5 ms·

A handful of oligopolies coercing me to use overcomplicated always-connected gadgets that are orchestrated by "AI" that I don't control, can't train, and whose

A handful of oligopolies coercing me to use overcomplicated always-connected gadgets that are orchestrated by "AI" that I don't control, can't train, and whose main objective is to manipulate my behavior and siphon as much of my private info to its corporate master as possible. All of this to solve "problems" that I never had, while a choir of corporate shills drones on and on that problems I actually have are not real or not important. I'll take 80s dystopian cyberpunk over this crap any time of the day.

icandoit 7y ago
I don't like the always-on surveillance either. But if people choose these products because the convenience is worth it in their estimation, revealed preferences and all that. Maybe this suggests a counter-product? An offline, all data is local, product opportunity. Who will build it?
- mfer 7y ago
  > But if people choose these products because the convenience is worth it in their estimation, revealed preferences and all that. "is worth it" requires people to be fully aware of what's going on. I've described what some of these devices are doing based on product announcements, patents, investigative news stories, and that sort of thing. I've had numerous people tell me that I'm wrong. That they don't believe companies are doing this. This has caused me to come to the conclusion that people aren't aware of the trade-offs or what is going on. That lack of understanding concerns me.
  - orteam 7y ago
    Seems a bit patronizing. People can actually make a conscious decision to prefer convenience over surrender of some privacy. Some people don't put shades or curtains on their windows.
    - jjoonathan 7y ago
      Sure, but people generally understand how window shades work, whereas people generally don't understand how the surveillance economy works. That would be a patronizing assumption inside HN, but outside HN it's a reality that I regularly observe.
  - nopriorarrests 7y ago
    >This has caused me to come to the conclusion that people aren't aware of the trade-offs or what is going on. But what exactly is going on? It's not like google going to blackmail you for 10K USD in cash, single payment please, once it will learn that you are going to the same pub and spend 2 hours there daily, "or we will let your boss know". It will show you more relevant ads, right. But do you really expect an average person to be scared by this?
    - russh 7y ago
      Google probably will not, but can you say that about every Google employee?
- yellow_postit 7y ago
  Many (most?) that buy them don’t understand the value exchange they are signing up for. Look at all the breathless articles about how humans listen to Alexa, Cortana, Siri, Google, etc assistant chats. That’s an standard expectation from anyone that gets close to working with supervised learning but from the reporting and interviews it seems many didn’t know. How could they with the ever growing legal soup of privacy policies and tos. I’d love to see a counter product but more than that I’d like to see more standardized and short/brief lay person understandable policies. Maybe like a nutrition label but for consumer data.
- ChristianBundy 7y ago
  Currently working on this with Secure Scuttlebutt, FWIW.
WC3w6pXxgGd 7y ago
You're no coerced in any way. Don't use Google.
- criddell 7y ago
  That's almost impossible. If you were to send me an email you would be using Google and not even know it because I host my domain mx there.
  - mav3rick 7y ago
    So ? Don't host your domain there.
godelski 7y ago
Don't forget that you pay them for the privilege of using such devices.
- hanselot 7y ago
  Introducing Google Think. Are you tired of going through life questioning everything and forming your own opinions? With our suite of brain filtering equipment we can remove all the offensive noise from your life. Tired of that racist coworker always making homophobic sexist jokes? Now you don't need to even know when they offend you! Try replacing them with one of our friendly SFW LGBTPYQT personalised artificial reinforcement filters and never face adversity again! Preorder now and gain a 20 year's supply worth of credits you already agreed to in this servitude contract with the Google Unilateral Learning and Analytics Library or GULAG for short. Whoever said being a slave in our data-crunching zoo had to be bound to a physical location when all your friends help us harvest data on you too.
amelius 7y ago
Isn't it time that Google grows up and becomes a true tech company? I consider products containing adware to be "half-broken" and I don't understand how Google engineers can feel proud of their work. As an engineer I want my work to be paid for because my users like my products, and I certainly wouldn't want any of my work to be used to serve anyone other than my users.
- cmroanirgo 7y ago
  Considering the thread about Google's Soli [0] has a huge number of votes, there's a clear sign that many are still heavily plugged into the borg. I'd suggest that even more would disagree with the suggestion that Google isn't a real tech company. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21269877 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21269877
  - 0xffff2 7y ago
    The topic might be heavily upvoted, but the overall sentiment in the comments in notably negative.
- dvdbloc 7y ago
  Do you have an example of a “true tech company”?
  - moltensodium 7y ago
    AWS is the most true tech company out there I think, I wish there were a way for me to invest in it outside of the Amazon borg cube media conglomerate trying to fight Disney.
  - nopriorarrests 7y ago
    Oracle fits this description nicely. :)
    - amelius 7y ago
      No that's a law firm :)
gowld 7y ago
"coercing" how?
mark_l_watson 7y ago
Perhaps that is true with Google’s products. As some else here said, they should grow up and figure out a business model that does not requires collecting so much data. I would prefer to pay them in cash than with my information. For ambient computing, my favorite things are my Apple Watch and iPods. True enough, using Siri and these devices is using black box devices, but for now I am OK with them. I trust Apple, for now.
- basch 7y ago
  You think they could save some money offering people a yearly "no ads" plan, across all google properties and any site with doubleclick and ads words. Very strange that they only offer paid plans for office productivity, youtube, and backups. It would be even cooler if a certain percentage of the rate was a "designate your target" that allowed you to directly fund things like google reader etc. It's also kind of crazy they dont have some kind of pricing sheet that shows me all the subscriptions available to me, along with some bundle options. I have to search out each product to see its price. It's like they dont want me to look for ways to give them money.
  - pas 7y ago
    The minute they put prices on their products managers, engineers, users and everyone will go crazy to game the system. I'm not saying it cannot be done well, but there's certainly an overhead if you have to be explicit about what costs how much to whom.
m463 7y ago
But "ambient computing" sounds so pleasant, so friendly. It sounds like walking through a forest of ferns.
simonebrunozzi 7y ago
Can't give you enough upvotes, but at least I gave you all I have.

