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This article misses the mark. The problem is that, for good reason, we've moved to a post-trust society. The author argues that you're a nutjob if you don't tru
by bachmeier 3y ago
This article misses the mark. The problem is that, for good reason, we've moved to a post-trust society. The author argues that you're a nutjob if you don't trust what large corporations are saying. He goes so far as to say it's on you to prove that they're doing something wrong.
This doesn't represent reality. Take this quote:
> A society where big companies tell blatant lies about how they are handling our data—and get away with it without consequences—is a very unhealthy society.
So, what are the consequences of lying? If there are any, I'm curious what they are. The author is arguing that "big companies" are going to do the morally correct thing even though it hurts their profit. That's just a silly argument.
In a post-trust society, companies have to prove they're doing what they say. There's no more making a statement and having the masses act as if that's what's going to happen.
Honestly, is there less than a 100% chance that down the road there will be a disclosure that there was a "mistake" where your data was used differently from what they claim? Fool me once, shame on you, fool me 5,872,328 times, shame on me.
- simonw 3y ago> "The author argues that you're a nutjob if you don't trust what large corporations are saying" That wasn't the message I was trying to communicate at all. My point with this piece is that people don't trust AI companies, and companies need to figure out what to do about this - that's why I called it a "crisis". I certainly didn't argue that big companies would "do the morally correct thing even though it hurts their profit". > "In a post-trust society, companies have to prove they're doing what they say. There's no more making a statement and having the masses act as if that's what's going to happen." I think you and I might be in strong agreement there. My goal in writing this company is to get AI companies to take this problem seriously and, like you said, "prove they're doing what they say".
- itronitron 3y agoIf a company is going to claim that they don't have Syphilis, then they need to guarantee that each of their "trusted partners" also doesn't have Syphilis, and each of their trusted partners needs to provide the same guarantees about their own trusted partners as well, ad infinitum.
- educaysean 3y agoGood. Let's make the companies that can make such claims stand out above the rest.
- __loam 3y agoI thought your piece here was pretty thoughtful and I appreciate that you provided us with how Facebook shows they are not, in fact, spying on us through the microphone.
- qup 3y agoMeanwhile: https://www.businessinsider.com/cox-active-listening-claims-conversations-phones-target-ads-12-2023 https://www.businessinsider.com/cox-active-listening-claims-...
- ryanjshaw 3y agoThey also need to stop writing things like this: > Use artificial intelligence (AI) from third-party partners.... Your data is never used to train their internal models Qualifiers like "their" and "internal" make me deeply skeptical. Are they saying that my data is used to train some "non-internal" models, whatever those are? Also, is my data being used to train any models in Dropbox other than one exclusively used by my account for the features I'm expecting? etc.
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- zmmmmm 3y ago> If there are any, I'm curious what they are The EU is well established now in setting penalties as a percentage of revenue. These really do scare big tech because their revenues are huge. But I think your whole point post-trust is highly aligned with the article. It's exactly that: people don't trust what they are told by anybody now (even government), and that's a crisis.
- 2devnull 3y ago“In a post-trust society” Is it really useful to think in black and white teleological terms? “Post-trust” just sounds a bit sophomoric/marxist. Like “late stage capitalism” or something similarly presumptuous.