Not OK, Google • Hacker News Board

Re: Not OK, Google

#361

Post by CaptSpify » Wed, Oct 05, 2016, 5:53 PM UTC

zardeh wrote: post #193

falcolas wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But why is this a bad thing? Do you trust every single person at Google, and every single person at every third party company Google shares your data with, now and in perpetuity, to never abuse the data collected on you? Personally, my circle of trust is not that large. Totalitarian Surveillance is here. In the west. Secure document releases aside, it's too easy to do to imagine a state actor not doing it. Data bre…

>Do you trust every single person at Google, and every single person at every third party company Google shares your data with, now and in perpetuity, to never abuse the data collected on you? Personally, my circle of trust is not that large. (Have worked at google in the past, may in the future, am not currently). You say this as though anyone at Google (or Microsoft or whatever) can go in and search for 'falcolas'…

Maybe today, but what about tomorrow?

Even if Google is perfectly secure from bad-actors today, they might not be tomorrow. And if they themselves suddenly switch to being a bad-actor, they aren't going to throw all that data away and start from scratch first.

Re: Not OK, Google

#362

Post by HillaryBriss » Wed, Oct 05, 2016, 5:55 PM UTC

piyush_soni wrote: post #173

a_lifters_life wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, how do we know they haven't?

We don't know for sure if they are violating their privacy policies. But as I said, if they are doing it, and it comes out by any means, it will be the dead end of their business. So it's in their best interest to not to do that and only improve upon users' trust. So yes, there's certain level of trust I put into them, just like the trust I put into big food product companies that they'd respect the ingredients list,…

> if they are doing it ... it will be the dead end of their business.

I wish I could share your confidence about that. It seems to me we've seen corporate data leaks, deceptive practices, huge hack attacks, etc and all that happens is the corporations get a temporary PR black eye -- and then spring back into action as powerfully as before.

In the case of Google, if it came out that, say, Russian hackers had breached a bunch of gmail accounts, how many customers would just up and walk away from Google? And what company could even come close to filling the void to replace google for all of us consumers?

Like I say, I wanna believe what you believe. But it just doesn't seem like that's what happens in the real marketplace.

Re: Not OK, Google

#363

Post by MildlySerious » Wed, Oct 05, 2016, 5:55 PM UTC

pimlottc wrote: post #152

TulliusCicero wrote: post #4

What I think is interesting is that many of us nerds have probably innocuously fantasized about having a Star Trek-like AI assistant with us, but now that they're taking the first steps towards that, we're starting to realize that in order for it to do everything for us, it has to know everything about us, too.

Nobody was thinking about "the cloud" back in those days. Back then, your data, you programs all lived and ran on your own computer in your home. Most people didn't go online, and if you did, it was mostly to read and download data to use locally on your own computer. Connections were intermittent and slow. The idea that your own data would be stored online was almost unimaginable; even using network-depending applic…

On top of that, the cloud we have now is commercialized, opaque and constantly under pressure to comply with a government that many distrust, for what I would say very good reasons.

I would like to say that the cloud we have is a privacy concern because we don't know the full scope of data collected, nor what happens to it, nor do we own any of "our" data once it's in the cloud. But not every cloud would have to be that.

There's a perfect world where one wouldn't have to be paranoid about this stuff, but it's not what we have right now.

Re: Not OK, Google

#364

Post by mziel » Wed, Oct 05, 2016, 5:56 PM UTC

mason55 wrote: post #338

jeffdavis wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's one of the interesting things about AI. There's no way to clairfy/correct when something is wrong, and most of the time you don't even know something is wrong. It's not clear whether these AI models have much incentive to correct anything. If 99% of people with attributes x,y and z are bad candidates for a job, will you even get an interview? Is there any attempt to account for the fact that attribute x is som…

There are all kinds of interesting thought experiments. What happens when a classifier innocently discovers that the best classification is by race? Do we care? How about if we remove race but it happens to discover that four features which are very strongly correlated to race are the best way to classify?

There are ways to account for that. A model can be fit to race, and then you only predict "on top" of race (meaning residuals). You use that model, which is independent of race.

