Meta says European data is essential for culturally relevant AI | Hacker News Reader

Meta says European data is essential for culturally relevant AI

stackdiary.com

25 pointsskilled24 comments

So let people make an informed consent and opt-in to include their data. You are free to try to convince people of these benefits and that it outweighs privacy etc... But you do not get to choose for me. I reject technocracy.

they have this thing called "dont use facebook" :)

i know, they should probably let people use the service without various data collections, but still, perhaps people should stop signing over their soul to these crappy companies?

What's the alternative? You expected your high school mates to use mastodon?

Email and even SMS still do work great tho.

These don't serve the same purpose.

Stories and other things on platforms like Instagram help you stay connected with people passively without needing to find a suitable topic or a reason to start conversation of nowhere, it may make you discover a new thing to keep you connected to that person, they are interested in something you are curious about, thinking of traveling to the same place, etc.

You feel connected to people by looking at their pictures and avoid talking to them? Honestly not sure why I would want to feel connected to anyone I don't have a reason to talk to

Connected was probably the wrong word, more like up to date.

since i dont use that, no. I would however expect sms or email to work, maybe telegram, maybe signal. and if they cannot "inconvenience" themselves slightly for that, I dont quite think I need them

Expect*

I already limit usage very heavily. Just a few contacts left and I can remove it completely. However this is not so easy in general, as others expect to be able to reach you on FB/WhatsApp/Instagram. And even worse - almost all the social/communications companies seem to be adopting a similar stance. So there are fewer and fewer places to go.

Social connections are very important to people, and these companies are exploiting our desire to stay connected with other people - and the difficulty of changing communication platforms when there are many parties involved.

Well they are functional monopolies but also even if you don't use Meta services, if any of your friends posted a photo with you on there, it can also be used for training and without an account, you can't even object to that.

or pay them for the data.

Indeed, I'll believe a company isn't up to some repugnantly slimy shenanigans the moment they volunteer to accurately and carefully explain what data they want, why they think it's useful, how they'll look after it and why it's in my interest to opt in, all without being threatened into doing the very barest minimum by law.

Otherwise it's about as convincing as the school bully being forced to shake hands with his victim while the head teacher is standing over him.

At this point, Meta is like a child who threw a tantrum when their parent didn't buy them chocolate, and has decided to stuff the chocolate down their pants and walk out with it anyway.

Ok. Let us opt in, and ideally pay for that data.

Cultural relevance is of value to Meta and their share price, nobody else.

Not essential enough to pay for it to properly ask for opt-in

Nor do they even offer the legally required right to object (i.e. opt out) to people like me who are European residents but who have not agreed to their terms of service, meaning that we can’t log in to submit their right to object form.

Despite me not having an account, they might still process my personal data if a photograph or mention of me is included in in posts or comments by someone else. I do object to that data being used in their AI training, but I’m not given the option to exclude myself.

In that, they might have a point.-

FO(C)MO(BIT), Fear of (Culturally) Missing Out (through Bias in Training) setting in ...

The first day i heard about ChatGPT i made a decision: just never use any of that stuff. Think of it as of Devil's creation, just don't touch it, don't research it, pretend it doesn't exist.

In other words, stick your head in the sand.

Use the chatbot, citizen

The devil isn't real and ignoring things doesn't protect you from them. You're better off exploring this tech to see what it's good and bad at.

Meta says European data is essential to train AI for Europeans. Key paragraph in the linked blogpost[1]:

> If we don’t train our models on the public content that Europeans share on our services and others, such as public posts or comments, then models and the AI features they power won’t accurately understand important regional languages, cultures or trending topics on social media. We believe that Europeans will be ill-served by AI models that are not informed by Europe’s rich cultural, social and historical contributions.

[1]: https://about.fb.com/news/2024/06/building-ai-technology-for...

Translation: We can't amplify rage bait on our platforms if we don't know what you are upset about.

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