4 ms·

Not telling you whats wrong should be highly ilegal, given how important these systems can be for modern society.

Lio 3y ago
I'd prefer it if we legislated that organisations can't exclusively rely on closed systems like Facebook/Meta to run their services. I saw a sign last year for forestry service work happening locally to me. Apparently they're only going to provide safety announcements on Facebook. Shit like that grinds my gears. Meta's users aren't citizens, they're serfs. :(
- HPsquared 3y ago
  Serfs were at least tied to the land and somewhat entitled to live there. It's a lower status than serfs.
  - zx8080 3y ago
    Not human beings. Things.
    - Retric 3y ago
      A surprisingly large number of people chose to become serfs due to the benefits it provided. It seems wacky, but companies really are treating users in ways that lords were legally prevented from treating their surfs. The privileges vs obligations of serfdom would be unpleasant by our standards, but it wasn’t slavery.
- bell-cot 3y ago
  > I saw a sign last year for forestry service work happening locally to me. Apparently they're only going to provide safety announcements on Facebook. There probably are (and should be) laws or regulations forbidding that, especially because "safety". OTOH, from the PoV of the lower-level Forestry Service people who decided to do that - I'd guess they're stuck in a miserably understaffed and low-budget bit of a pretty dysfunctional government, and doing traditional safety announcements would cost them 100X the time and headaches of "just put it on Facebook".
  - soco 3y ago
    You are most probably right, it's just the effect is the same unwanted de-facto monopoly on communications... so what's then there to do???
    - bell-cot 3y ago
      From "forestry service", I'll guess they're under state or federal authority, so "just be a squeaky wheel in local politics" is not an option. Sadly, this is something that needs reliable, local news coverage. Doesn't much matter if that's a "for profit" newspaper magically transported from the Good Old Days of local journalism...or ongoing, ~thankless work in the trenches by a person or few with the skills to set up and run some flavor of local news web site (which could be very niche - say, forestry service stuff, parks & rec news, road closures & construction, etc.).
- otikik 3y ago
  "Technofeudalism" is a term that already exists, actually. Here's Cory Doctorow reviewing Yanis Varoufakis's book about it: https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/28/cloudalists/ https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/28/cloudalists/
- ggybdese 3y ago
  > they're only going to provide safety announcements on Facebook. While I understand, what's the alternative you propose? I have seen HN threads ridiculing some govt website for being outdated or not fixing the latest vulnerability or not using the latest version etc. Or if they do allocate a bigger chunk of their budget for tech and there will be unreasonable HN threads about how one user feels he/she could build it over a weekend and question the budgets. Worst yet, I have seen numerous HN threads talking about big ad tech (which most big tech are), claiming their services are totally non essential and a waste of time, and how their life improved since they stopped using these services. This comment goes as far as to call all the users as serfs totally ignoring that many real people and their real use cases :( I feel its used because it's free and it simply works for most people. I feel the status quo is there because of the lack of a better one. You simply cannot make everyone happy on HN, let alone all people.
  - jerf 3y ago
    "While I understand, what's the alternative you propose?" Simple: Strike the word "only". It's not that hard to post to several sites and also your own. I'd like some RSS on the main site too. It's not that hard for an individual and it's even easier for an organization with thousands of employees.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - Lio 3y ago
      Yep that's it exactly. I'd prefer the government to host its own data. I'd also like any site hosting public information to be compelled to serve that information to everyone. Facebook may not know they're being used like this, and it would be fine for them to object, but if they do want to carry government alerts they should be open to non-users without tracking or shadow profiling.
    - NoGravitas 3y ago
      Publish on your own site, syndicate elsewhere. (https://indieweb.org/POSSE https://indieweb.org/POSSE)
- johnnyanmac 3y ago
  > organisations can't exclusively rely on closed systems like Facebook/Meta to run their services. these organizations can barely update those sites sometimes. what hopes are there in maintaining and posting on their own blog?
varispeed 3y ago
Isn't it already under GDPR where entity using AI to make decisions need to provide an explanation how it arrived at it?
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- tremon 3y ago
  Not just AI, it applies to any form of automated decision making (https://gdpr-info.eu/art-22-gdpr/ https://gdpr-info.eu/art-22-gdpr/): The data subject shall have the right not to be subject to a decision based solely on automated processing, including profiling, which produces legal effects concerning him or her or similarly significantly affects him or her. But there's the usual "explicit consent" caveat, which Meta will argue they have because the user (as in: habitual consumer of harmful substances) has agreed to it in their TOS. But then there is also a transparency requirement on automated decision making (https://gdpr-info.eu/art-15-gdpr/ https://gdpr-info.eu/art-15-gdpr/): [data subject has access to] the existence of automated decision-making [and] meaningful information about the logic involved, as well as the significance and the envisaged consequences of such processing for the data subject. This explicitly says that the user has the right to know what logic is employed by automated decision making systems.
  - disgruntledphd2 3y ago
    Yeah, you could definitely take a case here, as not allowing someone to advertise is relatively consequential.
- james_in_the_uk 3y ago
  The UK ICO has some guidance here: https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/uk-gdpr-guidance-and-resources/artificial-intelligence/explaining-decisions-made-with-artificial-intelligence/ https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/uk-gdpr-guidance-and-re...
  - varispeed 3y ago
speed_spread 3y ago
Not sure about that, gcc is pretty important to society and still gives out the most cryptic error messages.

