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I'm one of the few in the "tech world" that isn't so much pro-privacy. Google can read my email, Apple can track my movements, my Amazon Echo can even listen in

I'm one of the few in the "tech world" that isn't so much pro-privacy. Google can read my email, Apple can track my movements, my Amazon Echo can even listen in when it wants. The end result is a huge benefit to me. How is any AI supposed to know what I want, if I try to be an anonymous user? I prefer targeted ads. I prefer submitting my information to "robots" in the hopes that my user experience is tailored to what I want. I see all of these articles on HN on how to break free from Google or some other eco-system because they're "evil." I dunno, I guess I don't have a CIA-level job that most of these commenters have where they need to be off the grid. "Alexa, play me that song I like. And while you're at it, order me a case of my favorite beer. Thanks."

Barrin92 9y ago
I see it this way too. For way too many people privacy seems to have turned into a kind of religious end in and of itself. I think evaluating privacy in real, material terms as in ("what actually happens to me if I gave up my privacy here, and what do I get?") makes more sense than treating it as quasi sacred.
- PatentTroll 9y ago
  What if you found out today that your neighbors have been watching you undress for the past year? In material terms, nothing has changed and there is no material harm to you, but knowledge of that level of intrusive exposure without consent is something most people object to.
  - Barrin92 9y ago
    I genuinely don't really care about things like this. I mean sure It'd be a little odd if my neighbour would stare at me but I generally don't mind, as you said no harm done
- giobox 9y ago
  In countries that are signatories to the ECHR (European Convention on Human Rights) it is _sacred_, given it enshrines a right to privacy in Article 8 for some 800 million people. The Court is pretty judicially active in enforcing the rule as well, even in member states that have governments with crappy human rights records like Russia. America and a few others are arguably outliers in the western world for failing to recognize privacy, and the right to private family life, as a fundamental right in some form of constitutional legislation.
marviel 9y ago
The problem is not the utility these services provide -- which I agree scales with the amount of data you can give them! -- but rather the use of this private information in a number of ways (legal or not) that provide no benefit to the user, and in fact can be considered downright dangerous to the user. This, I believe, opens the door for a company like Apple or otherwise to create a machine learning company with security at the forefront -- in essence, what if these useful machine learning models you use everyday were able to be locked down, so the personal data used by the model was only viewable by you, and NOT an employee of the machine learning company who produces said model? (EDIT: A few word choice changes)
Swizec 9y ago
> "Alexa, play me that song I like. And while you're at it, order me a case of my favorite beer. Thanks." The problem is that nerds are allergic to advertising because they are allergic to "being sold to" because they (well, we) like to think we're above such petty foolishness. As such we are not the customer. Therefore nobody cares what we think. And privacy will go away. The problem with this is, what happens if privacy goes away too much and somebody abuses it? What happens when a malevolent dictator takes over and oh hey look at all these devices so conveniently set up to spy on all the people. How wonderful. What if a benevolent dictator takes over but their idea of good doesn't align with your idea of good? What if somebody decides that oh hey, drunkness is a problem, people do terrible things when they're drunk, let's round up everyone who buys more than 3 sixpacks of beer per week and put them in a holding facility and fix them. You know all those futuristic utopia movies that turn out to be a distopia under the hood? We're living in one of those. The question you're answering is whether you're inside the utopia or outside. Those of us who embrace the lack of privacy and being sold to, we're on the inside. Those like Stallman are outside.
- baddox 9y ago
  Who says that aversion to ads has something to do with believing I'm above being sold to? That sounds like nonsense. The reason I don't want to see ads is that they tend to be obnoxious and distracting, some actively disrupt the content I'm intent on viewing (interstitials, TV commercials, preroll video ads), and many end up serving malware. It would be ludicrous to claim that I'm above being sold to. I'm not even sure what that would mean.
old-gregg 9y ago
