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It's not about whether or not you want to have it. It's about monetizing you. These features could be included in products without your knowledge and could comm

by api 9y ago

It's not about whether or not you want to have it. It's about monetizing you. These features could be included in products without your knowledge and could communicate with other surveillance devices (Echo, Smart TV, Google Home, etc.) to relay to advertisers and product vendors information about your use of the product. This in turn could be used to sell hyper-targeted ads such as ads for detergent that are timed precisely for when you are low on detergent. Your attention is one of the most valuable products in the world. Sub-dividing and parceling off that attention in as fine-grained a manner possible is extremely profitable. I'm really concerned about this. It's not ads I'm worried about but the long term potential for truly unethical misuse of this technology. Combined with AI this stuff could be used to build psychological models on every human. The potential for misuse by everyone from governments to criminals is just insane. We are building the infrastructure for a hellish dystopia just to get people to click ads.

TeMPOraL 9y ago
Hellish dystopia would at least be interesting, TBH. The current situation is pathetic. The way we're building our infrastructure is showing our worst side as a species. The capacity to screw others to get a little ahead. The total disinterest in how much aggregate damage one is causing for often very little personal gain. This is sickening to watch, and in fact it's also the same aspects that give rise to dystopian scenarios in real life.
ataturk 9y ago
Just like crypto, unless you yourself code and design the thing, you can't trust it at all. This is what we're down to. I don't even trust operating systems anymore unless they are open source. Freaking Windows 10 is spyware.
cr0sh 9y ago
> This in turn could be used to sell hyper-targeted ads such as ads for detergent that are timed precisely for when you are low on detergent. I'm not really sure what the point of that would be? Maybe my wife and I are in the minority, but we purchase exactly one brand of detergent, and we haven't switched in a very long time (that said, we switched to this detergent because it was less irritating to our skin than the other brand product we had been using). We are pretty much the same with other products we buy on a regular basis; we don't brand hop unless there's a very good reason to, and sometimes we'll go out of our way to stick with a particular brand if we have to and can. We certainly don't do so because of advertisements (we don't watch television, and throw away the various adverts we get in the mail, and I only listen to NPR). Maybe other people brand hop all the time because of a commercial they see. I'm not sure what to think about that, if that's the case
- api 9y ago
  Consider the saying "you are the product" about these things. If you are the product who is the customer? Advertisers. It's about selling to advertisers. It doesn't matter so much whether or not it would actually work, just that it offers ad vendors a new "blue crystals" feature to sell. Micro-targeting segments the market more finely, allowing higher prices to be charged overall while giving advertisers the illusion that prices are lower.

by api 9y ago

TeMPOraL 9y ago

Hellish dystopia would at least be interesting, TBH. The current situation is pathetic. The way we're building our infrastructure is showing our worst side as a species. The capacity to screw others to get a little ahead. The total disinterest in how much aggregate damage one is causing for often very little personal gain. This is sickening to watch, and in fact it's also the same aspects that give rise to dystopian scenarios in real life.

ataturk 9y ago

Just like crypto, unless you yourself code and design the thing, you can't trust it at all. This is what we're down to. I don't even trust operating systems anymore unless they are open source. Freaking Windows 10 is spyware.

cr0sh 9y ago

> This in turn could be used to sell hyper-targeted ads such as ads for detergent that are timed precisely for when you are low on detergent. I'm not really sure what the point of that would be? Maybe my wife and I are in the minority, but we purchase exactly one brand of detergent, and we haven't switched in a very long time (that said, we switched to this detergent because it was less irritating to our skin than the other brand product we had been using). We are pretty much the same with other products we buy on a regular basis; we don't brand hop unless there's a very good reason to, and sometimes we'll go out of our way to stick with a particular brand if we have to and can. We certainly don't do so because of advertisements (we don't watch television, and throw away the various adverts we get in the mail, and I only listen to NPR). Maybe other people brand hop all the time because of a commercial they see. I'm not sure what to think about that, if that's the case

api 9y ago
Consider the saying "you are the product" about these things. If you are the product who is the customer? Advertisers. It's about selling to advertisers. It doesn't matter so much whether or not it would actually work, just that it offers ad vendors a new "blue crystals" feature to sell. Micro-targeting segments the market more finely, allowing higher prices to be charged overall while giving advertisers the illusion that prices are lower.