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As sad as it undoubtedly sounds (and as if we're already saying goodbye to the utopia), I think this choice might be wiser than we initially thought. Consider t

As sad as it undoubtedly sounds (and as if we're already saying goodbye to the utopia), I think this choice might be wiser than we initially thought. Consider the implications of AI knowing everything about you, even down to your biometric behavior. Think about the threat of disinformation campaigns targeting democracies. I know my stance may seem weak in terms of ideals, and I feel a bitter regret toward my former self. But shouldn’t we, as humans, try to honor our shared values and act accordingly? I am aware that a single hosting company won't do anything regarding those considerations, but ... anyways. I feel sorry for writing those sentences and sharing my doubts.

diggan 1y ago
> try to honor our shared values and act accordingly What "shared values"? Most of the values people hold as "important" has people on the other side with the opposite values, and both of those are "correct". There are no "shared values" that all humans agreed upon.
- Bengalilol 1y ago
  Sharing is not agreeing. I can share values with someone I don't agree with. Switzerland has shared values for instance, it is a country build upon that principle. I bet every society has some. Humans too.
  - ptero 1y ago
    All people or most? If most, where is the threshold (0.1%, 1%, 10%?) for those whose values we can ignore and what should we do with those pesky people who do not share otherwise common values?
    - Bengalilol 1y ago
      Do you know Switzerland and its democratic system? I am referring to those shared values that are enshrined in the Swiss Federal Constitution: Freedom, Human dignity, Equality, Democracy, Multilingualism and cultural diversity, Federalism, Solidarity. (that is not an exhaustive list).
      - ptero 1y ago
        Those are great words. The problems start when we try turning those into actionable definitions. That is, defining what kind of freedom citizens have and when the government starts putting pressure on those who step outside those definitions.
- nelsnelson 1y ago
  Seems like a not difficult and quite worthwhile exercise to come up with at least one or two values that are so basic and fundamental that everyone could share them. Maybe that's what OP is talking about. Why be obtuse about shared values?
  - ptero 1y ago
    Because historically it has never been done. The closest we got is when a group (religious or political) finds something most people somewhat agree with, declares it a universal value and proceeds to suppress, drive away or eliminate those evil people who do not share it. It is much better to define acceptable boundaries on actions and let people believe what they want if their actions do not violate those agreed on boundaries.
    - Bengalilol 1y ago
      Switzerland is the oldest democracy in the world. Your comment certainly doesn't fit the way this country handles its citizens. There is the Law, the "what is tolerated" and what isn't. That's the "boundaries on actions". But any malicious mind won't bow down to those intentional principles.
      - ptero 1y ago
        What is a "malicious mind"? People absolutely heed laws that they find personally inconvenient but are afraid of the penalties (parking restrictions, paying taxes, loud music and that is not even stepping into hot button topics). The reason Swiss stayed democratic is likely not because they share universal, similarly understood values, but because they feel that their system that only defines acceptable norms is working okay as is.
      - fakeBeerDrinker 1y ago
        I don’t believe that Switzerland is the oldest democracy in the world, but I could be mistaken. Iceland has had a democratic-ish parliament since the 900s[0]. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Althing https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Althing
- reliabilityguy 1y ago
  > There are no "shared values" that all humans agreed upon. Murder is bad? Stealing is bad?
  - bdangubic 1y ago
    for me and you? sure! for all humans? nope
  - DaSHacka 1y ago
    Think most murderers or thiefs would agree about those?
  - diggan 1y ago
    > Murder is bad? Sure, lots of countries agree with this. But bunch of countries still have "death penalty", even one that is usually heralded as the "Savior of the West" still has judicial murders. Besides, if everyone agreed "murder is bad" we wouldn't have wars, so obviously not everyone agrees with that. > Stealing is bad? This I don't even agree with 100%, depends on the context. You're starving while someone else is hoarding food for themselves for no particular reason? Totally justifiable to steal food from them to survive. War argument kind of fits with this one too, clearly not everyone agrees stealing is bad.
notpushkin 1y ago
I don’t understand a word you’re saying. How does any of this relate to the topic?
- Bengalilol 1y ago
  You may be right and I beg a pardon for my words then. I still have to dig the current law proposal (my shame). The conclusion I came to a few years ago is that anonymity in Switzerland is not something useful. Switzerland is not a police state, it mainly copes up with trying to get its citizens to being responsible. Whenever you make something wrong IRL, you have to assume the consequences. Same with online. I concur that my words are messed up.
  - kstrauser 1y ago
    > Switzerland is not a police state, it mainly copes up with trying to get its citizens to being responsible. I don’t even know what to say. Every police state claims it’s only “trying to get its citizens to be responsible”.
    - Bengalilol 1y ago
      This is me saying it, not the state. I am swiss and living freely in Switzerland btw. Where are you from?
piva00 1y ago
> Consider the implications of AI knowing everything about you, even down to your biometric behavior. Think about the threat of disinformation campaigns targeting democracies. I know my stance may seem weak in terms of ideals, and I feel a bitter regret toward my former self. But shouldn’t we, as humans, try to honor our shared values and act accordingly? I don't understand this train of thought, what exactly are you saying? I can interpret it as "it's wise to end online anonymity and feed all personal information (including biometrics) to AIs to enforce social rules" which is, frankly, an absurd proposal even if you are extremely naïve, not even considering one single negative aspect of the loss of all privacy, being managed by a machine in a societal level. Or I can try to interpret it as feeding all of this into AIs create insurmountable threats, to democracy, to the individual, etc. which is somewhat what I'd expect to logically follow from feeding all this personal data into AI models. But none of these interpretations are actually possible for me to land at based on what and how you wrote, I can't make sense of it.
- Bengalilol 1y ago
  You're right. What I was trying to say is that simply being on the internet today — using AIs, corporate networks, and so on — almost certainly exposes your most personal and unique information (the kind of data that reveals your very identity) to the entities operating those systems. Sadly, I was implying that anonymity is becoming an obsolete concept. Then I tried to think of a law that could help the Swiss government track down malicious individuals, and I wondered whether that could actually serve as something beneficial — a way to protect people and their freedom.
  - piva00 1y ago
    Got it, thanks for clarifying! I'm in complete agreement with you, I first got scared with the potential for profiling individuals through data collection over time some 15 years ago. I was working on a very small project from a startup, related to football/soccer, where we collected behavioural and sentiment data from football fans over time, in our service and around social media (mostly Twitter at the time), and had a first glimpse on what could be inferred about individuals just based on very public datapoints they'd produce. That project opened my eyes, and the paranoia it created in me never really went away, it's a constant thought in my mind about how much data I'm generating for massive companies creating very accurate profiles of who I am: what I like and dislike, what I access, where I am, what I'm doing where I am, every single time I click on a link, a video, etc. I feel a little dread that I provided even more information about myself to machines programmed to crunch through all of this and materialise a view of who I am as a person. Right now it's mostly to serve me ads but the potential that absurd amount of information gathering has in the wrong hands truly terrify me. The worst part is that there's almost no escape living a contemporary lifestyle, the only way is to engage with anything digital in very, very cautious ways, trying to cover every single trace and track you might leave behind while interacting with any digital product, and that is simply exhausting.
bobajeff 1y ago
'You are being watched. The government has a secret system, a system you asked for, to keep you safe. A machine that spies on you every hour of every day. You've granted it the power to see everything, to index, order and control the lives of ordinary people. The government considers these people irrelevant. We don't. But to it, you are all irrelevant. Victim or perpetrator, if you stand in it's way we'll find you.'
- Bengalilol 1y ago
  If I stand in the way of letting everyone live in peace and with dignity? For sure, I'd better be OK with the "government" (you don't know Switzerland, do you?) finding me.
meindnoch 1y ago
Please write down in Simple English what you want, because your comment makes no sense whatsoever.

