertisement? Gig Economy? Er... We have different ideas of what innovation is desirable, maybe.

How many gig workers have you actually talked to? Most massively prefer it over what they had before.

Quite a few actually.

And, no. Most I spoke to certainly did not prefer it.

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