icandoit 7y ago

I don't like the always-on surveillance either. But if people choose these products because the convenience is worth it in their estimation, revealed preferences and all that. Maybe this suggests a counter-product? An offline, all data is local, product opportunity. Who will build it?

mfer 7y ago
> But if people choose these products because the convenience is worth it in their estimation, revealed preferences and all that. "is worth it" requires people to be fully aware of what's going on. I've described what some of these devices are doing based on product announcements, patents, investigative news stories, and that sort of thing. I've had numerous people tell me that I'm wrong. That they don't believe companies are doing this. This has caused me to come to the conclusion that people aren't aware of the trade-offs or what is going on. That lack of understanding concerns me.
- orteam 7y ago
  Seems a bit patronizing. People can actually make a conscious decision to prefer convenience over surrender of some privacy. Some people don't put shades or curtains on their windows.
  - jjoonathan 7y ago
    Sure, but people generally understand how window shades work, whereas people generally don't understand how the surveillance economy works. That would be a patronizing assumption inside HN, but outside HN it's a reality that I regularly observe.
- nopriorarrests 7y ago
  >This has caused me to come to the conclusion that people aren't aware of the trade-offs or what is going on. But what exactly is going on? It's not like google going to blackmail you for 10K USD in cash, single payment please, once it will learn that you are going to the same pub and spend 2 hours there daily, "or we will let your boss know". It will show you more relevant ads, right. But do you really expect an average person to be scared by this?
  - russh 7y ago
    Google probably will not, but can you say that about every Google employee?
yellow_postit 7y ago
Many (most?) that buy them don’t understand the value exchange they are signing up for. Look at all the breathless articles about how humans listen to Alexa, Cortana, Siri, Google, etc assistant chats. That’s an standard expectation from anyone that gets close to working with supervised learning but from the reporting and interviews it seems many didn’t know. How could they with the ever growing legal soup of privacy policies and tos. I’d love to see a counter product but more than that I’d like to see more standardized and short/brief lay person understandable policies. Maybe like a nutrition label but for consumer data.
ChristianBundy 7y ago
Currently working on this with Secure Scuttlebutt, FWIW.