diggan 1y ago

> try to honor our shared values and act accordingly What "shared values"? Most of the values people hold as "important" has people on the other side with the opposite values, and both of those are "correct". There are no "shared values" that all humans agreed upon.

Bengalilol 1y ago
Sharing is not agreeing. I can share values with someone I don't agree with. Switzerland has shared values for instance, it is a country build upon that principle. I bet every society has some. Humans too.
- ptero 1y ago
  All people or most? If most, where is the threshold (0.1%, 1%, 10%?) for those whose values we can ignore and what should we do with those pesky people who do not share otherwise common values?
  - Bengalilol 1y ago
    Do you know Switzerland and its democratic system? I am referring to those shared values that are enshrined in the Swiss Federal Constitution: Freedom, Human dignity, Equality, Democracy, Multilingualism and cultural diversity, Federalism, Solidarity. (that is not an exhaustive list).
    - ptero 1y ago
      Those are great words. The problems start when we try turning those into actionable definitions. That is, defining what kind of freedom citizens have and when the government starts putting pressure on those who step outside those definitions.
nelsnelson 1y ago
Seems like a not difficult and quite worthwhile exercise to come up with at least one or two values that are so basic and fundamental that everyone could share them. Maybe that's what OP is talking about. Why be obtuse about shared values?
- ptero 1y ago
  Because historically it has never been done. The closest we got is when a group (religious or political) finds something most people somewhat agree with, declares it a universal value and proceeds to suppress, drive away or eliminate those evil people who do not share it. It is much better to define acceptable boundaries on actions and let people believe what they want if their actions do not violate those agreed on boundaries.
  - Bengalilol 1y ago
    Switzerland is the oldest democracy in the world. Your comment certainly doesn't fit the way this country handles its citizens. There is the Law, the "what is tolerated" and what isn't. That's the "boundaries on actions". But any malicious mind won't bow down to those intentional principles.
    - ptero 1y ago
      What is a "malicious mind"? People absolutely heed laws that they find personally inconvenient but are afraid of the penalties (parking restrictions, paying taxes, loud music and that is not even stepping into hot button topics). The reason Swiss stayed democratic is likely not because they share universal, similarly understood values, but because they feel that their system that only defines acceptable norms is working okay as is.
    - fakeBeerDrinker 1y ago
      I don’t believe that Switzerland is the oldest democracy in the world, but I could be mistaken. Iceland has had a democratic-ish parliament since the 900s[0]. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Althing https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Althing
reliabilityguy 1y ago
> There are no "shared values" that all humans agreed upon. Murder is bad? Stealing is bad?
- bdangubic 1y ago
  for me and you? sure! for all humans? nope
- DaSHacka 1y ago
  Think most murderers or thiefs would agree about those?
- diggan 1y ago
  > Murder is bad? Sure, lots of countries agree with this. But bunch of countries still have "death penalty", even one that is usually heralded as the "Savior of the West" still has judicial murders. Besides, if everyone agreed "murder is bad" we wouldn't have wars, so obviously not everyone agrees with that. > Stealing is bad? This I don't even agree with 100%, depends on the context. You're starving while someone else is hoarding food for themselves for no particular reason? Totally justifiable to steal food from them to survive. War argument kind of fits with this one too, clearly not everyone agrees stealing is bad.