You are making two assumptions that aren't necessarily true. First, you're assuming that you have control over what kind of information is being collected and shared, and you're assuming it's always good for you. Here's a fairly innocent scenario: if Amazon Echo can learn everything about you, they may discover that you're crazy about Paris and you have good income. Then they can sell this info to every travel website who'll put you into a pricing bucket which would guarantee that you'll overpay for your next trip. But generally speaking, we take advantage of information asymmetry all the time: buying real estate, getting a new job, planning a vacation, etc. Sometimes you have the leverage, sometimes you don't. With massive information gathering by a handful of big players you'll most likely end up on the losing side in the future, especially when dealing with businesses/governments who can afford to buy a profile on you before engaging. Imagine if your religious beliefs and either you voted for Trump were available to anyone via an API call which takes your face image as the input and costs $0.02 to make.
- baddox 9y ago
  If you have knowledge and control over who gets your information and how they use, well that's effectively the definition of good privacy.
  - abritinthebay 9y ago
    But you don't. You have only control over the former. History has shown us time and time again you don't have control over the latter.
    - CaptSpify 9y ago
      How do you have control over the former? Data is being gleamed about you even if you aren't using their products, and it's being used by companies you haven't authorized all the time.
      - derialstrazus 9y ago
        Our legal structure needs to catch up and punish companies who use data that we did not authorize. Data should be seen as personal property.
tricolon 9y ago
Perhaps you have nothing to hide, but other people do. The danger in your accepting these "robots" as they are is that those other people might end up not having a say in the matter.
LA_Banker 9y ago
I'm ceaselessly amused by the folks fearing Amazon Echos or Google Homes as though they're constantly listening microphones sent to the NSA. As though we don't already carry devices on our person everywhere we go that have mics (smartphones). Also, while we trade our privacy to Google (or Amazon, or whomever) in exchange for customization and convenience (a social contract I'm generally happy to sign off on), those companies have even more incentive to keep our data safe. Google is one of the most valuable companies in the world precisely because it, and only it, has the AdSense knowledge (and whatever other knowledge Google collects about me) to target me. Insurance companies go to Google and say "show our ads to people Googling insurance companies" – that's how Google makes money. It's not as though Google says "here you go State Farm, here's everyone who's been looking up car insurance." It's business model is based on proprietary customer knowledge. It can't give away this data; it's incentivized to limit it to its own ad-targeting tech. Are there still problems with this model? Sure. If the government decides to subpoena Google on me, they'll turn over my Gmail. But is it a hell of a lot easier getting access to Google services (e.g. Google Maps knowing where I generally go and what the traffic is like) versus using, say, Duck Duck Go on a VPN (let alone Tor or Tails)? For me, and I'd assume most people, yes. EDIT: I would also point out that we've long been facing the privacy vs. convenience issue. It used to be that merely signing up for a landline meant getting your phone # listed in the White Pages. Paying utility bills makes your name and home address a matter of public record (unless you choose to shield them via owning and paying through a corporate shell). Ditto real estate transactions involving your name/address. All public records, unless you choose to hire attorneys to setup shell corps for the sake of privacy. Not so expensive to do this now in the age of LegalZoom, etc., but this used to cost quite the pretty penny. This debate is nothing new; it's merely evolving.
- tanilama 9y ago
  Prepare to be downvoted to death, but I think some people just want attention and feel important by crying doom.
- CaptSpify 9y ago
  > those companies have even more incentive to keep our data safe. Then why aren't they doing it, and why aren't they informing us when breaches happen? I absolutely think providing that data should be voluntary. If you want to send it to them, go ahead! But in many ways it's not. I can't remove my data from those companies, nor can I control what they do with it, and that's a serious problem.
specialist 9y ago
I'm unclear why I must forfeit my right to privacy because others (you) think it's a non-issue. Because you haven't defined privacy: The ability to control what is publicly known about oneself. I'd also add the ability to assess what is known about oneself. You also ignore identity vis a vis privacy. A completely transparent world (a la Brin) has made identity theft a booming industry. Lastly, everyone ignores property rights. I am my data, my data is me (see identity above). At the very least, if someone is making a buck at my expense, I want my cut.
s73ver 9y ago
Except Apple shows that you don't have to sacrifice privacy. Just about all of their ML stuff happens on the device. So you can have things that are quite similar to what Google gives you, without giving up that privacy.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- markeroon 9y ago
