7 ms·

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

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 applications like usenet or email involved downloading everything first before using it. Online applications were hardly even dreamed of. Our expectations of how "Star Trek AI" would actually be implemented were completely different than how highly connected cloud-based services like Google Assistant work today. Anyway, the point being, if the assistant lived entirely in your own computer, it would entirely different. Most people are not concerned about what their "computer" knows about them, they're concerned about what companies and their employees do.

joe563323 10y ago
Nailed it.
buckbova 10y ago
> The idea that your own data would be stored online was almost unimaginable Except that's what I did for many years using a computer only as a terminal for an AIX mainframe. My mail was there, I browsed what was the web, used gopher, wrote programs, all stored there.
sangnoir 10y ago
> Our expectations of how "Star Trek AI" would actually be implemented were completely different than how highly connected cloud-based services like Google Assistant work today. The trope-namer (Star Trek AI) was a ship-wide AI - when considering the ship sizes, it definitely is closer to the "cloud" model and not limited to a private instances on officers' bunker/bridge terminals/tricorders. Perhaps a hardcore Trekkie could answer this question: is there any canon that defines the AIs scope? Is restricted to just one ship, or could it possible be a Federation-wide presence with a presence/instances on ships?
- unprepare 10y ago
  I never got the feeling that there was a lot of mistrust of other federation people. for example, the Star Trek universe didnt seem like a universe where you had to shop around for a trustworthy mechanic, who wouldnt overcharge or over diagnose. (e.g. headlight fluid) Maybe the implicit trust of other people was integral to the AI being successful in that universe.
- CaptSpify 10y ago
  Even then, IIRC, it was limited to the ship(s). If you didn't want the ship to follow you, you could simply avoid entering the ship. We're starting to lose that ability now.
- pixelbath 10y ago
  It's definitely a per-ship thing, because there are several episodes where they have to down/upload updated data to/from the Federation (at least in TNG canon). I also think the comparison isn't perfect, because Federation vessels (in my mind) are similar to today's Navy vessels. All onboard systems are connected to other onboard, but opsec demands the ship systems not be influenced by external actors.
  - ocdtrekkie 10y ago
    And a big point is that on a Navy-analogous vessel, it's reasonable to assume most activity on the ship is being monitored, for the safety of the ship and crew. The fact that the ship knows where everyone aboard is or that they can pull up the full Starfleet record for anyone who's ever been in Starfleet is not surprising, this is the military* and records and accountability are a big deal. But there's nothing to indicate that Federation civilians are monitored to that extent, and I'd argue enough episodes are strong on fundamental individual rights, that it's hard to imagine Federation life for civilians being a surveillance state. * Don't start that argument. Seriously.
    - dragonwriter 10y ago
      > But there's nothing to indicate that Federation civilians are monitored to that extent The clearest example of extensive off-starship monitoring (within the Federation) that I can think of in TNG is a civilian (though, to be fair, a civilian in a role analogous to a "defense contractor"), Dr. Leah Brahms. > I'd argue enough episodes are strong on fundamental individual rights, that it's hard to imagine Federation life for civilians being a surveillance state. Actually, I'd say that its quite plausible that the Federation is a "benevolent surveillance state", that is, one with pervasive monitoring but a very low incidence of "serious" abuse (that is, the kind that substantially limits practical liberty -- casual intrusions on privacy may be more common.) While the Federation seems keen on "fundamental individual rights", it doesn't seem to exactly mirror, say, some modern views on what those rights are -- and not just in terms of privacy.
pmyjavec 10y ago
This is a great point, people didn't imagine a world where we became the product.
- marak830 10y ago
  This right here. When I first heard about android, I imagined an open system I could tinker with like I can on my PC. Instead I get the current evolution. I want a 3rd party. The same thing comes to my every day of usage, I'm still on win 7, and short of leaving Linux(yes I should have already), I can't upgrade without becoming a product. I want what we all imagined and dreamt of, and I pay for it. What I won't do, is become a product. Instead I'm stuck with multiple fake accounts on Gmail, using a pseudonym on everything(including programming contract sites such as upwork), just to keep some semi iota of privacy, and to enjoy the benefits of what we all want. Imho we need a new major party to emerge, that will charge an initial fee(like windows 7), and let us do what we want with those services(with caveats of course). But I fear we won't get that anymore.
  - marak830 10y ago
    Learning* not leaving Linux. Too late to edit. Damn you fat thumbs.
    - AidanRB 10y ago
      That explains my confusion. It's not that complicated. Use a common distro like Ubuntu and everything's documented online.
      - marak830 10y ago
        I keep meaning to learnt it, and try it. But my main coding(admittedly amateur and earning very little) uses .net. on top of that most of the games I play to relax are Windows does only(as far as I know for most). O keep meaning to make time, but it just hasn't happened yet. I don't get paid as a programmer (English teacher), so I need to spend my free time earning money on what I know. As always, one day when I have money to spare(or time, which is basically the same thing haha).
bhauer 10y ago
I feel your message is the most important in this thread because it's the crux of the whole concern about privacy and the cloud. Where technology has failed us most is in the utterly stagnant evolution and maturation of secure private networks. The following is a utopian notion, but had private networks seen as much R&D as the public clouds, they would be significantly less cumbersome than today's clunky VPNs. Imagine all of your devices collaborate directly with one another and with you on your own secure private network—no central cloud servers needed. Your personal assistant is software running on a computer you own rather than a third-party's centralized server. I still feel this ideal will eventually be realized, but for the time being, no large technology company is willing to take the necessary risks to buck the trend of centralization. The biggest fiction propped by up centralization and cloud proponents is that it would be impossible to provide the kind of utility seen in Cortana, Siri, Google Assistant, Alexa, et al without a big public cloud. A modern desktop computer has ample computational capability to convert voice to text, parse various phrases, manage a calendar, and look up restaurants on Yelp. Absolutely nothing the public clouds provide strikes me as something my own computer would struggle to do (to be clear, I would expect a local agent would be able to reach out to third-party sites such as Yelp or Amazon at your command in order to execute your desires, but they would do so directly, not via an intermediary). A few years back, when Microsoft was at the beginning of its Nadella renaissance, I had hoped it would be the first technology titan to disintermediate the cloud and make approachable and easily-managed personal private networks a thing. Microsoft's legacy of focusing on desktop computers would have made it well-situated to reaffirm your home computer as an important fixture in your multi-device life. They could have co-opted Sun's old bad tagline: "Your network is your computer." But they elected to just follow the now-conventional public cloud model, reducing everyone's quite-powerful home computer to yet another terminal of centralized cloud services. Disappointing, but I think it is ultimately their loss. I suspect a lot of money is on the table for someone to realize a coherent easy-to-use multi-device private network model that respects consumer privacy by executing its principal computation within the network.
- eli_gottlieb 10y ago
  >Where technology has failed us most is in the utterly stagnant evolution and maturation of secure private networks. Not just secure private networks, but secure and programmable personal computing in general. The amount that I can actually do with my workstation PCs, let alone laptops or mobile phones, is now thoroughly restricted compared to problems that require a full-scale datacenter. I originally enjoyed computing because, so to speak, it was an opportunity to own and craft my own tools, rather than being forced into the role of consuming someone else's pre-prepared product. Now we're being boxed into the consumer role in computing, too.
MildlySerious 10y ago
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.