notpushkin 1y ago

I don’t understand a word you’re saying. How does any of this relate to the topic?

Bengalilol 1y ago
You may be right and I beg a pardon for my words then. I still have to dig the current law proposal (my shame). The conclusion I came to a few years ago is that anonymity in Switzerland is not something useful. Switzerland is not a police state, it mainly copes up with trying to get its citizens to being responsible. Whenever you make something wrong IRL, you have to assume the consequences. Same with online. I concur that my words are messed up.
- kstrauser 1y ago
  > Switzerland is not a police state, it mainly copes up with trying to get its citizens to being responsible. I don’t even know what to say. Every police state claims it’s only “trying to get its citizens to be responsible”.
  - Bengalilol 1y ago
    This is me saying it, not the state. I am swiss and living freely in Switzerland btw. Where are you from?

piva00 1y ago

> Consider the implications of AI knowing everything about you, even down to your biometric behavior. Think about the threat of disinformation campaigns targeting democracies. I know my stance may seem weak in terms of ideals, and I feel a bitter regret toward my former self. But shouldn’t we, as humans, try to honor our shared values and act accordingly? I don't understand this train of thought, what exactly are you saying? I can interpret it as "it's wise to end online anonymity and feed all personal information (including biometrics) to AIs to enforce social rules" which is, frankly, an absurd proposal even if you are extremely naïve, not even considering one single negative aspect of the loss of all privacy, being managed by a machine in a societal level. Or I can try to interpret it as feeding all of this into AIs create insurmountable threats, to democracy, to the individual, etc. which is somewhat what I'd expect to logically follow from feeding all this personal data into AI models. But none of these interpretations are actually possible for me to land at based on what and how you wrote, I can't make sense of it.

Bengalilol 1y ago
You're right. What I was trying to say is that simply being on the internet today — using AIs, corporate networks, and so on — almost certainly exposes your most personal and unique information (the kind of data that reveals your very identity) to the entities operating those systems. Sadly, I was implying that anonymity is becoming an obsolete concept. Then I tried to think of a law that could help the Swiss government track down malicious individuals, and I wondered whether that could actually serve as something beneficial — a way to protect people and their freedom.
- piva00 1y ago
  Got it, thanks for clarifying! I'm in complete agreement with you, I first got scared with the potential for profiling individuals through data collection over time some 15 years ago. I was working on a very small project from a startup, related to football/soccer, where we collected behavioural and sentiment data from football fans over time, in our service and around social media (mostly Twitter at the time), and had a first glimpse on what could be inferred about individuals just based on very public datapoints they'd produce. That project opened my eyes, and the paranoia it created in me never really went away, it's a constant thought in my mind about how much data I'm generating for massive companies creating very accurate profiles of who I am: what I like and dislike, what I access, where I am, what I'm doing where I am, every single time I click on a link, a video, etc. I feel a little dread that I provided even more information about myself to machines programmed to crunch through all of this and materialise a view of who I am as a person. Right now it's mostly to serve me ads but the potential that absurd amount of information gathering has in the wrong hands truly terrify me. The worst part is that there's almost no escape living a contemporary lifestyle, the only way is to engage with anything digital in very, very cautious ways, trying to cover every single trace and track you might leave behind while interacting with any digital product, and that is simply exhausting.

bobajeff 1y ago

'You are being watched. The government has a secret system, a system you asked for, to keep you safe. A machine that spies on you every hour of every day. You've granted it the power to see everything, to index, order and control the lives of ordinary people. The government considers these people irrelevant. We don't. But to it, you are all irrelevant. Victim or perpetrator, if you stand in it's way we'll find you.'

Bengalilol 1y ago
If I stand in the way of letting everyone live in peace and with dignity? For sure, I'd better be OK with the "government" (you don't know Switzerland, do you?) finding me.

meindnoch 1y ago

Please write down in Simple English what you want, because your comment makes no sense whatsoever.