I outsourced my memory to an AI pin and all I got was fanfiction | Hacker News Reader

I outsourced my memory to an AI pin and all I got was fanfiction

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25 pointspetemir16 comments

> You strap it onto your wrist or clip it onto your shirt. It’ll then listen to all your conversations. (...) Depending on your comfort level, you can permit it to scan through your emails, contacts, location, reminders, photos, and calendar events.

This is such an insane violation of privacy for everyone who communicates with or even just near a person wearing this. I cannot believe this is legal and accepted.

In many US jurisdictions, it is not. It’s an invitation to a lawsuit.

Depends where you are operating the device, but where I live (California, USA) this is clearly illegal to use in any non-public setting unless you are proactively getting the consent of everyone that might be recorded, which is a practical impossibility.

https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySectio....

Would you say more? Which part is the violation - the recording, transcription, storage, scanning of other data, interpretation, or something else? Does it matter if you are in a one-party or two-party (for consent to recording) state?

If a police officer is using a body camera and you happen to be speaking nearby, is that a violation of your privacy? What about the same situation, but the body camera user is not a police officer?

It is illegal to record a private conversation without consent of the other party in these states: California, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Vermont, and Washington.

Connecticut isn't actually a two party state for the purposes of this device. If you're recording in-person it becomes one-party. In Massachusetts this also wouldn't run afoul of the law because it isn't a secret recording. Michigan is also a one-party for participants which in-person you are. And Nevada is also one party for oral communication.

So you're left with 40/50 states where this device can be freely used and 10/50 states where this device can be freely used because it's a personal device and two-party consent is enforced less than jaywalking for regular people.

The "Intelligent Machines" podcast from twit.tv interviewed them and they get away with this because they are not recording the audio. It is never recorded or kept, it is transcribed in real-time and then sent to the AI and tokenized. Cheating maybe, but it's how they're trying to get away with it.

They absolutely are recording audio. It has a microphone. It records voices without consent. They may not retain the recordings for longer than necessary to transcribe the audio, but these devices sure as heck are making those recordings.

They are clearly attempting to circumvent the laws that prohibit this kind of activity, and their strategy likely involves fighting it in court long enough to pay off the investors or ultimately change case law. Sound familiar? It’s a common SV strategy that I personally think is grossly unethical.

When you get down to it, the vast majority of LLM stuff is actually fan fiction under the hood.

Even your interaction with an "assistant" is actually a document describing a conversation between two characters, where one has dialogue of what you entered and the other is acted-out.

Keeping AI out of your life feels more and more like Daniel refusing the kings food.

Edit: David was the guy in the Shrek song

I presume you mean Daniel.

Yeah that guy

I did not understand the reference. But here's an AI generated explanation.

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Daniel refusing the king's food is a Bible story found in the Book of Daniel, specifically in Daniel 1. This event is a reference to Daniel's commitment to his faith and his adherence to God's laws, even in the face of adversity. Daniel and his friends were taken captive by King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon and were to be trained for three years before entering the king's service. As part of this training, they were to be fed food and wine from the king's table, but Daniel refused to eat this food because it was likely offered to idols or prepared in a way that did not comply with Jewish dietary laws.

Daniel's refusal was not just about the food's physical properties but was also a symbolic act of maintaining his religious and moral independence from the king. This act demonstrated his unwavering faith and commitment to God, showing that he would not compromise his beliefs even when faced with potential consequences.

Daniel requested to eat vegetables and drink water instead, and after a ten-day test, he and his friends appeared healthier than those who ate the king's food. This outcome further demonstrated God's favor and Daniel's wisdom and integrity.

In summary, Daniel refusing the king's food is a significant biblical story that highlights faithfulness and the importance of adhering to one's beliefs in challenging circumstances.

Even with perfect recording things will go bad pretty fast. The Black Mirror episode was just too naive.

And wait till the very explicit AI that is meant to record everything near you ends in the very implicit one in your smartphone, computers and other gadgets which manufacturers may decide that an extra AI push may be better for the service it provides (using Hanlon's Razor here)

It seems that the actual hardware is just a dumb microphone with a Bluetooth connection to the phone and basically the whole thing is running on the cloud. Couldn’t e.g. an always on AirPod etc do the same trick?

Based on the headline I thought it was going to be about the Humane acquisition and shuttering.

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