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I think there's an additional nuance, that of Google knowing everything about us. If I hacked together my own home automation AI system it would need to know ev

I think there's an additional nuance, that of Google knowing everything about us. If I hacked together my own home automation AI system it would need to know everything about me too and that worries me far less.

unprepare 10y ago
only if you hacked together your own search, maps, calendar, etc. as well. Maybe someday that will be a realistic endeavor, but it would take a lot of effort to set up and maintain your own personal versions of all of google's services, and integrate them
- nine_k 10y ago
  Hosting your own mail, calendar, cloud storage, and even a mapping application is quite doable right now. There are open-source projects for that, and you can have your own physically secured machine in a co-location facility for a reasonably small sum. It's just not easy to do, both in setup and maintenance effort. Most people would not care about their privacy nearly enough to justify that.
  - ocdtrekkie 10y ago
    My recommendation for people to look into here is Sandstorm.io. It runs either on-site or in the cloud, and it already can replace a lot of what one uses cloud services for. In time, hopefully open source projects will develop "intelligent" apps that can then tap into that data and do more with it, still within the confines of your secure, private storage.
- Malarkey73 10y ago
  I think it's possible to create a hybrid whereby your personal AI - has access to those external systems to check public (maps, search) and cloud data (calendar, mail). But it stores the private data about your location, your searches, your purchases. this could even be an encrypted private fire-walled bit of cloud rather than a robot in your house. The point being your AI is serving you. And you can delete/edit this private data (or even the whole AI) if you wish.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - nacnud 10y ago
    Your description sounds like a very intelligent cache/proxy. When my AI can talk directly to your AI, we can transfer mail etc without cloud services. If it knows our social network, perhaps it can remotely store encrypted backups of our data, but only with people who we already trust.
  - internaut 10y ago
    That is the whole point of Intelligent Agents. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligent_agent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligent_agent Perhaps using Urbit as the network architecture since it already has pki. As Yarvin calls it, true 'personal cloud computation'. Really it's the only sane way to live in the 21st century.
  - ocdtrekkie 10y ago
    This is spot on. I'm okay with having my home automation system tap a weather API to collect data. But I don't need an Internet service to know the thermostat settings in my house. I've designed my home automation system on the concept that the only route to the Internet is my computer (and therefore, my home automation software). My computer is a secure, well-managed intermediary that can store my data, and decide when and how to receive and send data to the Internet. The idea of dozens of Internet-connected devices in the home is :terrifying: in comparison, especially considering that badly-secured IoT devices are now powering some of the biggest botnets out there. My light switch, however, cannot talk to the Internet. It has local-only communication protocols that are simple. It knows how to be told to turn the lights on or off or dim or a handful of other settings, but it's literally incapable of doing anything else... and why would I want anything different? Why should my light switch have Bluetooth and Wi-Fi and software updates and a miniature flavor of Linux... It's a switch!
- fabrice_d 10y ago
  You don't have to develop, setup and maintain all that by yourself. What we need is a user friendly (dead easy install/setup, no administration) way to use alternatives to these services. Some of these services exist, some not, but it's a very achievable goal.
nine_k 10y ago
...until it's broken into. I suspect that chances of would-be burglars or identity thieves breaking into Google data are pretty slim, in comparison to a home-installed system. OTOH both Google and a private person can be strong-armed by a court order, or even a three-letter agency, to open up their AI knowledge vaults.
- arca_vorago 10y ago
  Im more worried about turn key totalitarian nation states having this info and then being able to walk the cat back.
  - jrowley 10y ago
    Exactly. For example, see the news yesterday with Yahoo. Imagine instead of just emails, it was all of the data about all of us.
- joncrocks 10y ago
  The difference is one of targeting. It's like saying "People would never break into a bank, when they could break into someone's house and steal their stuff" It may be easier to break into someone's home-brew system, but generally it would be unlikely to happen unless you were being otherwise targetted. Whereas google has a lot of users data, which could make it a more attractive target.
  - nine_k 10y ago
    Very much so! If you're a "person of interest", you'll be attacked either way. If you're just a regular person, like me, you won't likely be targeted. But my chances of getting a collateral damage are much higher in a centralized system: when it's broken into, my data have a chance of being siphoned off along with data of someone less ordinary, who was the target of the attack.
    - infogulch 10y ago
      It's wider than this. A "person of interest" will be attacked either way. A "normal boring person" won't be targeted directly, but may be swept up in an attack on a "person of interest". But there's a third case: "normal boring people" become interesting just by being together in a big group, even if no particular "person of interest" is among them.

