5 ms·

I didn't think the web could get any more terrible than it is today, but if everyone starts adding ML to all the tracking/targeting/adware systems then that see

I didn't think the web could get any more terrible than it is today, but if everyone starts adding ML to all the tracking/targeting/adware systems then that seems to be a new deeper level of hell.

adam12 8y ago
starts? It's a classic example of how machine learning is used.
- xodast 8y ago
  Analysis done in browser using the clients resources ? Would love to see an example.
  - pjmlp 8y ago
    Not in the browser, but that is what all those analytics like the ones from Google and Adobe already offer since the last decade.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
kowdermeister 8y ago
> the web could get any more terrible than it is today Please cry a river how bad it is. As someone actively developing since about 2006 I think it's never been in a better shape.
- kmlx 8y ago
  totally agree. not only that, but we haven't even scratched the surface of what's possible yet.
- AtHeartEngineer 8y ago
  Agreed, there is more tooling and insight than ever before
- coding123 8y ago
  Please respond to the actual concern, you cut out the entirely relevant part of his comment. Are you just trying to say you love React, Node, Java - cause that's what it sounds like you're saying which has nothing to do with his concern over ML to enhance tracking, etc.. If you think the tracking, etc.. has been getting better since 2006, then it clearly means you're advocating it. That or you just didn't read the full comment?
  - denniskane 8y ago
    No. He (or she) is saying that he (or she) has finally found "Linux on the Web", and he (or she) has seen the light. Seriously though... my baby is starting to come alive. I've been banging away on it since 2012. The above phrase should allow you to find it if you know about modern search practices :) We can start putting ML frameworks galore in LOTW, and have it all start being in service of the people. Or how about this... a return to GOFP (Good Ol' Frickin' Programming)... possibly using numbered lines and goto statements, like we did back in the day, copying fun little snippets into the old TRS-80! (LOTW is a new kind of client side paradigm. Actually, it is a return to the same old paradigm of something I would call "immediate mode programming", where all of the resources are simply right there in front of you. There is just a little bit of help from our friends who build and maintain the back-end infrastructure to allow all of the resources to get conveniently shipped in.)
  - onion2k 8y ago
    If you think the tracking, etc.. has been getting better since 2006, then it clearly means you're advocating it. Tracking is far better now than it was in 2006, and I say that as someone who is hugely against tracking. We have the Do Not Track header, which a lot of companies actually pay attention to, we have much better privacy plugins and ad-blockers (privacy badger, u-block origin, pi-hole, etc), and we have a growing consensus that tracking isn't actually that effective which seems to be pushing some companies to try alternative models in their advertising revenue, and their ad spend on the other side. Things are better.
    - newaccoutnas 8y ago
- endofcapital 8y ago
  I first developed a web page in 1997. First got paid to do it in 1998. Innovated a lot of the DHTML/AJAX/SPA techniques before anyone else knew that was even possible, way before that first AJAX article was written. Not sure how that's relevant, but yeah the web just gets worse and worse every year. Mostly due to the corporations of course, but the standards group are culpable too. I kind of want to write a book on the history of the W3C if nobody has already, it's such a horror show.
