Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Slack AI Training with Customer Data

slack.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

351–360 of 426 posts

Re: Slack AI Training with Customer Data

#351

Post by 8372049 »

chefandy wrote: post #161
Liquix wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

squarely in the former camp. there's something deeply abhorrent about creating a place that encourages people to share and build and collaborate, then turning around and using their creative output to put more money in shareholder pockets. i deleted my reddit and github accounts when they decided the millions of dollars per month they're receiving from their users wasn't enough. don't have the power to move our shop…

Yeah I haven't put a new codebease on GH in years. It's kind of a PITA hosting my own gitea server for personal projects but letting MS copy my work to help make my professional skillset less valuable is far less palatable. Companies doing this would make me much less angry if they used an opt-in model only for future data. I didn't have a crystal ball and I don't have a time machine, so I simply can't stop these com…

Why do you think it's a pain to host the Gitea?

Re: Slack AI Training with Customer Data

#352

Post by 8372049 »

musha68k wrote: post #250

This is as systemically concerning as the data practices seen on Discord with integrations like statbot.net, though at least Slack is being transparent about it. Regardless, I find all of this highly problematic.

Disord's TOS used to say "we may sell all your convos, including your private ones". Then some time later, they suddenly they changed it to noooo, we would never sell aaanything, and didn't even update the "last changed" date. I deleted my Discord account and stopped using them immediately after I noticed the TOS, but them sneakily trying to cover it up later completely ruined any lingering trust I might have had in them.

And this is just one of many, many problems associated with the platform.

Re: Slack AI Training with Customer Data

#353

Post by 8372049 »

noman-land wrote: post #84
matt3210 wrote: post #64

Consent should be opt-in not opt-out. Yes means yes!

Can we start going a step further by demanding that consent must be opt-in and not opt-out? Requesting isn't good enough.

GDPR got that covered, now it just needs to become global, and enforced.

Re: Slack AI Training with Customer Data

#354

Post by kepano »

lxgr wrote: post #348
kepano wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's exactly my point. "File over app"[1] is just as relevant for businesses as it is for individuals — if you don't want your data to be used for training, then take sovereignty of it. [1] https://stephango.com/file-over-app

"File over app" is a good way of putting it! Something strange is happening on your blog, fwiw: Bookmarking it via command + D flips the color scheme to "night mode" – is that intentional?

Ah good catch. Yes the "D" key can be used to switch light/dark mode, but I didn't account for the bookmark shortcut. That should be fixed now. Thanks!

Re: Slack AI Training with Customer Data

#357

Post by chefandy »

8372049 wrote: post #351
chefandy wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I haven't put a new codebease on GH in years. It's kind of a PITA hosting my own gitea server for personal projects but letting MS copy my work to help make my professional skillset less valuable is far less palatable. Companies doing this would make me much less angry if they used an opt-in model only for future data. I didn't have a crystal ball and I don't have a time machine, so I simply can't stop these com…

Why do you think it's a pain to host the Gitea?

Compared to hosting other things? Nothing! It's great.

Hosting my own service rather than using a free SaaS solution that is entirely someone else's problem? There's a significant difference there. I've been running Linux servers either professionally or personally for almost 25 years, so it's not like it's a giant problem... but my work has been increasingly non-technical over the past 5 years or so, so even minor hiccups require re-acclimating myself to the requisite constructs and tools (wait, how do cron time patterns work? How do I test a variable in bash for this one-liner? How do iptables rules work again?)

It's not a deal breaker, but given the context, it's definitely not not a pain in the ass, either.

Re: Slack AI Training with Customer Data

#358

Post by 8338550bff96 »

tifik wrote: post #228
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…

Whats baffling to me is why companies think that when they slap AI on the press release, their customers will suddenly be perfectly fine with them scraping and monetizing all of their data on an industrial scale, without even asking for permission. In a paid service. Where the service is private communication.

I am not pro-exploiting users' ignorance for their data, but I would counter this with the observation that slapping AI on product suddenly makes people care about the fact that companies are monetizing on their usage data.

Monetizing on user activity data through opt-out collection is not new. Pretending that his phenomenon has anything to do with AI seems like a play for attention that exploits peoples AI fears.

I'll sandwich my comments with a reminder that I am not pro-exploiting users' ignorance for their data.

Re: Slack AI Training with Customer Data

#359

Post by bayindirh »

hackernewds wrote: post #200
__loam wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Opt out should be the default by law

so upgrades and customer approves everything? slippery slope to over regulation

I’d take over regulation every day over unabashed user abuse in the name of free markets.

Re: Slack AI Training with Customer Data

#360

Post by laurex »

We will only see more of this as time goes on and there’s so little impetus for companies to do anything that respects privacy when this data is power and freely accessible by virtue of owning the servers. If you haven’t read Technofuedalism, the to;dr is that what we once saw as tools for our entertainment or convenience now own our inputs and use us as free labour, and operate at scales where we have little to no power to protect our interests. For a quick summary: https://www.wired.com/story/yanis-varoufakis-technofeudalism...
Post reply on HN