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He's on about the problem of data mining being used by NSA and corporate America to do Bad Things. And what are you on about? I'm guessing you're on about the

He's on about the problem of data mining being used by NSA and corporate America to do Bad Things. And what are you on about? I'm guessing you're on about the "tool is only as good or evil as the wielder." Trying to take this back out of the meta, our society needs to figure out how to stop hurting each other. I think a good dose of critical thinking skills for our youngsters would go a good distance toward helping that.

Houshalter 13y ago
I guess that's sort of like saying computers are evil because they are used by the NSA. Is there even any evidence that they do use it for anything significant? Let alone that this guys work is contributing to it.
- mindslight 13y ago
  Computers have many applications, while data mining is generally used with working sets consisting of information about large groups of people - either to get a strategic leg up on them (say, price discrimination or advertising susceptibility), or to single out deviant individuals. I don't think the entire field is strictly a universal evil per se, but with the current climate of centralization I think any good that it can bring is massively dwarfed by the bad. Similarly, missiles themselves aren't a universal bad as they can be used for self defense, but in the current world basically their entire purpose is to preserve empires.
  - Houshalter 13y ago
    I don't think that's the case. In theory it can be used to "find deviants", but has that actually ever been done and to what degree? Improving advertisements isn't horrible. It has a lot of applications in science, could vastly improve medicine, it's used to predict energy usage for power plants, filter spam, recommend movies or products, improve harvests for farming, etc. But I guess those things don't sell papers. And lastly calling a technology "bad" isn't actually helpful. We can't stop bad people from using the technology or "uninvent" it. You'll just damage the people using it for good. See the Halo Effect where people told about the risks of nuclear power perceive the benefits as less (http://lesswrong.com/lw/lj/the_halo_effect/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/lj/the_halo_effect/).
    - mindslight 13y ago
      By "finding deviants", I mean exactly what the NSA is doing, and what every Keystone police department will be doing in ten years. And yes, improving advertisements is horrible - this is precisely one of the anti-human facets I am talking about. > It has a lot of applications in science, could vastly improve medicine, it's used to predict energy usage for power plants, filter spam, recommend movies or products, improve harvests for farming, etc You're right. My initial comment was way too harsh and broad for indicting the whole field rather than just the in-our-face web scene applications. > lastly calling a technology "bad" isn't actually helpful. We can't stop bad people from using the technology Of course you can't uninvent something, but you can slow down or speed up it's progress. Path dependence is a thing. Currently, most people do not feel empowered with respect to computers. The more we put them at the mercy of seemingly unpredictable computer systems that are actually trying to outwit them, the harder it is going to be for them to get over those feelings of disempowerment so that we can get to a place where people expect their computers to work for them.
      - Houshalter 13y ago
        I've seen no evidence that the NSA does that, and really it makes no sense. Doing a search for "abnormal" behavior would mostly get you people that visit odd websites, or are awake at atypical hours, or spend too much time online, etc. Nothing remotely useful. There is a lot of hype around data-mining but there are diminishing returns on what can be done with it. I agree that ads are bad, but they aren't that bad. Targeted advertisement is mostly just finding things that are relevant to the website or viewer. And it's so incredibly easy to block ads on the internet I don't really have much sympathy for those that don't and complain about them. Ads were way worse in the age of television where 25% of all content was commercials. >Of course you can't uninvent something, but you can slow down or speed up it's progress. Path dependence is a thing. Perhaps, but for the most part the technology already exists. At it's core it's just basic statistics or sometimes even simpler techniques. Diminishing returns have already been hit long ago - I can't think of much that would improve the "bad" applications more than the "good". >The more we put them at the mercy of seemingly unpredictable computer systems that are actually trying to outwit them, the harder it is going to be for them to get over those feelings of disempowerment so that we can get to a place where people expect their computers to work for them. I.. what? On the rare occasions where machine learning is used in apps, it's to improve user experience, or do something that would otherwise be too complex or inefficient to code by hand. I'm sure someone, somewhere, abused the technology in their app - just like every programming technology ever. But in general I don't see how this is bad or even that it makes computers more "unpredictable".

