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AI surveillance should be banned while there is still time

gabrielweinberg.com

81–90 of 236 posts

Re: AI surveillance should be banned while there is still time

#81
post #5

This is an argument against chatbots in general, not just surveillance.

Doesn't seem the case because they do end up advertising the duckduckgo chatbot as a safe alternative.

They mention that they're "demonstrating that privacy-respecting AI services are feasible", knowing their duck.ai is sending the prompts to other AI services, and then in the same paragraph they mention leaks and hacks.

To their credit, their privacy policy says they have agreements on how the upstream services can use that info[1]:

> As noted above, we call model providers on your behalf so your personal information (for example, IP address) is not exposed to them. In addition, we have agreements in place with all model providers that further limit how they can use data from these anonymous requests, including not using Prompts and Outputs to develop or improve their models, as well as deleting all information received once it is no longer necessary to provide Outputs (at most within 30 days, with limited exceptions for safety and legal compliance).

But even assuming the upstream services actually respect the agreement, their own privacy policy implies that your prompts and the responses could still be leaked because they could technically be stored for up to 30 days, or for an unspecified amount of time in the case of the exceptions mentioned.

I mean, it's reasonable and a good start to move in the direction of better privacy, way better than nothing. Just have to keep those details in mind.

[1]: https://duckduckgo.com/duckai/privacy-terms

Re: AI surveillance should be banned while there is still time

#83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While real nukes still work. What bad thing exactly happens if China wins? What does winning even mean? They can't invade because nukes. Can they manipulate elections? Yes, so we'll do the opposite of the great firewall and block them from the internet. Block their citizens from entering physically, too. We should be doing this anyway, given China is known to force them to spy for them.

If China gets to ASI first, the nukes won't matter.

"Don't worry, things will be good if the amoral megacorporations and ascendant fascist government in the US gets there first" is not my idea of a good time.

Re: AI surveillance should be banned while there is still time

#84

I expect we will continue to see the big AI companies pushing for privacy protections. Sam Altman made a comparison to attorney-client privilege in an interview. There is a significant hold out to using these things as fully trusted personal assistants or personal knowledge bases because of the lack of privacy. The only real solution is locally running models, but that goes against the business model. So instead they…

> but that goes against the business model. Not if you are selling hardware. If I was Apple, Dell, or Lenovo, I would be pushing for local running models supporting Hugging Face while I full speed developed systems that can do inference locally.

Why do that when openai might pay you billions to be the primary ai model on your system?

Re: AI surveillance should be banned while there is still time

#85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While real nukes still work. What bad thing exactly happens if China wins? What does winning even mean? They can't invade because nukes. Can they manipulate elections? Yes, so we'll do the opposite of the great firewall and block them from the internet. Block their citizens from entering physically, too. We should be doing this anyway, given China is known to force them to spy for them.

If China gets to ASI first, the nukes won't matter.

ASI doesn't change physics.

Perun has a very good explanation why defending against nukes is impossible to do economically compared to just having more nukes and mutually assured destruction: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpFhNXecrb4

Re: AI surveillance should be banned while there is still time

#86
post #53

This is a great point. Everyone who has talked with chatbots at all: please note that all contents of your past conversations with chatbots (that already exist now, and that you can't meaningfully delete!) could be used in the future to target ads to you, manipulate you financially and politically, and sell "personalized influence on you specifically" as a service to the highest bidder. Just wanted to make sure y'all…

Honestly, retargeting/personalized ads have never bothered me. If I'm gonna see ads anyway, I'd much rather get ads that might actually interest me, versus wildly irrelevant pharmaceutical drugs and other nonsense.

You get ads that actually interest you with targeted ads? You might be one of the only people with that experience. The whole meme with targeted ads is “I looked up toilet paper on Amazon once now I get ads for charmin all over the web”

Re: AI surveillance should be banned while there is still time

#87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ads won't be for the product which will bring you maximum value. They will be for the product that will bring the advertiser maximum profit (for example, by manipulating you into buying something overpriced). The products which are really good and cheap, giving all their surplus value to you and just a little bit to the maker, will lose the bidding for the ad slot.

Not necessary. If economies of scale exist, that means that a popular product is going to be inherently superior in terms of price or quality than an unpopular one. Companies that advertise effectively can offer a better product precisely because they advertise and have large market share. (Whether they do it or not is a question of market conditions, business strategy, public policy and ultimately their own decision…

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Re: AI surveillance should be banned while there is still time

#89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ads won't be for the product which will bring you maximum value. They will be for the product that will bring the advertiser maximum profit (for example, by manipulating you into buying something overpriced). The products which are really good and cheap, giving all their surplus value to you and just a little bit to the maker, will lose the bidding for the ad slot.

Not necessary. If economies of scale exist, that means that a popular product is going to be inherently superior in terms of price or quality than an unpopular one. Companies that advertise effectively can offer a better product precisely because they advertise and have large market share. (Whether they do it or not is a question of market conditions, business strategy, public policy and ultimately their own decision…

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Re: AI surveillance should be banned while there is still time

#90
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, retargeting/personalized ads have never bothered me. If I'm gonna see ads anyway, I'd much rather get ads that might actually interest me, versus wildly irrelevant pharmaceutical drugs and other nonsense.

You get ads that actually interest you with targeted ads? You might be one of the only people with that experience. The whole meme with targeted ads is “I looked up toilet paper on Amazon once now I get ads for charmin all over the web”

I stopped using TikTok and Instagram because I was impulse purchasing too much stupid crap from their advertisement. So there are at least two of us out there.
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