unprepare 10y ago

only if you hacked together your own search, maps, calendar, etc. as well. Maybe someday that will be a realistic endeavor, but it would take a lot of effort to set up and maintain your own personal versions of all of google's services, and integrate them

nine_k 10y ago
Hosting your own mail, calendar, cloud storage, and even a mapping application is quite doable right now. There are open-source projects for that, and you can have your own physically secured machine in a co-location facility for a reasonably small sum. It's just not easy to do, both in setup and maintenance effort. Most people would not care about their privacy nearly enough to justify that.
- ocdtrekkie 10y ago
  My recommendation for people to look into here is Sandstorm.io. It runs either on-site or in the cloud, and it already can replace a lot of what one uses cloud services for. In time, hopefully open source projects will develop "intelligent" apps that can then tap into that data and do more with it, still within the confines of your secure, private storage.
Malarkey73 10y ago
I think it's possible to create a hybrid whereby your personal AI - has access to those external systems to check public (maps, search) and cloud data (calendar, mail). But it stores the private data about your location, your searches, your purchases. this could even be an encrypted private fire-walled bit of cloud rather than a robot in your house. The point being your AI is serving you. And you can delete/edit this private data (or even the whole AI) if you wish.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- nacnud 10y ago
  Your description sounds like a very intelligent cache/proxy. When my AI can talk directly to your AI, we can transfer mail etc without cloud services. If it knows our social network, perhaps it can remotely store encrypted backups of our data, but only with people who we already trust.
- internaut 10y ago
  That is the whole point of Intelligent Agents. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligent_agent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligent_agent Perhaps using Urbit as the network architecture since it already has pki. As Yarvin calls it, true 'personal cloud computation'. Really it's the only sane way to live in the 21st century.
- ocdtrekkie 10y ago
  This is spot on. I'm okay with having my home automation system tap a weather API to collect data. But I don't need an Internet service to know the thermostat settings in my house. I've designed my home automation system on the concept that the only route to the Internet is my computer (and therefore, my home automation software). My computer is a secure, well-managed intermediary that can store my data, and decide when and how to receive and send data to the Internet. The idea of dozens of Internet-connected devices in the home is :terrifying: in comparison, especially considering that badly-secured IoT devices are now powering some of the biggest botnets out there. My light switch, however, cannot talk to the Internet. It has local-only communication protocols that are simple. It knows how to be told to turn the lights on or off or dim or a handful of other settings, but it's literally incapable of doing anything else... and why would I want anything different? Why should my light switch have Bluetooth and Wi-Fi and software updates and a miniature flavor of Linux... It's a switch!
fabrice_d 10y ago
You don't have to develop, setup and maintain all that by yourself. What we need is a user friendly (dead easy install/setup, no administration) way to use alternatives to these services. Some of these services exist, some not, but it's a very achievable goal.

nine_k 10y ago

...until it's broken into. I suspect that chances of would-be burglars or identity thieves breaking into Google data are pretty slim, in comparison to a home-installed system. OTOH both Google and a private person can be strong-armed by a court order, or even a three-letter agency, to open up their AI knowledge vaults.

arca_vorago 10y ago
Im more worried about turn key totalitarian nation states having this info and then being able to walk the cat back.
- jrowley 10y ago
  Exactly. For example, see the news yesterday with Yahoo. Imagine instead of just emails, it was all of the data about all of us.
joncrocks 10y ago
The difference is one of targeting. It's like saying "People would never break into a bank, when they could break into someone's house and steal their stuff" It may be easier to break into someone's home-brew system, but generally it would be unlikely to happen unless you were being otherwise targetted. Whereas google has a lot of users data, which could make it a more attractive target.
- nine_k 10y ago
  Very much so! If you're a "person of interest", you'll be attacked either way. If you're just a regular person, like me, you won't likely be targeted. But my chances of getting a collateral damage are much higher in a centralized system: when it's broken into, my data have a chance of being siphoned off along with data of someone less ordinary, who was the target of the attack.
  - infogulch 10y ago
    It's wider than this. A "person of interest" will be attacked either way. A "normal boring person" won't be targeted directly, but may be swept up in an attack on a "person of interest". But there's a third case: "normal boring people" become interesting just by being together in a big group, even if no particular "person of interest" is among them.