Houshalter 13y ago

I guess that's sort of like saying computers are evil because they are used by the NSA. Is there even any evidence that they do use it for anything significant? Let alone that this guys work is contributing to it.

mindslight 13y ago
Computers have many applications, while data mining is generally used with working sets consisting of information about large groups of people - either to get a strategic leg up on them (say, price discrimination or advertising susceptibility), or to single out deviant individuals. I don't think the entire field is strictly a universal evil per se, but with the current climate of centralization I think any good that it can bring is massively dwarfed by the bad. Similarly, missiles themselves aren't a universal bad as they can be used for self defense, but in the current world basically their entire purpose is to preserve empires.
- Houshalter 13y ago
  I don't think that's the case. In theory it can be used to "find deviants", but has that actually ever been done and to what degree? Improving advertisements isn't horrible. It has a lot of applications in science, could vastly improve medicine, it's used to predict energy usage for power plants, filter spam, recommend movies or products, improve harvests for farming, etc. But I guess those things don't sell papers. And lastly calling a technology "bad" isn't actually helpful. We can't stop bad people from using the technology or "uninvent" it. You'll just damage the people using it for good. See the Halo Effect where people told about the risks of nuclear power perceive the benefits as less (http://lesswrong.com/lw/lj/the_halo_effect/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/lj/the_halo_effect/).
  - mindslight 13y ago
    By "finding deviants", I mean exactly what the NSA is doing, and what every Keystone police department will be doing in ten years. And yes, improving advertisements is horrible - this is precisely one of the anti-human facets I am talking about. > It has a lot of applications in science, could vastly improve medicine, it's used to predict energy usage for power plants, filter spam, recommend movies or products, improve harvests for farming, etc You're right. My initial comment was way too harsh and broad for indicting the whole field rather than just the in-our-face web scene applications. > lastly calling a technology "bad" isn't actually helpful. We can't stop bad people from using the technology Of course you can't uninvent something, but you can slow down or speed up it's progress. Path dependence is a thing. Currently, most people do not feel empowered with respect to computers. The more we put them at the mercy of seemingly unpredictable computer systems that are actually trying to outwit them, the harder it is going to be for them to get over those feelings of disempowerment so that we can get to a place where people expect their computers to work for them.
    - Houshalter 13y ago
      I've seen no evidence that the NSA does that, and really it makes no sense. Doing a search for "abnormal" behavior would mostly get you people that visit odd websites, or are awake at atypical hours, or spend too much time online, etc. Nothing remotely useful. There is a lot of hype around data-mining but there are diminishing returns on what can be done with it. I agree that ads are bad, but they aren't that bad. Targeted advertisement is mostly just finding things that are relevant to the website or viewer. And it's so incredibly easy to block ads on the internet I don't really have much sympathy for those that don't and complain about them. Ads were way worse in the age of television where 25% of all content was commercials. >Of course you can't uninvent something, but you can slow down or speed up it's progress. Path dependence is a thing. Perhaps, but for the most part the technology already exists. At it's core it's just basic statistics or sometimes even simpler techniques. Diminishing returns have already been hit long ago - I can't think of much that would improve the "bad" applications more than the "good". >The more we put them at the mercy of seemingly unpredictable computer systems that are actually trying to outwit them, the harder it is going to be for them to get over those feelings of disempowerment so that we can get to a place where people expect their computers to work for them. I.. what? On the rare occasions where machine learning is used in apps, it's to improve user experience, or do something that would otherwise be too complex or inefficient to code by hand. I'm sure someone, somewhere, abused the technology in their app - just like every programming technology ever. But in general I don't see how this is bad or even that it makes computers more "unpredictable".