5 ms·

One part of me is happy that someone impaired can use products from Google or MS and it will actually really improve their life. On the other hand you should no

by ozim 8y ago

One part of me is happy that someone impaired can use products from Google or MS and it will actually really improve their life. On the other hand you should not be putting privacy issues as secondary matters. Governments have a lot of work to do and that is part of 'how things should be' for people to be equal. I don't think 'people deserve things' but enabling people to be the best they can is government responsibility.

jstanley 8y ago
I'm as staunch a privacy advocate as anyone, but if a deaf person wants to give up their privacy in order to be able to "hear", who are we to stand in their way?
- bobthepanda 8y ago
  They're also giving up the speaker's privacy, though. Do they have that right?
  - jstanley 8y ago
    This is actually a really interesting question. I'm not even sure which outcome I think I prefer, let alone which outcome is right. It seems unfair for a hearing person to deny a deaf person the right to "hear" if he has a technological solution available, but it also seems unfair for the deaf person to be streaming everything the hearing person says to the cloud for analysis. Maybe the deaf person can stream whatever he wants to the cloud, but you can refuse to talk in his presence if you don't want your speech to be streamed to the cloud?
    - bobthepanda 8y ago
      Then people, because they have the right to know, pass legislation forcing deaf people to identify themselves in public. People refuse to have normal conversations with the deaf because they can't speak to them in confidence. Everyone is much worse off as a result. The societal reaction to Google Glass was overwhelmingly negative, because it turns out that people don't want to be knowingly recorded all the time. Throw in some people that are easy to "other" and you have a pretty ugly situation on your hands. Cochlear implants and hearing aids are available, and do work for people; throwing networking into the mix sounds really unnecessary, in the same way that a smart fridge talking to the internet does.
      - jstanley 8y ago
        There are some people who can be helped with speech-to-text but who can't be helped by cochlear implants or hearing aids. I completely agree that a speech-to-text tool for the deaf shouldn't be doing any networking, but in a (hypothetical or not) world where the only viable speech-to-text equipment is doing networking, what do we do?
      - qkeast 8y ago
        To be clear: cochlear implants and hearing aids cannot "fix" hearing. They are not a solution. Hearing isn't just volume—it's also clarity. I have profound hearing loss, and hearing aids help me to hear your voice, tone, and inflection, but I can't take the sounds I hear and turn them into words I can understand. Because of this, I rely entirely on lip reading for conversation, which is a poor, error-prone, and exhausting substitute. Legislation focused on people with hearing impairments is exclusive and discriminatory. Legislation needs to instead focus on data use and storage. Hearing loss is socially isolating and has tremendous impact on quality of life and opportunity. Only 20% of Canadians with profound hearing loss have full-time employment; 40% are unemployed and another 40% are underemployed. Throwing "networking" into the mix, if it brings essentially real-world captions into the world for people with hearing loss, isn't on par with a smart fridge talking to the internet. It's a profoundly life-changing breakthrough that will improve the quality of life for 5-25% of the population that have some degree of hearing loss (2). 1. http://cad.ca/issues-positions/employment-and-employability http://cad.ca/issues-positions/employment-and-employability 2. https://www.chs.ca/facts-and-figures https://www.chs.ca/facts-and-figures
- ozim 8y ago
  I don't understand the question... What I wrote was that deaf person should not even ever consider giving up their privacy. They should have possibility to "hear" without giving up their privacy, and government should take care of it.

by ozim 8y ago

jstanley 8y ago

I'm as staunch a privacy advocate as anyone, but if a deaf person wants to give up their privacy in order to be able to "hear", who are we to stand in their way?

bobthepanda 8y ago
They're also giving up the speaker's privacy, though. Do they have that right?
- jstanley 8y ago
  This is actually a really interesting question. I'm not even sure which outcome I think I prefer, let alone which outcome is right. It seems unfair for a hearing person to deny a deaf person the right to "hear" if he has a technological solution available, but it also seems unfair for the deaf person to be streaming everything the hearing person says to the cloud for analysis. Maybe the deaf person can stream whatever he wants to the cloud, but you can refuse to talk in his presence if you don't want your speech to be streamed to the cloud?
  - bobthepanda 8y ago
    Then people, because they have the right to know, pass legislation forcing deaf people to identify themselves in public. People refuse to have normal conversations with the deaf because they can't speak to them in confidence. Everyone is much worse off as a result. The societal reaction to Google Glass was overwhelmingly negative, because it turns out that people don't want to be knowingly recorded all the time. Throw in some people that are easy to "other" and you have a pretty ugly situation on your hands. Cochlear implants and hearing aids are available, and do work for people; throwing networking into the mix sounds really unnecessary, in the same way that a smart fridge talking to the internet does.
    - jstanley 8y ago
      There are some people who can be helped with speech-to-text but who can't be helped by cochlear implants or hearing aids. I completely agree that a speech-to-text tool for the deaf shouldn't be doing any networking, but in a (hypothetical or not) world where the only viable speech-to-text equipment is doing networking, what do we do?
    - qkeast 8y ago
      To be clear: cochlear implants and hearing aids cannot "fix" hearing. They are not a solution. Hearing isn't just volume—it's also clarity. I have profound hearing loss, and hearing aids help me to hear your voice, tone, and inflection, but I can't take the sounds I hear and turn them into words I can understand. Because of this, I rely entirely on lip reading for conversation, which is a poor, error-prone, and exhausting substitute. Legislation focused on people with hearing impairments is exclusive and discriminatory. Legislation needs to instead focus on data use and storage. Hearing loss is socially isolating and has tremendous impact on quality of life and opportunity. Only 20% of Canadians with profound hearing loss have full-time employment; 40% are unemployed and another 40% are underemployed. Throwing "networking" into the mix, if it brings essentially real-world captions into the world for people with hearing loss, isn't on par with a smart fridge talking to the internet. It's a profoundly life-changing breakthrough that will improve the quality of life for 5-25% of the population that have some degree of hearing loss (2). 1. http://cad.ca/issues-positions/employment-and-employability http://cad.ca/issues-positions/employment-and-employability 2. https://www.chs.ca/facts-and-figures https://www.chs.ca/facts-and-figures
ozim 8y ago
I don't understand the question... What I wrote was that deaf person should not even ever consider giving up their privacy. They should have possibility to "hear" without giving up their privacy, and government should take care of it.