Comment by SeanAnderson | Hacker News Reader

Comment by SeanAnderson | Hacker News Reader

https://www.theverge.com/2023/12/8/23991850/eu-ai-act-artifi...

https://artificialintelligenceact.eu/wp-content/uploads/2022...

I was reading through this a couple of evenings ago to try and get up to speed.

I find the spirit of the law to be something I broadly approve of -- for example: "There are a number of applications where the use of AI is banned, like scraping facial images from CCTV footage, categorization based on “sensitive characteristics” like race, sexual orientation, religion, or political beliefs, emotion recognition at work or school, or the creation of “social scoring” systems." These things seem broadly good to keep at bay.

However, laws are more than just what they intend - it's what they actually do, how they're enforced, their secondary effects, etc. People don't like being tracked without consent, but people haaate all the "This site uses cookies" popups.

From that perspective, I am not so sure about all of this. The language feels like its grasping at straws a bit prematurely in an attempt to head-off a problem which isn't fully manifest yet. Yes, it's good to get ahead of this sort of thing, but, IDK, I just wasn't fully convinced the legalese knew what it was on about. It even admits as such, stating that it encourages using broad terminology to future-proof itself and encompass the rapid pace of innovation.

Plus, yeah, as others have mentioned -- I feel EU is starting to litigate its way out of technical relevancy. It's one thing if the forefront of innovation were occurring there, and they were then dictating how that innovation should evolve, but that doesn't seem to be what's occurring. Technological progress is a cornerstone of strong GDPs and I'm starting to fear for the EU a bit in this regard.

> People don't like being tracked without consent, but people haaate all the "This site uses cookies" popups.

I thought that was the intent… surfacing ubiquitous tracking to direct consumer frustration at the practice itself.

I don't think so, because that consumer frustration has resulted in nothing. Nada.

We click the popups and get annoyed at the EU, not at the website.

Eh true. I wonder how that is different than, say, the tracking notifications that Apple added to iOS. Consumer choice maybe?

I guess they can also enforce a good UX by controlling what is listed/installable on the play store, so apps can’t maliciously comply.

Regulators are being slow, but with GDPR you can also not maliciously comply. You can get fined for that and slowly regulators are starting to so that

I always get annoyed at the website.

To the point where I'll click away if they don't give me a way to opt out, or if I feel like they're taking the mickey too much. All those cookery websites that are so snooty about cookies as if there weren't 10 more similar websites where they came from...

I really don't, I definitely get annoyed at the website, and I get way more annoyed at websites which make it hard to say no to the cookies easily.

Nada? It's made huge changes in how businesses use ad tech. And yes, I work as a martech consultant.

Pre-2018 nobody cared about sharing data with third parties. Today nobody wants to be this company. https://www.nrk.no/kultur/nettapotek-delte-med-facebook-at-d...

Ymmv, but nada is categorically wrong.

This is the same argument used in America for why taxes and expected gratuity aren't included in the item price, and it has done nothing to fix the problem.

I’m not 100% sure I follow. Are you saying this is done by retailers to dissociate themselves from sales tax and make it obvious to consumers which part of the total price is the governments fault, or something else?

Loosely, yes. The historical reason is a lack of state sales tax for many states in the 20th century, however one of the main justifications for continuing this process is to highlight what portion of the price is sales tax. However, it has become incredibly evident that large chains abuse this for psychological reasons.

In the EU and Japan for example, prices include tax, allowing for a more honest depiction of total cost to the consumer.

> in an attempt to head-off a problem which isn't fully manifest yet.

It has already manifested. All the dangerous uses of AI etc. are already there and used all the time all across the globe from China to the US.

> It's one thing if the forefront of innovation were occurring there, and they were then dictating how that innovation should evolve

Doesn't the AI act specifically says: document your foundational models, and gives preference to opensource? It's a much better approach than the black box of OpenAI.

----

> People don't like being tracked without consent, but people haaate all the "This site uses cookies" popups.

And the law that mentions neither browsers nor cookies is responsible for this how exactly?

That will be the main issue with EU AI Act, too: the industry will gaslight it, spread enormous amounts of FUD, will engage in years-long malicious compliance.

This. Making tracking annoying to consumers is feature, not a bug.

> All the dangerous uses of AI etc. are already there and used all the time all across the globe from China to the US.

If this is as bad as it gets then it wasn't so bad.

> If this is as bad as it gets then it wasn't so bad.

Mass surveillance? Social scoring based on 24/7 monitoring of your activities? Stories like this: https://www.politico.eu/article/dutch-scandal-serves-as-a-wa...?

You think this isn't bad? Considering we've just started all this?

> You think this isn't bad?

Remember I said "wasn't so bad". Compared to the speculations such as all jobs being eliminated and flawless AI impersonations leading to a total breakdown of communication, yes. It's bad, but it could be a lot worse. And governments can cause fantastic amounts of greater harm just by declaring war. No algorithms required.

> Considering we've just started all this?

Remember I said "if this is as bad as it gets"

> It's bad, but it could be a lot worse

Yes, and it's getting worse

> Remember I said "if this is as bad as it gets"

1. How isn't this already bad enough for you?

2. How are you blind to the fact that it is getting worse? With companies like Deloitte already pushing for things like predictive policing [1] among many, many examples of systems already in place, and already causing harm.

Yes, governments can go to war, but that's reductio ad absurdum. Whatever bad things happen you can always find worse things. Doesn't mean this somehow justifies or nullifies the existing situation.

https://www2.deloitte.com/fi/fi/pages/public-sector/articles...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com