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Everything Is Going Deep: ‘The Age of Surveillance Capitalism’

nytimes.com

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Re: Everything Is Going Deep: ‘The Age of Surveillance Capitalism’

#21

Post by mooreds »

randomacct3847 wrote: post #19

I’m most worried about the rise of Fintech apps enabled by APIs like Plaid. The media seems more worried about 10-year old Facebook likes being sold than a perpetual real time feed of bank transaction data ending up in the wrong hands or in the hands of a nefarious developer. For the record, I’m highly critical of Plaid and hope the tech media catches on soon. They do not require developers to communicate which permi…

> a perpetual real time feed of bank transaction data.

Jeez that does sound terrifying. I mean I guess that's already here in my credit cards databases, but at least (in the USA) I have some legal protections.

Re: Everything Is Going Deep: ‘The Age of Surveillance Capitalism’

#22

Post by xfitm3 »

randomacct3847 wrote: post #19

I’m most worried about the rise of Fintech apps enabled by APIs like Plaid. The media seems more worried about 10-year old Facebook likes being sold than a perpetual real time feed of bank transaction data ending up in the wrong hands or in the hands of a nefarious developer. For the record, I’m highly critical of Plaid and hope the tech media catches on soon. They do not require developers to communicate which permi…

Great point. I had a service like this setup that had a couple of my accounts - I forgot about it. Just turned it off.

Re: Everything Is Going Deep: ‘The Age of Surveillance Capitalism’

#23

Post by randomacct3847 »

xfitm3 wrote: post #22
randomacct3847 wrote: post #19

I’m most worried about the rise of Fintech apps enabled by APIs like Plaid. The media seems more worried about 10-year old Facebook likes being sold than a perpetual real time feed of bank transaction data ending up in the wrong hands or in the hands of a nefarious developer. For the record, I’m highly critical of Plaid and hope the tech media catches on soon. They do not require developers to communicate which permi…

Great point. I had a service like this setup that had a couple of my accounts - I forgot about it. Just turned it off.

Yes this is by far my greatest criticism of how bank APIs work today. I have no idea what third party developers might still have access to one or more accounts that I might’ve set up years ago and forgot about.

Re: Everything Is Going Deep: ‘The Age of Surveillance Capitalism’

#24

Post by WalterSear »

Novashi wrote: post #16
maxxxxx wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These systems will be the perfect "faceless bureaucracy". Nobody knows exactly why they are doing what they do and can't be held responsible but the people who deployed them will get the profits.

Until people figure out how to hack them for profit. An AI with permissions to spend money on the company's behalf is going to fuck up eventually (and eventually in a major way). Then it's back to human bureaucracy.

You make it sound like bureaucracies with permission to spend money don't fuck up all the time.

Re: Everything Is Going Deep: ‘The Age of Surveillance Capitalism’

#25

Post by Pharmakon »

mark_l_watson wrote: post #2

I manage a deep learning team but I have some reservations about the technology. IMO deep learning is best for optimizing back end systems and not good for systems that ‘touch’ people: deciding to loan money, automated sentencing of criminals, targeted marketing from personal information, etc. For me, the problems are lack of explainability and possible bias. There are many great applications for deep learning and AI…

Being able to shrug and say “the algorithm did it,” is almost certainly seen as a killer feature for any authoritarian, soulless megacorp and others. Instead of having to take responsibility for decisions, they just point at the box they programmed to act a certain way, and blame it. Unless a lot more people understand GIGO, this is going to stick around.

Re: Everything Is Going Deep: ‘The Age of Surveillance Capitalism’

#26

Post by mr_spothawk »

PanGalactic wrote: post #15

If you don't live in China, you can start by not carrying a smartphone around all the time and disabling javascript. Just saying...

on my mobile, i keep safari's JS turned off and always in incognito mode. when i need to (like right now, to comment) i use DuckDuckGo app, which requires a fingerprint to open, for sites that require JS (like linkedin), or when i want to login.

Re: Everything Is Going Deep: ‘The Age of Surveillance Capitalism’

#27

Post by radarsat1 »

The article makes me wonder if the author is aware of the technical meaning of "deep" in the context of the term "deep learning." Not that I disagree with the article, these things tend to take on a life of their own and that's just how it goes with language and culture.. but at least in the case of machine learning "deep" is not just an arbitrary terminology to sound fancy, but refers to a series of breakthroughs allowing incredible training performance on multi-layered neural networks; where "deep" specifically contrasts these results with prior state of the art in 3-layered networks. And presumably this use of the term is at the source of several of these other "hyped" uses of it, perhaps with the exception of "deep state", so it's frustrating to see it thrown into the same basket.

Re: Everything Is Going Deep: ‘The Age of Surveillance Capitalism’

#28

Post by _Schizotypy »

radarsat1 wrote: post #27

The article makes me wonder if the author is aware of the technical meaning of "deep" in the context of the term "deep learning." Not that I disagree with the article, these things tend to take on a life of their own and that's just how it goes with language and culture.. but at least in the case of machine learning "deep" is not just an arbitrary terminology to sound fancy, but refers to a series of breakthroughs al…

The word "deep" came way before deep learning, and can mean different things in different contexts

Re: Everything Is Going Deep: ‘The Age of Surveillance Capitalism’

#29

Post by maxxxxx »

Novashi wrote: post #16
maxxxxx wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These systems will be the perfect "faceless bureaucracy". Nobody knows exactly why they are doing what they do and can't be held responsible but the people who deployed them will get the profits.

Until people figure out how to hack them for profit. An AI with permissions to spend money on the company's behalf is going to fuck up eventually (and eventually in a major way). Then it's back to human bureaucracy.

Probably some will benefit but most people will have difficulty rectifying issues that aren't in their favor. Look at how difficult it can be to reopen a wrongfully closed PayPal account or just to get an explanation.

Re: Everything Is Going Deep: ‘The Age of Surveillance Capitalism’

#30

Post by maxxxxx »

Pharmakon wrote: post #25
mark_l_watson wrote: post #2

I manage a deep learning team but I have some reservations about the technology. IMO deep learning is best for optimizing back end systems and not good for systems that ‘touch’ people: deciding to loan money, automated sentencing of criminals, targeted marketing from personal information, etc. For me, the problems are lack of explainability and possible bias. There are many great applications for deep learning and AI…

Being able to shrug and say “the algorithm did it,” is almost certainly seen as a killer feature for any authoritarian, soulless megacorp and others. Instead of having to take responsibility for decisions, they just point at the box they programmed to act a certain way, and blame it. Unless a lot more people understand GIGO, this is going to stick around.

Right now the big guys can put the blame on their underlings but blaming it on machines will be even better.
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