joe563323 10y ago

Nailed it.

buckbova 10y ago

> The idea that your own data would be stored online was almost unimaginable Except that's what I did for many years using a computer only as a terminal for an AIX mainframe. My mail was there, I browsed what was the web, used gopher, wrote programs, all stored there.

sangnoir 10y ago

> Our expectations of how "Star Trek AI" would actually be implemented were completely different than how highly connected cloud-based services like Google Assistant work today. The trope-namer (Star Trek AI) was a ship-wide AI - when considering the ship sizes, it definitely is closer to the "cloud" model and not limited to a private instances on officers' bunker/bridge terminals/tricorders. Perhaps a hardcore Trekkie could answer this question: is there any canon that defines the AIs scope? Is restricted to just one ship, or could it possible be a Federation-wide presence with a presence/instances on ships?

unprepare 10y ago
I never got the feeling that there was a lot of mistrust of other federation people. for example, the Star Trek universe didnt seem like a universe where you had to shop around for a trustworthy mechanic, who wouldnt overcharge or over diagnose. (e.g. headlight fluid) Maybe the implicit trust of other people was integral to the AI being successful in that universe.
CaptSpify 10y ago
Even then, IIRC, it was limited to the ship(s). If you didn't want the ship to follow you, you could simply avoid entering the ship. We're starting to lose that ability now.
pixelbath 10y ago
It's definitely a per-ship thing, because there are several episodes where they have to down/upload updated data to/from the Federation (at least in TNG canon). I also think the comparison isn't perfect, because Federation vessels (in my mind) are similar to today's Navy vessels. All onboard systems are connected to other onboard, but opsec demands the ship systems not be influenced by external actors.
- ocdtrekkie 10y ago
  And a big point is that on a Navy-analogous vessel, it's reasonable to assume most activity on the ship is being monitored, for the safety of the ship and crew. The fact that the ship knows where everyone aboard is or that they can pull up the full Starfleet record for anyone who's ever been in Starfleet is not surprising, this is the military* and records and accountability are a big deal. But there's nothing to indicate that Federation civilians are monitored to that extent, and I'd argue enough episodes are strong on fundamental individual rights, that it's hard to imagine Federation life for civilians being a surveillance state. * Don't start that argument. Seriously.
  - dragonwriter 10y ago
    > But there's nothing to indicate that Federation civilians are monitored to that extent The clearest example of extensive off-starship monitoring (within the Federation) that I can think of in TNG is a civilian (though, to be fair, a civilian in a role analogous to a "defense contractor"), Dr. Leah Brahms. > I'd argue enough episodes are strong on fundamental individual rights, that it's hard to imagine Federation life for civilians being a surveillance state. Actually, I'd say that its quite plausible that the Federation is a "benevolent surveillance state", that is, one with pervasive monitoring but a very low incidence of "serious" abuse (that is, the kind that substantially limits practical liberty -- casual intrusions on privacy may be more common.) While the Federation seems keen on "fundamental individual rights", it doesn't seem to exactly mirror, say, some modern views on what those rights are -- and not just in terms of privacy.