  You gotta train on something though
Retra 9y ago
"Who you are" is not simply a function of what you want. And really, Alexa is not really that much more powerful by knowing what your favorite beer is; you already know that information. Until you consider Alexa to be an actual friend, any personal details about you that it keeps are marginally useless if it cannot function autonomously - by ordering your favorite beer without even asking. This is not an 'intelligent' behavior, it's just maintaining a list of preferences. To be honest, it sounds like you are conflating voice commands with AI proper. You can certainly have one without the other, and the former seems to be the thing you're valuing here. I'm all for the concept of powerful AIs that know everything about me - so long as they know me as an actual person to care about rather than merely as a consumer to squeeze money out of. Which means understanding my boundaries and knowing what I consider offensive and acceptable behaviors. What we have today are AIs that only learn about you what they find useful to their owners, not what I find useful for them to know.
matt_wulfeck 9y ago
Providing AI while respecting privacy is a difficult problem but it must be done. Apple has even published a white paper describing how they'll do it[1]. We should not have to sacrifice privacy for usability. There's a reasonable tradeoff and I believe Apple is doing the right approach. 1. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.recode.net/platform/amp/2016/6/13/11925660/apple-differential-privacy https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.recode.net/platform/amp/201...
Nition 9y ago
> How is any AI supposed to know what I want, if I try to be an anonymous user? Store the data locally?
beachbum8029 9y ago
How much do they pay you?
PopsiclePete 9y ago
I'm also not so hung up on privacy. Think about the massive data gathering we could do in the medical field for example, to test the effectiveness of drugs and treatments if you could wear a "smart" bracelet that put its data in the cloud - how many more diseases could we cure? Not that I'd feel comfortable sharing my back account # with you...
- y_u_no_rust 9y ago
  Will any data i upload be paid for with shares in the companies using my work/information?
bcoughlan 9y ago
"Alexa, play me that song I like. And while you're at it, order me a case of my favorite beer. Thanks." Wow, now I'll never have to leave my chair!
kraig911 9y ago
20 years from now you'll still be hearing the same songs and you'll still be drinking the same beer then. You'll be left to an echo-chamber of things that are similar but not different. If you're perfectly comfortable with that now amount of me trying to provide a counter-argument will do. I however think being left to my own devices without things being curated from past perspective is more enriching.
newscracker 9y ago
> I see all of these articles on HN on how to break free from Google or some other eco-system because they're "evil." I dunno, I guess I don't have a CIA-level job that most of these commenters have where they need to be off the grid. As a highly pro-privacy person, I find it ridiculous when people build up arguments like "I guess I don't have a (sic) CIA- level job that most of these commenters have...". Seriously, privacy is not just about you or me! It's about every human in this world, and the balance of power between layperson/citizen and state/corporation. Without protections like privacy (which is one among many), we'd never enjoy all the freedoms we take for granted every single moment. I'd strongly recommend reading this short and succinct article titled "Privacy protects the bothersome" [1] by Martin Fowler. [1]: https://www.martinfowler.com/articles/bothersome-privacy.html https://www.martinfowler.com/articles/bothersome-privacy.htm...
fivestar 9y ago
It's always that way--the surveillance state grows up around you, all the while ensuring you that no harm will come to you as long as you don't resist or subvert. But here's the thing about that: At some point, if we end up in a tyranny, your acquiescence and silence won't protect you. You will be targeted, perhaps randomly, perhaps by a neighbor with some petty vendetta. The point is, you have no idea what devils you are playing with. The Germans happily murdered the elderly, the retarded, homosexuals, gypsies, on and on. None of those people were actively fighting the regime, they were just simply useless eaters who got in the way. The same story has played out dozens of times in history. Stalin, Pol Pot--tyrants kill for irrational reasons.
codeisawesome 9y ago
I used to feel incredibly frustrated at not being able to respond to this with words, based off of what I feel. This was until I read this post: https://medium.com/@FabioAEsteves/i-have-nothing-to-hide-why-should-i-care-about-my-privacy-f488281b8f1d https://medium.com/@FabioAEsteves/i-have-nothing-to-hide-why... - which almost perfectly encapsulates the emotion - "I have nothing to hide, Why should I care about my privacy?"