  - AriaMinaei 8y ago
    Can you ELI5 how standard groups have made the web worse?
- na85 8y ago
  That's the problem, though: The web has steadily been growing more convenient/friendly for developers, while steadily growing more hostile for users. All these javascript "advances" just make it easier for people to e.g. mine monero on my system without my consent and enable mediocre web developers to load up previously quick-loading sites with custom scrolling animations, autoplay video, and malvertising. I'm sure it's in better shape for you, a web developer. It's objectively worse for me, a user.
  - wuliwong 8y ago
    These advances also make it possible to have the user experiences of sites like spotify, netflix, soundcloud, etc. There's a lot of bad stuff but there is also a lot of good.
- rhizome 8y ago
  The experience of using the web is much worse than it used to be.
fredley 8y ago
> starts adding Oh believe me, this stuff was added a long time ago. This is a benefit though. Of course these people will want to offload some of that heavy ML computing onto the browser so they don't have to pay for their own cluster of p3.16xlarge or whatever. Which makes it easier to block and opt-out.
bearcherian 8y ago
ML is already used for targeted ads and other content EDIT: Example - https://www.adobe.com/marketing-cloud/target/automation.html https://www.adobe.com/marketing-cloud/target/automation.html
minimaxir 8y ago
I'm not immediately sure what the benefit of running such a (EDIT: advertising/tracking) model on the client as opposed to server (aside from reducing server costs). At best, it exposes the model to the user, allowing competitors to reverse-engineer it.
- stangogh 8y ago
  Some benefits: for the user - the data stays private as all processing is done on device. You can get much faster inference times and create applications with real-time interactions. The applications can work offline once the models are downloaded. The browser comes with tons of sensors (microphone/camera/accelerometer/etc) and the data from these sensors can be fed into the models in real time without needing to do a round trip to a server. Yes if the model is proprietary it maybe wouldn’t make sense to have the user download the weights as it could be reverse engineered, but for open source models it’s not an issue. And anyways the value these days is in the dataset and training of the models. Check out this great article on edge computing: https://techcrunch.com/2017/08/03/edge-computing-could-push-the-cloud-to-the-fringe/ https://techcrunch.com/2017/08/03/edge-computing-could-push-...
  - minimaxir 8y ago
    Those are benefits for TensorFlow.js, sure, but none of those help tracking/advertising use cases.
    - stangogh 8y ago
      Oh yeah didn't realize your response was to the original comment. In the case of tracking/advertising there isn't much of a benefit.
- mmcwilliams 8y ago
  I think you're overlooking a lot with that aside. It's just one example but with tensorflow.js you can run your model on a video feed in the browser, frame-by-frame, in a way that wouldn't just increase server costs but would hobble performance as well.
tanilama 8y ago
Applying ML is one's FREEDOM.
- rhacker 8y ago
  lol, it's the use case. I have the FREEDOM of discharging a gun is different than I have the FREEDOM of discharging a gun into a person's brain are two very different things.
grrowl 8y ago
I'm using TensorFlow.js to make simple PWAs which run on iOS, Android, and desktop to provide interfaces for games which are accessible to people of various capabilities/accessibilities. Without it, it would take an order of magnitude more investment on my part to make this happen. Your world view is absurdly narrow.

