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I remember reading an article about a developer who started replacing Android on his phones because his office was located in the same building as a psychiatris

by Iv 7y ago

I remember reading an article about a developer who started replacing Android on his phones because his office was located in the same building as a psychiatrist and the Google hivemind had identified him as a patient. The fact that this is legal is really troubling.

sokoloff 7y ago
Wouldn’t it be more likely they’d infer he was a doctor? I wouldn’t expect patients to go every day for 8 hours. (Not saying either is “ok”, but guessing patient from those facts is particularly poor I think)
- ebeip90 7y ago
  There are likely more patients than doctors, so the inference is statistically correct.
  - sokoloff 7y ago
    That depends on what population selection data you choose to consider/admit. As an example, suppose a cell phone appears at the local supermarket/grocery store every weekday from 9 AM to 5 PM. If you conclude that phone is owned by an extremely avid supermarket shopper rather than a store manager, you're ignoring the persistence over time dimension. If you claim that it's more likely a cashier rather than a store manager (because there are more cashiers than managers), you're on much firmer ground than if you claim it's more likely a shopper than a store manager just because there are wildly more shoppers than managers.
- Iv 7y ago
  As a developer, they probably had inferred his profession correctly from his search history.
  - SketchySeaBeast 7y ago
    It should also absolutely know that there is a dev company in the building too - and it could tell that they were there based upon the same evidence as the psychiatrists office.
C1sc0cat 7y ago
I do wonder about that, I live next door to a pub and it has shown me checking in multiple times in as I walked past. I do go in a few times a month around four or five times, but god only knows what google probably thinks.
fivefive55 7y ago
I can believe it, Google pestered me to review a bubble tea place I drive by every day. I've never stopped there and never will but I continued to get the popup until I finally gave the place a 1-star rating just to shut Google up. Not really fair to the business but I was sick of seeing that notification.

by Iv 7y ago

sokoloff 7y ago

Wouldn’t it be more likely they’d infer he was a doctor? I wouldn’t expect patients to go every day for 8 hours. (Not saying either is “ok”, but guessing patient from those facts is particularly poor I think)

ebeip90 7y ago
There are likely more patients than doctors, so the inference is statistically correct.
- sokoloff 7y ago
  That depends on what population selection data you choose to consider/admit. As an example, suppose a cell phone appears at the local supermarket/grocery store every weekday from 9 AM to 5 PM. If you conclude that phone is owned by an extremely avid supermarket shopper rather than a store manager, you're ignoring the persistence over time dimension. If you claim that it's more likely a cashier rather than a store manager (because there are more cashiers than managers), you're on much firmer ground than if you claim it's more likely a shopper than a store manager just because there are wildly more shoppers than managers.
Iv 7y ago
As a developer, they probably had inferred his profession correctly from his search history.
- SketchySeaBeast 7y ago
  It should also absolutely know that there is a dev company in the building too - and it could tell that they were there based upon the same evidence as the psychiatrists office.

C1sc0cat 7y ago

I do wonder about that, I live next door to a pub and it has shown me checking in multiple times in as I walked past. I do go in a few times a month around four or five times, but god only knows what google probably thinks.

fivefive55 7y ago

I can believe it, Google pestered me to review a bubble tea place I drive by every day. I've never stopped there and never will but I continued to get the popup until I finally gave the place a 1-star rating just to shut Google up. Not really fair to the business but I was sick of seeing that notification.