Barrin92 9y ago

I see it this way too. For way too many people privacy seems to have turned into a kind of religious end in and of itself. I think evaluating privacy in real, material terms as in ("what actually happens to me if I gave up my privacy here, and what do I get?") makes more sense than treating it as quasi sacred.

PatentTroll 9y ago
What if you found out today that your neighbors have been watching you undress for the past year? In material terms, nothing has changed and there is no material harm to you, but knowledge of that level of intrusive exposure without consent is something most people object to.
- Barrin92 9y ago
  I genuinely don't really care about things like this. I mean sure It'd be a little odd if my neighbour would stare at me but I generally don't mind, as you said no harm done
giobox 9y ago
In countries that are signatories to the ECHR (European Convention on Human Rights) it is _sacred_, given it enshrines a right to privacy in Article 8 for some 800 million people. The Court is pretty judicially active in enforcing the rule as well, even in member states that have governments with crappy human rights records like Russia. America and a few others are arguably outliers in the western world for failing to recognize privacy, and the right to private family life, as a fundamental right in some form of constitutional legislation.

marviel 9y ago

The problem is not the utility these services provide -- which I agree scales with the amount of data you can give them! -- but rather the use of this private information in a number of ways (legal or not) that provide no benefit to the user, and in fact can be considered downright dangerous to the user. This, I believe, opens the door for a company like Apple or otherwise to create a machine learning company with security at the forefront -- in essence, what if these useful machine learning models you use everyday were able to be locked down, so the personal data used by the model was only viewable by you, and NOT an employee of the machine learning company who produces said model? (EDIT: A few word choice changes)

Swizec 9y ago

> "Alexa, play me that song I like. And while you're at it, order me a case of my favorite beer. Thanks." The problem is that nerds are allergic to advertising because they are allergic to "being sold to" because they (well, we) like to think we're above such petty foolishness. As such we are not the customer. Therefore nobody cares what we think. And privacy will go away. The problem with this is, what happens if privacy goes away too much and somebody abuses it? What happens when a malevolent dictator takes over and oh hey look at all these devices so conveniently set up to spy on all the people. How wonderful. What if a benevolent dictator takes over but their idea of good doesn't align with your idea of good? What if somebody decides that oh hey, drunkness is a problem, people do terrible things when they're drunk, let's round up everyone who buys more than 3 sixpacks of beer per week and put them in a holding facility and fix them. You know all those futuristic utopia movies that turn out to be a distopia under the hood? We're living in one of those. The question you're answering is whether you're inside the utopia or outside. Those of us who embrace the lack of privacy and being sold to, we're on the inside. Those like Stallman are outside.

baddox 9y ago
Who says that aversion to ads has something to do with believing I'm above being sold to? That sounds like nonsense. The reason I don't want to see ads is that they tend to be obnoxious and distracting, some actively disrupt the content I'm intent on viewing (interstitials, TV commercials, preroll video ads), and many end up serving malware. It would be ludicrous to claim that I'm above being sold to. I'm not even sure what that would mean.

old-gregg 9y ago

You are making two assumptions that aren't necessarily true. First, you're assuming that you have control over what kind of information is being collected and shared, and you're assuming it's always good for you. Here's a fairly innocent scenario: if Amazon Echo can learn everything about you, they may discover that you're crazy about Paris and you have good income. Then they can sell this info to every travel website who'll put you into a pricing bucket which would guarantee that you'll overpay for your next trip. But generally speaking, we take advantage of information asymmetry all the time: buying real estate, getting a new job, planning a vacation, etc. Sometimes you have the leverage, sometimes you don't. With massive information gathering by a handful of big players you'll most likely end up on the losing side in the future, especially when dealing with businesses/governments who can afford to buy a profile on you before engaging. Imagine if your religious beliefs and either you voted for Trump were available to anyone via an API call which takes your face image as the input and costs $0.02 to make.

