Ask Microsoft: Are you using our personal data to train AI? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask Microsoft: Are you using our personal data to train AI?

#161

Post by bobbruno » Sun, Sep 03, 2023, 11:09 AM UTC

itsoktocry wrote: post #110

terminous wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For US companies registered in Delaware (which is most of them), the doctrine of shareholders primacy holds. Shareholders can and have sued corporate boards/execs for not acting in their best interest. It goes back to the 1910s when Henry Ford very loudly and explicitly announced he was cutting shareholder dividends to pay workers the famous $5/day wage (double what any other factory workers were paid), and minority…

> Shareholders can and have sued corporate boards/execs for not acting in their best interest. Translating "best interest" to "maximize profits" is the stretch though. The shareholders define what is their best interest. Shareholders aren't faceless demons. They are you and me.

In most cases, the ones who do sue are neither - they’re companies themselves, with shareholders of their own, or funds with specific regulations (which amount to much the same, if not more specifically profit-oriented).

These are not people, they don’t think morally the way people do. These are not demons, they are not evil themselves - these are more like machines, algorithms tuned to maximize profit. This structure is our paper-clip optimiser, already in place much before the AI revolution. If there is a devil, they are the ones behind setting up this entire system, not a player in it.

Re: Ask Microsoft: Are you using our personal data to train AI?

#162

Post by bobbruno » Sun, Sep 03, 2023, 12:26 PM UTC

vouaobrasil wrote: post #107

nologic01 wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

we are all cogs in the machine. maybe decades ago the stance of individuals could have made a difference but nowadays its clear that it no longer does. there is a collectively created monster that can only be tamed by something of equivalent and greater collective power: radical government regulation. The EU is doing its part. The US isnt. imho nothing was learned from the previous Microsoft monopoly era. Information…

I think personal action can still make a difference. What if we were to develop a coalition of people that believed in that, sort of like a union for a healthy society? The coalition would have a common set of standards and ethics, which would include the development of more community-based standards for technology. With such a coalition, we could create our own technology not in the hands of technology companies, an…

Isn’t the EFF that (or it’s intention,at least)?

Re: Ask Microsoft: Are you using our personal data to train AI?

#163

Post by CatWChainsaw » Sun, Sep 03, 2023, 12:54 PM UTC

executesorder66 wrote: post #104

Where are all the assholes who say things like: "I'm loving the new Microsoft", "Microsoft is not the evil company it was back in the 90's", etc. I'd love you hear how you justify this.

They're a little busy trying to shred their membership card of the Leopards Eating People's Faces Party.

Re: Ask Microsoft: Are you using our personal data to train AI?

#164

Post by starbugs » Mon, Sep 04, 2023, 7:42 AM UTC

newswasboring wrote: post #134

starbugs wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Come on. You know who the "shareholders" are that the parent commenter talks about. They are board members and people with a huge amount of shares, not "normal" people who hold 5 shares in their retirement portfolio. The main interest of a shareholder is return on investment. And that's fine. The problem is that if you don't have enough competing entities in a market, these shareholders of the few companies that stil…

> The main interest of a shareholder is return on investment. And that's fine. No, it's not fine. Legally, maybe, but not morally fine. I don't understand how everyone is ok with this system which seems to be selecting for the worst humans.

> No, it's not fine. Legally, maybe, but not morally fine. I don't understand how everyone is ok with this system which seems to be selecting for the worst humans.

Wait. If you invest your money into something, do you not expect a return?