4 ms·

Regulation and oversight is good. Continually reevaluating whether these companies are being good stewards of the information they hold is also good. But I wor

Regulation and oversight is good. Continually reevaluating whether these companies are being good stewards of the information they hold is also good. But I worry more about a heavy-handed overreaction than the present course we're on. In many ways it could be more dangerous to cripple or break up these companies: Fragmenting that data among smaller entities with weaker security is bad. Letting the vacuum (probably) be filled by state owned enterprises from regimes that don't value democracy, privacy or rights is very bad. Yes, these companies could become an insurmountable runaway evil... but they have a long way to go to get there. The revolt would be even more intense if they were actually trying to do anything other than stay relevant. Which raises the final point... they will eventually stumble, get disrupted, dwindle. If they're going to die, let them die naturally -- don't be preemptive and destructive about it. TLDR: let's hope for US vs Microsoft, not the break up of Bell Systems

apersona 9y ago
very much this. I think the how people view companies as a whole as "evil" is alarming. Technology is neutral, and companies make the world better and worse.
- kevingadd 9y ago
  Technology is only neutral if built to be neutral. People build non-neutral technology all the time, either intentionally or unintentionally. If you take a huge random data set and train an algorithm off it, the algorithm is going to reflect the biases of the data, even though the algorithm - and the technology used to run the algorithm - is completely neutral in theory. If you accept this as a problem and try to solve it, you're taking an explicit stance of non-neutrality - something is wrong with the output of this algorithm based on my criteria, regardless of whether it is implemented correctly. For many real-world situations, neutral technology is the opposite of what is required to solve problems. Which is a real bummer, since it means that you have to make difficult decisions in addition to building a good piece of technology. Governments are already using "neutral" technology to make important decisions about people's lives [1]. But how neutral is it, really, if the data we feed into it for training is biased or incorrect? [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/23/us/backlash-in-wisconsin-against-using-data-to-foretell-defendants-futures.html https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/23/us/backlash-in-wisconsin-...

apersona 9y ago

very much this. I think the how people view companies as a whole as "evil" is alarming. Technology is neutral, and companies make the world better and worse.

kevingadd 9y ago
Technology is only neutral if built to be neutral. People build non-neutral technology all the time, either intentionally or unintentionally. If you take a huge random data set and train an algorithm off it, the algorithm is going to reflect the biases of the data, even though the algorithm - and the technology used to run the algorithm - is completely neutral in theory. If you accept this as a problem and try to solve it, you're taking an explicit stance of non-neutrality - something is wrong with the output of this algorithm based on my criteria, regardless of whether it is implemented correctly. For many real-world situations, neutral technology is the opposite of what is required to solve problems. Which is a real bummer, since it means that you have to make difficult decisions in addition to building a good piece of technology. Governments are already using "neutral" technology to make important decisions about people's lives [1]. But how neutral is it, really, if the data we feed into it for training is biased or incorrect? [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/23/us/backlash-in-wisconsin-against-using-data-to-foretell-defendants-futures.html https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/23/us/backlash-in-wisconsin-...