Lio 3y ago

I'd prefer it if we legislated that organisations can't exclusively rely on closed systems like Facebook/Meta to run their services. I saw a sign last year for forestry service work happening locally to me. Apparently they're only going to provide safety announcements on Facebook. Shit like that grinds my gears. Meta's users aren't citizens, they're serfs. :(

HPsquared 3y ago
Serfs were at least tied to the land and somewhat entitled to live there. It's a lower status than serfs.
- zx8080 3y ago
  Not human beings. Things.
  - Retric 3y ago
    A surprisingly large number of people chose to become serfs due to the benefits it provided. It seems wacky, but companies really are treating users in ways that lords were legally prevented from treating their surfs. The privileges vs obligations of serfdom would be unpleasant by our standards, but it wasn’t slavery.
bell-cot 3y ago
> I saw a sign last year for forestry service work happening locally to me. Apparently they're only going to provide safety announcements on Facebook. There probably are (and should be) laws or regulations forbidding that, especially because "safety". OTOH, from the PoV of the lower-level Forestry Service people who decided to do that - I'd guess they're stuck in a miserably understaffed and low-budget bit of a pretty dysfunctional government, and doing traditional safety announcements would cost them 100X the time and headaches of "just put it on Facebook".
- soco 3y ago
  You are most probably right, it's just the effect is the same unwanted de-facto monopoly on communications... so what's then there to do???
  - bell-cot 3y ago
    From "forestry service", I'll guess they're under state or federal authority, so "just be a squeaky wheel in local politics" is not an option. Sadly, this is something that needs reliable, local news coverage. Doesn't much matter if that's a "for profit" newspaper magically transported from the Good Old Days of local journalism...or ongoing, ~thankless work in the trenches by a person or few with the skills to set up and run some flavor of local news web site (which could be very niche - say, forestry service stuff, parks & rec news, road closures & construction, etc.).
otikik 3y ago
"Technofeudalism" is a term that already exists, actually. Here's Cory Doctorow reviewing Yanis Varoufakis's book about it: https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/28/cloudalists/ https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/28/cloudalists/
ggybdese 3y ago
> they're only going to provide safety announcements on Facebook. While I understand, what's the alternative you propose? I have seen HN threads ridiculing some govt website for being outdated or not fixing the latest vulnerability or not using the latest version etc. Or if they do allocate a bigger chunk of their budget for tech and there will be unreasonable HN threads about how one user feels he/she could build it over a weekend and question the budgets. Worst yet, I have seen numerous HN threads talking about big ad tech (which most big tech are), claiming their services are totally non essential and a waste of time, and how their life improved since they stopped using these services. This comment goes as far as to call all the users as serfs totally ignoring that many real people and their real use cases :( I feel its used because it's free and it simply works for most people. I feel the status quo is there because of the lack of a better one. You simply cannot make everyone happy on HN, let alone all people.
- jerf 3y ago
  "While I understand, what's the alternative you propose?" Simple: Strike the word "only". It's not that hard to post to several sites and also your own. I'd like some RSS on the main site too. It's not that hard for an individual and it's even easier for an organization with thousands of employees.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - Lio 3y ago
    Yep that's it exactly. I'd prefer the government to host its own data. I'd also like any site hosting public information to be compelled to serve that information to everyone. Facebook may not know they're being used like this, and it would be fine for them to object, but if they do want to carry government alerts they should be open to non-users without tracking or shadow profiling.
  - NoGravitas 3y ago
    Publish on your own site, syndicate elsewhere. (https://indieweb.org/POSSE https://indieweb.org/POSSE)
johnnyanmac 3y ago
> organisations can't exclusively rely on closed systems like Facebook/Meta to run their services. these organizations can barely update those sites sometimes. what hopes are there in maintaining and posting on their own blog?

varispeed 3y ago

Isn't it already under GDPR where entity using AI to make decisions need to provide an explanation how it arrived at it?

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
tremon 3y ago
Not just AI, it applies to any form of automated decision making (https://gdpr-info.eu/art-22-gdpr/ https://gdpr-info.eu/art-22-gdpr/): The data subject shall have the right not to be subject to a decision based solely on automated processing, including profiling, which produces legal effects concerning him or her or similarly significantly affects him or her. But there's the usual "explicit consent" caveat, which Meta will argue they have because the user (as in: habitual consumer of harmful substances) has agreed to it in their TOS. But then there is also a transparency requirement on automated decision making (https://gdpr-info.eu/art-15-gdpr/ https://gdpr-info.eu/art-15-gdpr/): [data subject has access to] the existence of automated decision-making [and] meaningful information about the logic involved, as well as the significance and the envisaged consequences of such processing for the data subject. This explicitly says that the user has the right to know what logic is employed by automated decision making systems.
- disgruntledphd2 3y ago
  Yeah, you could definitely take a case here, as not allowing someone to advertise is relatively consequential.
james_in_the_uk 3y ago
The UK ICO has some guidance here: https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/uk-gdpr-guidance-and-resources/artificial-intelligence/explaining-decisions-made-with-artificial-intelligence/ https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/uk-gdpr-guidance-and-re...
- varispeed 3y ago

speed_spread 3y ago

Not sure about that, gcc is pretty important to society and still gives out the most cryptic error messages.