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Google's updated privacy policy states it can use public data to train its AI
- stevespang 3y ago[dead]
- phoe-krk 3y agoI guess they made the math and the probabilities and figured that it'll gain them more money to do this and accept the inevitable fines that come from this.
- firstSpeaker 3y agoLikely true. Previously it was any attribution data that was the most valuable since advertising benefit from that. With the LLM and what comes next I imagine every bit of data, structured or unstructured, accurate or not, is going to have some value to someone somewhere.
- smrtinsert 3y agoOf course they did. It was probably the primary factor. Google is a business looking to survive the technology impact of LLMS, not a tool to improve humans lives.
- kdavis 3y agoGenerally this is already "the law of the land" in the US via the HiQ Labs v. LinkedIn precedent[1]. (IANAL) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HiQ_Labs_v._LinkedIn https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HiQ_Labs_v._LinkedIn
- _Algernon_ 3y agoIt's pretty crazy that changes in privacy policies apply ex post facto on data that was generated before the privacy policy change.
- hedora 3y ago... and also to people that do not use google services, and have never read their privacy policy.
- elric 3y agoWe probably need a better definition of which data is "public". Simply being accessible doesn't cut it. I can look out my window and straight into my neighbour's bathroom. Is that public information? Same goes for information on the internet. Sure, my neighbour could put up curtains (and I really wish he would), much like people could restrict access to web pages, but I don't think a lack of protection should automagically imply public access. Much less public access for the profit of some multi-billion dollar corporation.
- ajsnigrutin 3y agoYep. Most of the books are also public, since anyone can borrow them for free in a library, but they're still protected by copyright. Same for movies and tv shows broadcasted over the air.
- zirgs 3y agoThey are protected by copyright, but anyone is free to learn from them.
- ajsnigrutin 3y agoEven AI? :)
- zmjjmz 3y agoDo believe that a human learning from a book is fundamentally different than training a model off of it, and thus should be regulated differently?
- staticman2 3y agoIf corporations are allowed to own AI there's a strong argument that it shouldn't be treated anything like a human. Humans aren't property so of course they should be regulated differently from AI.
- 3y ago
- tensor 3y agoThis is a non-story. Look at the actual changes. Nothing fundamentally new was added, but the language was broadened slightly in a completely unsurprising way. Language model -> AI model features -> product and features It just looks like their lawyers tidying up the words but the intention is unchanged.
- ChrisArchitect 3y ago[dupe] Discussion from yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36577626 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36577626
- DueDilligence 3y ago[dead]
- jonathankoren 3y agoI can’t help but think all this brouhaha over web scraping is just a rehash over the web scraping panic of the 1990s. Put it behind a robots.txt or better yet a login. This battle was fought and won. I’m not going back to the bad old days.
- nicbou 3y agoI want my website to be accessible to humans, and even indexed by search engines. I just don't want to be used as unpaid labour to train artificial intelligence. A bit like I will gladly build a bike for someone, but object to the bike being sold around the corner.
- puzzledobserver 3y agoI mostly agree with you, but as a counter-point: How would one precisely draw the lines between search engines and LLMs? One provides mostly airtight attributions, and the other is famous for hallucinating citations. But this doesn't sound like a distinction that can be used as the basis for law? Or are you less concerned with their design and more concerned with their purpose? Providing citations is fine, but creating content is not?
- nicbou 3y agoOne brings traffic to the original work, supporting its creators. The other takes uses the creators' labour without giving anything in return.
- jonathankoren 3y agoThis was the same argument against search engines and in favor human curated hierarchies like original Yahoo and DMoz. How do you Wikipedia being used for products period, let alone used as data products, since that’s also repurposed unpaid labor?
- nicbou 3y agoWikipedia hosts people's hard work and makes it available to the world. Search engines help connect people to the things they want. At least they mostly do. AI inserts itself in the middle and strips the creators of credit, recognition or income.
- villgax 3y agoThere's no limit to such idiocy. I shall ingest everything public on Google properties coz scraping my website constitutes agreement to my conjured up licence
- karaterobot 3y agoIs this something they can confidently define in a privacy policy? This feels like its proper scope would be legislation. Indeed, legislation which is very much unsettled and ongoing. My assumption is they'll do as much as the law allows, but if the law doesn't allow it, their privacy policy isn't going to make a difference.
- 908087 3y ago[dead]
- Animats 3y agoThat just says what Google wants to do. Google's privacy policy has no legal effect on anyone not in a contractual relationship with Google.
- worksonmine 3y agoUnder what jurisdiction am I allowed to create a policy to use whatever I want however I want? Playing the devils advocate I have to assume their lawyers didn't just pull this out of their asses? Now I'm making a policy that I'm allowed to (ab)use Googles services however I want. They can find the policy themselves. God I hate Google.
- pessimizer 3y agoThat's nothing. I changed my personal privacy policy to allow myself to use google's copyrighted source code. Because that's how it works.
- Takennickname 3y agoIf anyone thinks Google respects your privacy and this is an isolated incident then boy do I have news for you LOL
- kmbfjr 3y agoOkay, if that is we are going to play it. My personal web site that is essentially a doc page on numerous home lab projects and other technical writings, is going dark. I’m not training your new search algorithms so you can directly profit from my writings. I didn’t seek payments prior to this, but now this is just plagiarizing my work. See ya
- tinus_hn 3y agoA strange proposition, why would their privacy policy apply to websites scraped by their bot? ‘By being scraped you agree to be bound by these rules’?