Re: Not OK, Google

#365

Post by xanderstrike » Wed, Oct 05, 2016, 5:57 PM UTC

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #333

Ph0X wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry but that just sounds like blind fear mongering. What you're saying is vague and doesn't really mean much. It's like saying we shouldn't use prescription glasses, or medication, or cars, because it's not "us". Humans invent all these tools and systems to improve and optimize our life. Make our vision better. Make our health better. Make us move around faster. In the case of AI, make us do perform certain thi…

>In the case of AI, make us do perform certain things more efficiently. What does the Google Assistant help me do more efficiently? In all honesty, I can't figure it out. I don't need or want a secretary, and I can do written planning for myself. I need less paperwork and fewer web forms and identities, but the Google Assistant only promises more of that crap. I'm never buying one. It's a sacrifice of privacy for zer…

If you can't come up with uses for it, you weren't its target audience in the first place.

Re: Not OK, Google

#366

Post by eli_gottlieb » Wed, Oct 05, 2016, 5:58 PM UTC

xanderstrike wrote: post #365

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>In the case of AI, make us do perform certain things more efficiently. What does the Google Assistant help me do more efficiently? In all honesty, I can't figure it out. I don't need or want a secretary, and I can do written planning for myself. I need less paperwork and fewer web forms and identities, but the Google Assistant only promises more of that crap. I'm never buying one. It's a sacrifice of privacy for zer…

If you can't come up with uses for it, you weren't its target audience in the first place.

Sure, but then I'm not sure anyone I know is the target audience. Not that many people really need or want personal secretaries in the first place, let alone want to make financial and privacy sacrifices so they can have a mentally retarded AI pseudo-secretary.

Most people get through their daily lives just fine on their own.

Re: Not OK, Google

#367

Post by Nano2rad » Wed, Oct 05, 2016, 6:02 PM UTC

It is wrong even to ask us permission to let Google and also Apple monitor microphone all the time. If that becomes norm, there has to be hardware switch to disable microphone.

Re: Not OK, Google

#368

Post by ocdtrekkie » Wed, Oct 05, 2016, 6:03 PM UTC

CapitalistCartr wrote: post #136

ubercore wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, and to illustrate your point, I have an email very similar to someone else's. I very frequently get their emails (invoices, church events, travel itineraries, purchase receipts). Google thinks they're _my_ trips, and updates me about flight times. I think this example serves both our points. To your point, it's totally leaked this other person's info into my "google world" because I'm on gmail. On the other han…

I have a fairly uncommon name and predominately use Gmail. Still, I receive a surprising amount of other people's mail in error. Apparently lots of people guess at email addys. I do often wonder at both the lack of privacy this engenders and what the Goog machine must make of it all.

I just got a funny email last week... welcoming me to the NRA. I was like... but I didn't join the NRA. I sent them an email about it, but I'm probably going to have to CALL the NRA to tell them to remove my address from their database.

Re: Not OK, Google

#369

Post by ianai » Wed, Oct 05, 2016, 6:03 PM UTC

ht85 wrote: post #341

ianai wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the twilight zone taught me anything, it's that humanity will always have a rebel. If you make life so safe and easy that free will is no longer necessary someone will demand free will.

We might get to the point where society is so safe and easy that insurance company start selling "Risks and Uncertainty" packages.

That reminds me of the TNG episode where two sides of a war long ago switched to simulating attacks. When there's a strike the casualties are required to report to termination "centers" to comply with the simulation.

Re: Not OK, Google

#370

Post by ocdtrekkie » Wed, Oct 05, 2016, 6:05 PM UTC

programmer_man wrote: post #143

wj wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you visit a place of business you are potentially under surveillance. I'm sure there is a distinction but I'm failing to come up with it right now. I was somewhat radical about privacy in the late 90s (only person I knew that read every EULA) and am still a supporter of the EFF but I don't really understand the issue here.

The distinction is that when you visit a place of business, the data is under the control of the business owner. When you visit you friend's house, the data is not under their control, it is under Google's control. Therefore, Google has a WAY bigger responsibility than most people realize, once they decided to collect this data.

Perhaps people should be required to post a notice on their front door if their house has a Google surveillance device in it (or I suppose, verbally inform every visitor). It's common (and often required) for businesses to post notice that people on the premises are under video surveillance.

I have a couple of cameras, and at least one visitor has been uncomfortable with their presence, despite the fact they're not sending the data to a third party.