baddox 9y ago
If you have knowledge and control over who gets your information and how they use, well that's effectively the definition of good privacy.
- abritinthebay 9y ago
  But you don't. You have only control over the former. History has shown us time and time again you don't have control over the latter.
  - CaptSpify 9y ago
    How do you have control over the former? Data is being gleamed about you even if you aren't using their products, and it's being used by companies you haven't authorized all the time.
    - derialstrazus 9y ago
      Our legal structure needs to catch up and punish companies who use data that we did not authorize. Data should be seen as personal property.

tricolon 9y ago

Perhaps you have nothing to hide, but other people do. The danger in your accepting these "robots" as they are is that those other people might end up not having a say in the matter.

LA_Banker 9y ago

I'm ceaselessly amused by the folks fearing Amazon Echos or Google Homes as though they're constantly listening microphones sent to the NSA. As though we don't already carry devices on our person everywhere we go that have mics (smartphones). Also, while we trade our privacy to Google (or Amazon, or whomever) in exchange for customization and convenience (a social contract I'm generally happy to sign off on), those companies have even more incentive to keep our data safe. Google is one of the most valuable companies in the world precisely because it, and only it, has the AdSense knowledge (and whatever other knowledge Google collects about me) to target me. Insurance companies go to Google and say "show our ads to people Googling insurance companies" – that's how Google makes money. It's not as though Google says "here you go State Farm, here's everyone who's been looking up car insurance." It's business model is based on proprietary customer knowledge. It can't give away this data; it's incentivized to limit it to its own ad-targeting tech. Are there still problems with this model? Sure. If the government decides to subpoena Google on me, they'll turn over my Gmail. But is it a hell of a lot easier getting access to Google services (e.g. Google Maps knowing where I generally go and what the traffic is like) versus using, say, Duck Duck Go on a VPN (let alone Tor or Tails)? For me, and I'd assume most people, yes. EDIT: I would also point out that we've long been facing the privacy vs. convenience issue. It used to be that merely signing up for a landline meant getting your phone # listed in the White Pages. Paying utility bills makes your name and home address a matter of public record (unless you choose to shield them via owning and paying through a corporate shell). Ditto real estate transactions involving your name/address. All public records, unless you choose to hire attorneys to setup shell corps for the sake of privacy. Not so expensive to do this now in the age of LegalZoom, etc., but this used to cost quite the pretty penny. This debate is nothing new; it's merely evolving.

tanilama 9y ago
Prepare to be downvoted to death, but I think some people just want attention and feel important by crying doom.
CaptSpify 9y ago
> those companies have even more incentive to keep our data safe. Then why aren't they doing it, and why aren't they informing us when breaches happen? I absolutely think providing that data should be voluntary. If you want to send it to them, go ahead! But in many ways it's not. I can't remove my data from those companies, nor can I control what they do with it, and that's a serious problem.

specialist 9y ago

I'm unclear why I must forfeit my right to privacy because others (you) think it's a non-issue. Because you haven't defined privacy: The ability to control what is publicly known about oneself. I'd also add the ability to assess what is known about oneself. You also ignore identity vis a vis privacy. A completely transparent world (a la Brin) has made identity theft a booming industry. Lastly, everyone ignores property rights. I am my data, my data is me (see identity above). At the very least, if someone is making a buck at my expense, I want my cut.

s73ver 9y ago

Except Apple shows that you don't have to sacrifice privacy. Just about all of their ML stuff happens on the device. So you can have things that are quite similar to what Google gives you, without giving up that privacy.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
markeroon 9y ago
You gotta train on something though

