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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’

#31

Post by chobeat »

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…

I worked on card transaction data (from Mastercard) in streaming 5 years ago. It's as shitty and invasive as a group of soulless bank BI can make it. Their detachment from the human damage they were creating and the way they basked in their own smartness was scary and disgusting.

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

#32

Post by chobeat »

nabla9 wrote: post #8

Shoshana Zuboff is one of those people that make me upset when I discover them. Why didn't I hear about them and their books books much earlier? Is it only because she is not marketing her books well enough? The Age of the Smart Machine (1988) is truly visionary and well written. edit: I'm currently reading The Age of Surveillance Capitalism. The book has well developed concepts like 'behavioral surplus and 'instrume…

This kind of books go through different channels than the ones that are followed by the engineers. Engineers pick up this stuff when it ends up in the mainstream but they don't really participate that much in the tech critique world.

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

#33

Post by samstave »

I posed the following to @Dang a few days ago with respect to what one would possibly think is, at minimum, as responsibility of YC (and the greater VC/SV population) to acknowledge -- though I don't see this happening any time soon:

----

[How can we] Find a way to have a serious objective talk with the greater community on the extraordinarily global reaching issues of the impact of Silicon Valley on society, community, culture as a whole.

Look at what we have to just emerge in the last 1.5 decades alone from "unicorns" in silicon valley:

* US policy seemingly being set/disrupted via twitter

* Mental health studies coming out on the negative impact of Facebook

* Election manipulation through ad-powered platforms such as Google and FB

* Massive cultural dialogue and political revolutions being fueled through twitter

* Assassinations being corroborated through Apple an watch

* Global spying and surveillance conducted through all our connected technology

Just to name a few of the globally impactful issues of our day which directly stem from the efforts of Silicon Valley in specific and the tech industry in general.

As the preeminent VC company in the minds of any young entrepreneur who wants to build the Next Big Thing, I would pose that YC actually has a social responsibility to, at a minimum, foster a conversation on these issues in a meaningful, serious and deep manner.

What are the consequences of MASSIVE success of a company?

----

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

#34

Post by baxtr »

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…

I think you have captured the essence of it. What I wonder though: have systems before been without bias? Is the DL/ML bias worse than the one we had before?

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

#35

Post by 0xADEADBEE »

mr_custard wrote: post #17
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...

At least use the NoScript plugin and opt-in to only the JS you need.

I ditched NoScript when I realised that it wasn't blocking inline JS. I landed on uBlock with Advanced Mode, which allows quick toggling of inline, 1st-3rd party and a few other things. uMatrix deserves an honourable mention also; it's been illuminating to see the sheer scale of trackers that are loaded on certain pages.

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

#36

Post by 0xADEADBEE »

nabla9 wrote: post #8

Shoshana Zuboff is one of those people that make me upset when I discover them. Why didn't I hear about them and their books books much earlier? Is it only because she is not marketing her books well enough? The Age of the Smart Machine (1988) is truly visionary and well written. edit: I'm currently reading The Age of Surveillance Capitalism. The book has well developed concepts like 'behavioral surplus and 'instrume…

Just ordered The Age of Surveillance Capitalism based on your appraisal. Thank you.

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

#37

Post by iamnafets »

baxtr wrote: post #34
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…

I think you have captured the essence of it. What I wonder though: have systems before been without bias? Is the DL/ML bias worse than the one we had before?

For ML systems, it's an engineering mistake to deploy a complex model when you don't have a simpler baseline (e.g. does this outperform a basic n-gram model?). Similarly, it's a strategic mistake to deploy a deep learning model without assessing the baseline of human performance (including bias).

I see the problem of inexplicability as less salient than (1) responsible, informed deployments of models, and (2) ongoing measurement (especially against a human baseline).

You can deploy explainable models without (1) and (2) and end up with a much, much worse result.

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

#38

Post by anigbrowl »

nabla9 wrote: post #12
cranky_coder wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does “the next Deep State” even mean? What do the words “deep state” even mean in this context?

It means state within a state. Origin of the term is in 1990s Turkey. Military, police and justice system were upholding national interests and acting independently from the government. Deep State is a form of clandestine government made up of hidden or covert networks of power operating independently of a nation's political leadership, in pursuit of their own agenda and goals.

upholding national interests

'national interest' seems like a highly moveable feast.

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

#40

Post by KineticLensman »

nabla9 wrote: post #8

Shoshana Zuboff is one of those people that make me upset when I discover them. Why didn't I hear about them and their books books much earlier? Is it only because she is not marketing her books well enough? The Age of the Smart Machine (1988) is truly visionary and well written. edit: I'm currently reading The Age of Surveillance Capitalism. The book has well developed concepts like 'behavioral surplus and 'instrume…

I've also just started reading 'The Age of Surveillance Capitalism'.

Some of my colleagues at work use the term 'digital native' to refer to (young) people who have grown up with ubiquitous computing. Next time someone says that, I should now perhaps say "oh, you mean, the wage slaves of the surveillance capitalists".

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