WC3w6pXxgGd 7y ago

You're no coerced in any way. Don't use Google.

criddell 7y ago
That's almost impossible. If you were to send me an email you would be using Google and not even know it because I host my domain mx there.
- mav3rick 7y ago
  So ? Don't host your domain there.

godelski 7y ago

Don't forget that you pay them for the privilege of using such devices.

hanselot 7y ago
Introducing Google Think. Are you tired of going through life questioning everything and forming your own opinions? With our suite of brain filtering equipment we can remove all the offensive noise from your life. Tired of that racist coworker always making homophobic sexist jokes? Now you don't need to even know when they offend you! Try replacing them with one of our friendly SFW LGBTPYQT personalised artificial reinforcement filters and never face adversity again! Preorder now and gain a 20 year's supply worth of credits you already agreed to in this servitude contract with the Google Unilateral Learning and Analytics Library or GULAG for short. Whoever said being a slave in our data-crunching zoo had to be bound to a physical location when all your friends help us harvest data on you too.

amelius 7y ago

Isn't it time that Google grows up and becomes a true tech company? I consider products containing adware to be "half-broken" and I don't understand how Google engineers can feel proud of their work. As an engineer I want my work to be paid for because my users like my products, and I certainly wouldn't want any of my work to be used to serve anyone other than my users.

cmroanirgo 7y ago
Considering the thread about Google's Soli [0] has a huge number of votes, there's a clear sign that many are still heavily plugged into the borg. I'd suggest that even more would disagree with the suggestion that Google isn't a real tech company. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21269877 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21269877
- 0xffff2 7y ago
  The topic might be heavily upvoted, but the overall sentiment in the comments in notably negative.
dvdbloc 7y ago
Do you have an example of a “true tech company”?
- moltensodium 7y ago
  AWS is the most true tech company out there I think, I wish there were a way for me to invest in it outside of the Amazon borg cube media conglomerate trying to fight Disney.
- nopriorarrests 7y ago
  Oracle fits this description nicely. :)
  - amelius 7y ago
    No that's a law firm :)

gowld 7y ago

"coercing" how?

mark_l_watson 7y ago

Perhaps that is true with Google’s products. As some else here said, they should grow up and figure out a business model that does not requires collecting so much data. I would prefer to pay them in cash than with my information. For ambient computing, my favorite things are my Apple Watch and iPods. True enough, using Siri and these devices is using black box devices, but for now I am OK with them. I trust Apple, for now.

basch 7y ago
You think they could save some money offering people a yearly "no ads" plan, across all google properties and any site with doubleclick and ads words. Very strange that they only offer paid plans for office productivity, youtube, and backups. It would be even cooler if a certain percentage of the rate was a "designate your target" that allowed you to directly fund things like google reader etc. It's also kind of crazy they dont have some kind of pricing sheet that shows me all the subscriptions available to me, along with some bundle options. I have to search out each product to see its price. It's like they dont want me to look for ways to give them money.
- pas 7y ago
  The minute they put prices on their products managers, engineers, users and everyone will go crazy to game the system. I'm not saying it cannot be done well, but there's certainly an overhead if you have to be explicit about what costs how much to whom.

m463 7y ago

But "ambient computing" sounds so pleasant, so friendly. It sounds like walking through a forest of ferns.

simonebrunozzi 7y ago

Can't give you enough upvotes, but at least I gave you all I have.