Retra 9y ago

"Who you are" is not simply a function of what you want. And really, Alexa is not really that much more powerful by knowing what your favorite beer is; you already know that information. Until you consider Alexa to be an actual friend, any personal details about you that it keeps are marginally useless if it cannot function autonomously - by ordering your favorite beer without even asking. This is not an 'intelligent' behavior, it's just maintaining a list of preferences. To be honest, it sounds like you are conflating voice commands with AI proper. You can certainly have one without the other, and the former seems to be the thing you're valuing here. I'm all for the concept of powerful AIs that know everything about me - so long as they know me as an actual person to care about rather than merely as a consumer to squeeze money out of. Which means understanding my boundaries and knowing what I consider offensive and acceptable behaviors. What we have today are AIs that only learn about you what they find useful to their owners, not what I find useful for them to know.

matt_wulfeck 9y ago

Providing AI while respecting privacy is a difficult problem but it must be done. Apple has even published a white paper describing how they'll do it[1]. We should not have to sacrifice privacy for usability. There's a reasonable tradeoff and I believe Apple is doing the right approach. 1. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.recode.net/platform/amp/2016/6/13/11925660/apple-differential-privacy https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.recode.net/platform/amp/201...

Nition 9y ago

> How is any AI supposed to know what I want, if I try to be an anonymous user? Store the data locally?

beachbum8029 9y ago

How much do they pay you?

PopsiclePete 9y ago

I'm also not so hung up on privacy. Think about the massive data gathering we could do in the medical field for example, to test the effectiveness of drugs and treatments if you could wear a "smart" bracelet that put its data in the cloud - how many more diseases could we cure? Not that I'd feel comfortable sharing my back account # with you...

y_u_no_rust 9y ago
Will any data i upload be paid for with shares in the companies using my work/information?

bcoughlan 9y ago

"Alexa, play me that song I like. And while you're at it, order me a case of my favorite beer. Thanks." Wow, now I'll never have to leave my chair!

kraig911 9y ago

20 years from now you'll still be hearing the same songs and you'll still be drinking the same beer then. You'll be left to an echo-chamber of things that are similar but not different. If you're perfectly comfortable with that now amount of me trying to provide a counter-argument will do. I however think being left to my own devices without things being curated from past perspective is more enriching.

newscracker 9y ago

> I see all of these articles on HN on how to break free from Google or some other eco-system because they're "evil." I dunno, I guess I don't have a CIA-level job that most of these commenters have where they need to be off the grid. As a highly pro-privacy person, I find it ridiculous when people build up arguments like "I guess I don't have a (sic) CIA- level job that most of these commenters have...". Seriously, privacy is not just about you or me! It's about every human in this world, and the balance of power between layperson/citizen and state/corporation. Without protections like privacy (which is one among many), we'd never enjoy all the freedoms we take for granted every single moment. I'd strongly recommend reading this short and succinct article titled "Privacy protects the bothersome" [1] by Martin Fowler. [1]: https://www.martinfowler.com/articles/bothersome-privacy.html https://www.martinfowler.com/articles/bothersome-privacy.htm...

fivestar 9y ago

It's always that way--the surveillance state grows up around you, all the while ensuring you that no harm will come to you as long as you don't resist or subvert. But here's the thing about that: At some point, if we end up in a tyranny, your acquiescence and silence won't protect you. You will be targeted, perhaps randomly, perhaps by a neighbor with some petty vendetta. The point is, you have no idea what devils you are playing with. The Germans happily murdered the elderly, the retarded, homosexuals, gypsies, on and on. None of those people were actively fighting the regime, they were just simply useless eaters who got in the way. The same story has played out dozens of times in history. Stalin, Pol Pot--tyrants kill for irrational reasons.

codeisawesome 9y ago

I used to feel incredibly frustrated at not being able to respond to this with words, based off of what I feel. This was until I read this post: https://medium.com/@FabioAEsteves/i-have-nothing-to-hide-why-should-i-care-about-my-privacy-f488281b8f1d https://medium.com/@FabioAEsteves/i-have-nothing-to-hide-why... - which almost perfectly encapsulates the emotion - "I have nothing to hide, Why should I care about my privacy?"