pmyjavec 10y ago

This is a great point, people didn't imagine a world where we became the product.

marak830 10y ago
This right here. When I first heard about android, I imagined an open system I could tinker with like I can on my PC. Instead I get the current evolution. I want a 3rd party. The same thing comes to my every day of usage, I'm still on win 7, and short of leaving Linux(yes I should have already), I can't upgrade without becoming a product. I want what we all imagined and dreamt of, and I pay for it. What I won't do, is become a product. Instead I'm stuck with multiple fake accounts on Gmail, using a pseudonym on everything(including programming contract sites such as upwork), just to keep some semi iota of privacy, and to enjoy the benefits of what we all want. Imho we need a new major party to emerge, that will charge an initial fee(like windows 7), and let us do what we want with those services(with caveats of course). But I fear we won't get that anymore.
- marak830 10y ago
  Learning* not leaving Linux. Too late to edit. Damn you fat thumbs.
  - AidanRB 10y ago
    That explains my confusion. It's not that complicated. Use a common distro like Ubuntu and everything's documented online.
    - marak830 10y ago
      I keep meaning to learnt it, and try it. But my main coding(admittedly amateur and earning very little) uses .net. on top of that most of the games I play to relax are Windows does only(as far as I know for most). O keep meaning to make time, but it just hasn't happened yet. I don't get paid as a programmer (English teacher), so I need to spend my free time earning money on what I know. As always, one day when I have money to spare(or time, which is basically the same thing haha).

bhauer 10y ago

I feel your message is the most important in this thread because it's the crux of the whole concern about privacy and the cloud. Where technology has failed us most is in the utterly stagnant evolution and maturation of secure private networks. The following is a utopian notion, but had private networks seen as much R&D as the public clouds, they would be significantly less cumbersome than today's clunky VPNs. Imagine all of your devices collaborate directly with one another and with you on your own secure private network—no central cloud servers needed. Your personal assistant is software running on a computer you own rather than a third-party's centralized server. I still feel this ideal will eventually be realized, but for the time being, no large technology company is willing to take the necessary risks to buck the trend of centralization. The biggest fiction propped by up centralization and cloud proponents is that it would be impossible to provide the kind of utility seen in Cortana, Siri, Google Assistant, Alexa, et al without a big public cloud. A modern desktop computer has ample computational capability to convert voice to text, parse various phrases, manage a calendar, and look up restaurants on Yelp. Absolutely nothing the public clouds provide strikes me as something my own computer would struggle to do (to be clear, I would expect a local agent would be able to reach out to third-party sites such as Yelp or Amazon at your command in order to execute your desires, but they would do so directly, not via an intermediary). A few years back, when Microsoft was at the beginning of its Nadella renaissance, I had hoped it would be the first technology titan to disintermediate the cloud and make approachable and easily-managed personal private networks a thing. Microsoft's legacy of focusing on desktop computers would have made it well-situated to reaffirm your home computer as an important fixture in your multi-device life. They could have co-opted Sun's old bad tagline: "Your network is your computer." But they elected to just follow the now-conventional public cloud model, reducing everyone's quite-powerful home computer to yet another terminal of centralized cloud services. Disappointing, but I think it is ultimately their loss. I suspect a lot of money is on the table for someone to realize a coherent easy-to-use multi-device private network model that respects consumer privacy by executing its principal computation within the network.

eli_gottlieb 10y ago
>Where technology has failed us most is in the utterly stagnant evolution and maturation of secure private networks. Not just secure private networks, but secure and programmable personal computing in general. The amount that I can actually do with my workstation PCs, let alone laptops or mobile phones, is now thoroughly restricted compared to problems that require a full-scale datacenter. I originally enjoyed computing because, so to speak, it was an opportunity to own and craft my own tools, rather than being forced into the role of consuming someone else's pre-prepared product. Now we're being boxed into the consumer role in computing, too.

MildlySerious 10y ago

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.