I didn't think the web could get any more terrible than it is today, but if everyone starts adding ML to all the tracking/targeting/adware systems then that seems to be a new deeper level of hell.

adam12 8y ago

starts? It's a classic example of how machine learning is used.

xodast 8y ago
Analysis done in browser using the clients resources ? Would love to see an example.
- pjmlp 8y ago
  Not in the browser, but that is what all those analytics like the ones from Google and Adobe already offer since the last decade.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]

kowdermeister 8y ago

> the web could get any more terrible than it is today Please cry a river how bad it is. As someone actively developing since about 2006 I think it's never been in a better shape.

kmlx 8y ago
totally agree. not only that, but we haven't even scratched the surface of what's possible yet.
AtHeartEngineer 8y ago
Agreed, there is more tooling and insight than ever before
coding123 8y ago
Please respond to the actual concern, you cut out the entirely relevant part of his comment. Are you just trying to say you love React, Node, Java - cause that's what it sounds like you're saying which has nothing to do with his concern over ML to enhance tracking, etc.. If you think the tracking, etc.. has been getting better since 2006, then it clearly means you're advocating it. That or you just didn't read the full comment?
- denniskane 8y ago
  No. He (or she) is saying that he (or she) has finally found "Linux on the Web", and he (or she) has seen the light. Seriously though... my baby is starting to come alive. I've been banging away on it since 2012. The above phrase should allow you to find it if you know about modern search practices :) We can start putting ML frameworks galore in LOTW, and have it all start being in service of the people. Or how about this... a return to GOFP (Good Ol' Frickin' Programming)... possibly using numbered lines and goto statements, like we did back in the day, copying fun little snippets into the old TRS-80! (LOTW is a new kind of client side paradigm. Actually, it is a return to the same old paradigm of something I would call "immediate mode programming", where all of the resources are simply right there in front of you. There is just a little bit of help from our friends who build and maintain the back-end infrastructure to allow all of the resources to get conveniently shipped in.)
- onion2k 8y ago
  If you think the tracking, etc.. has been getting better since 2006, then it clearly means you're advocating it. Tracking is far better now than it was in 2006, and I say that as someone who is hugely against tracking. We have the Do Not Track header, which a lot of companies actually pay attention to, we have much better privacy plugins and ad-blockers (privacy badger, u-block origin, pi-hole, etc), and we have a growing consensus that tracking isn't actually that effective which seems to be pushing some companies to try alternative models in their advertising revenue, and their ad spend on the other side. Things are better.
  - newaccoutnas 8y ago
endofcapital 8y ago
I first developed a web page in 1997. First got paid to do it in 1998. Innovated a lot of the DHTML/AJAX/SPA techniques before anyone else knew that was even possible, way before that first AJAX article was written. Not sure how that's relevant, but yeah the web just gets worse and worse every year. Mostly due to the corporations of course, but the standards group are culpable too. I kind of want to write a book on the history of the W3C if nobody has already, it's such a horror show.
- AriaMinaei 8y ago
  Can you ELI5 how standard groups have made the web worse?
na85 8y ago
That's the problem, though: The web has steadily been growing more convenient/friendly for developers, while steadily growing more hostile for users. All these javascript "advances" just make it easier for people to e.g. mine monero on my system without my consent and enable mediocre web developers to load up previously quick-loading sites with custom scrolling animations, autoplay video, and malvertising. I'm sure it's in better shape for you, a web developer. It's objectively worse for me, a user.
- wuliwong 8y ago
  These advances also make it possible to have the user experiences of sites like spotify, netflix, soundcloud, etc. There's a lot of bad stuff but there is also a lot of good.
rhizome 8y ago
The experience of using the web is much worse than it used to be.

fredley 8y ago

> starts adding Oh believe me, this stuff was added a long time ago. This is a benefit though. Of course these people will want to offload some of that heavy ML computing onto the browser so they don't have to pay for their own cluster of p3.16xlarge or whatever. Which makes it easier to block and opt-out.

bearcherian 8y ago

ML is already used for targeted ads and other content EDIT: Example - https://www.adobe.com/marketing-cloud/target/automation.html https://www.adobe.com/marketing-cloud/target/automation.html

minimaxir 8y ago

I'm not immediately sure what the benefit of running such a (EDIT: advertising/tracking) model on the client as opposed to server (aside from reducing server costs). At best, it exposes the model to the user, allowing competitors to reverse-engineer it.

stangogh 8y ago
Some benefits: for the user - the data stays private as all processing is done on device. You can get much faster inference times and create applications with real-time interactions. The applications can work offline once the models are downloaded. The browser comes with tons of sensors (microphone/camera/accelerometer/etc) and the data from these sensors can be fed into the models in real time without needing to do a round trip to a server. Yes if the model is proprietary it maybe wouldn’t make sense to have the user download the weights as it could be reverse engineered, but for open source models it’s not an issue. And anyways the value these days is in the dataset and training of the models. Check out this great article on edge computing: https://techcrunch.com/2017/08/03/edge-computing-could-push-the-cloud-to-the-fringe/ https://techcrunch.com/2017/08/03/edge-computing-could-push-...
- minimaxir 8y ago
  Those are benefits for TensorFlow.js, sure, but none of those help tracking/advertising use cases.
  - stangogh 8y ago
    Oh yeah didn't realize your response was to the original comment. In the case of tracking/advertising there isn't much of a benefit.
mmcwilliams 8y ago
I think you're overlooking a lot with that aside. It's just one example but with tensorflow.js you can run your model on a video feed in the browser, frame-by-frame, in a way that wouldn't just increase server costs but would hobble performance as well.

tanilama 8y ago

Applying ML is one's FREEDOM.

rhacker 8y ago
lol, it's the use case. I have the FREEDOM of discharging a gun is different than I have the FREEDOM of discharging a gun into a person's brain are two very different things.

grrowl 8y ago

I'm using TensorFlow.js to make simple PWAs which run on iOS, Android, and desktop to provide interfaces for games which are accessible to people of various capabilities/accessibilities. Without it, it would take an order of magnitude more investment on my part to make this happen. Your world view is absurdly narrow.