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Tech Giants Cut Corners to Harvest Data for A.I

27 points by colinprince 3y ago

colinprince 3y ago
https://archive.is/CZqBB https://archive.is/CZqBB
1vuio0pswjnm7 3y ago
Works where archive.is is blocked: https://web.archive.org/web/20240406095041if_/https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/06/technology/tech-giants-harvest-data-artificial-intelligence.html https://web.archive.org/web/20240406095041if_/https://www.ny...
thorncorona 3y ago
Aside but I really hate how the NYT refuses to publish anything positive about tech. Everything must go through a critical lens, except their pet causes.
- TesterVetter 3y ago
  NYT journalism has really gone down hill towards clickbait and controversial takes in lieu of just reporting the news. Gotta stay in business somehow I guess.
vladsanchez 3y ago
https://archive.ph/CZqBB https://archive.ph/CZqBB
disqard 3y ago
> The employees were told Google wanted to use people’s publicly available content in Google Docs, Google Sheets and related apps for an array of A.I. products. The employees said they didn’t know if the company had previously trained A.I. on such data. > At the time, Google’s privacy policy said the company could use publicly available information only to “help train Google’s language models and build features like Google Translate.” > The privacy team wrote new terms so Google could tap the data for its “A.I. models and build products and features like Google Translate, Bard and Cloud AI capabilities,” which was a wider collection of A.I. technologies. > “What is the end goal here?” one member of the privacy team asked in an internal message. “How broad are we going?” > The team was told specifically to release the new terms on the Fourth of July weekend, when people were typically focused on the holiday, the employees said. The revised policy debuted on July 1, at the start of the long weekend. Not sure if everyone read these sentences in the article.
- saurik 3y ago
  > The team was told specifically to release the new terms on the Fourth of July weekend, when people were typically focused on the holiday, the employees said. I think the public deserves to know the name of the person/people who made this decision (and maybe also the people who went along with it).
htrp 3y ago
basically the most uncharitable explanation seems to be the true one. I imagine next we'll find out that Gemini is trained on your private gmails as well
- wildpeaks 3y ago
  A good rule of thumb is that any data available might be (mis)used, regardless of the original intent: even if you trust the original collector, the company might be sold.

27 points by colinprince 3y ago

https://archive.is/CZqBB https://archive.is/CZqBB

Works where archive.is is blocked: https://web.archive.org/web/20240406095041if_/https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/06/technology/tech-giants-harvest-data-artificial-intelligence.html https://web.archive.org/web/20240406095041if_/https://www.ny...

thorncorona 3y ago

Aside but I really hate how the NYT refuses to publish anything positive about tech. Everything must go through a critical lens, except their pet causes.

TesterVetter 3y ago
NYT journalism has really gone down hill towards clickbait and controversial takes in lieu of just reporting the news. Gotta stay in business somehow I guess.

vladsanchez 3y ago

https://archive.ph/CZqBB https://archive.ph/CZqBB

disqard 3y ago

> The employees were told Google wanted to use people’s publicly available content in Google Docs, Google Sheets and related apps for an array of A.I. products. The employees said they didn’t know if the company had previously trained A.I. on such data. > At the time, Google’s privacy policy said the company could use publicly available information only to “help train Google’s language models and build features like Google Translate.” > The privacy team wrote new terms so Google could tap the data for its “A.I. models and build products and features like Google Translate, Bard and Cloud AI capabilities,” which was a wider collection of A.I. technologies. > “What is the end goal here?” one member of the privacy team asked in an internal message. “How broad are we going?” > The team was told specifically to release the new terms on the Fourth of July weekend, when people were typically focused on the holiday, the employees said. The revised policy debuted on July 1, at the start of the long weekend. Not sure if everyone read these sentences in the article.

saurik 3y ago
> The team was told specifically to release the new terms on the Fourth of July weekend, when people were typically focused on the holiday, the employees said. I think the public deserves to know the name of the person/people who made this decision (and maybe also the people who went along with it).

htrp 3y ago

basically the most uncharitable explanation seems to be the true one. I imagine next we'll find out that Gemini is trained on your private gmails as well

wildpeaks 3y ago
A good rule of thumb is that any data available might be (mis)used, regardless of the original intent: even if you trust the original collector, the company might be sold.