Apple reportedly buys AI startup with privacy-conscious approach | Hacker News Reader

Apple reportedly buys AI startup with privacy-conscious approach

theverge.com

107 pointsevo_925 comments

Privacy is a double edged sword and apple has taken the other side of it compared to most other companies. Doing good ai while being privacy conscious is not easy, huge props to them and hope they succeed.

> Doing good ai while being privacy conscious is not easy

Is this fact or do we just think this because the only companies who have put resources into AI are companies that doesn't give a shit about your privacy (because they use it for their other products)?

This seems fairly obvious - good ai can do things like predict what you want, understand your speech, understand your intent, etc. All this requires tons of personal data. And any amount of personal data can be difficult to keep secure/used ethically/etc.

> good ai can do things like predict what you want, understand your speech, understand your intent, etc.

It can be used for those things, or entirely different things that don't have anything to do with private data. It's not hard to not do these things just because it's possible to do them.

It’s possible to personalize experiences without storing information that leads to a personal identification. I’m not saying it’s easy to walk that line, but it is possible.

Keep secure sure (although the same is true of all personal data not just that related to AI) but ethical use is not a computer science problem.

Maybe I'm splitting hairs, but anonymization while still having the data be useful for deep learning seems computer science-related.

Making it even more difficult :)

I think Edge AI where nothing is passed to the cloud is going to be a big area.

Currently Apple is the only one of the fangm whose business model allows this. Probably the only huge growth area for apple-style margins (ie, $17/month for a local ai to train with you as its learning set with complete, auditable privacy).

Arguably, Microsoft could do this as well without cannibalizing too much business. It's truly a shame they aren't doing it.

I wish they'd stop trying to use Microsoft Windows as an ad platform for all their other products and focus instead on making their existing OS better. If you want to advertise all your Microsoft products, here's a crazy and wild idea, do it on the App store for Windows. Stop making duplicated services too, we got Microsoft Teams which I don't mind, it seems really good, but what about Skype and MSN?

Sort of, but they seem to be selling user data trying to catch up with Google.

I don’t think there’s much revenue in it according to their 10Q, but all their releases send stuff to the cloud (Xbox, Cortana, windows10, etc) for things that don’t need to.

iirc, mozilla is doing this for targeted advertising in Pocket: they use client-side code to decide what to show.

Their web speech api is also focused on local processing, unlike Chrome, which uploads audio to a remote server for processing (afaik).

It will be interesting to see how their technology is used.

Here are some examples https://www.silklabs.com/

Instantly search cameras at a shopping mall to find your missing child

Recognize who’s coming home without training on specific faces

Know where people are spending their time in a retail store

Save power and storage by only recording when a person is seen

Count the vehicles that have entered a parking lot

Know when people are yelling to be alerted of commotion

This seems pretty cool, I do like that on the surface at least, Apple seems to care a little about privacy.

Out of FANG, it seems like Apple is only one that really cares! See https://www.fastcompany.com/90236195/forget-the-new-iphones-...

While I like Apple and that they are taken a stance for privacy, a serious conversation needs to happen about if privacy is a human right or a luxury good. Because the way it's going, only the people who can afford to will be able to pay for privacy.

It seems fairly obvious that a right to privacy will have to be enshrined into the law at some point, if for no other reason than to preserve a diversity of thought and perspective in society. Unfortunately, it seems that no amount of individual tragedies will move the public toward useful regulations on certain issues due to emotional, cultural, and financial factors (see gun control) and it remains to be seen whether or not digital privacy is one such issue.

Indian Supreme court ruled, 2 years ago, that Privacy is a right (1):

(edited for brevity)

"..Supreme Court ruled on August 24, 2017 that the Right to Privacy is a fundamental right for Indian citizens under the Constitution of India. Thus no legislation passed by the government can unduly violate it. "

Will you pay for it? How much would you pay?

Not that I'm convinced they fit in FAANG, but do Netflix have a particularly bad privacy record? I know they do lots of tracking and magic to make recommendations but I'm not sure they even have any concerning data to play fast and loose with privacy wise?

Its getting slowly more popular to personality profile people based on their behaviour. It might be tempting for Netflix to sell their viewing data for such a purpose one day if somebody decides they want to buy it for that.

> Not that I'm convinced they fit in FAANG

Originally, FAANG referred to companies with huge growth. Now, the meaning has completely morphed.

Netflix probably provides data to Rentrak just like every other movie provider.

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