rockskon

How am I supposed to respond to someone who directly contradicts their own argument immediately after making it?

"I'm not shaming! Not embracing AI is comparable to people who didn't embrace smart phones or the Internet though".

This is a regurgitation of a marketing slogan frequented by OpenAI and similar organizations for the past four years. "AI is the future. If you don't embrace it you will be left behind".

It's intellectually insulting to be subject to as it relies primarily on fear to convince.

And was there this massive, aggressive effort by a tiny handful of companies to mandate software developers use the Internet? Because I seem to recall people generally willingly choosing to use it as opposed to the aggressive efforts by blue chip tech companies to force the public at large to use it.

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I am so very tired of people who compare AI to smart phones or the Internet as large.

There were never such wide scale and, above all, centralized efforts to coerce and shame people into using the Internet or smart phones in spite of their best efforts.

It was sold though it sure as hell wasn't to Rupert Murdoch. In 2016, Univision Communications bought a controlling stake in The Onion (during the election season) and later sold to private equity company Great Hill Partners in 2019.

A marketer's definition of anonymized is worthless. It's a fantasy they want everyone else to believe in.

If it can be "de-anonymized" then it was never anonymous to begin with.

"De-anonymized" is quite literally an oxymoron.

Does it map to a single, identifiable person or something close enough that the distinction is meaningless?

Then it's not anonymous.

Simple as that.

There is no such thing as anonymized location data when you have the location of something where and when they sleep and work.

It's a rhetorical fiction the ad industry tells itself.

I will double down on this. Cynicism is the refuge of the ignorant that wishes to take comfort in their helplessness.

It isn't helpful.

Cynicism helps no one.

Sure. But given the lack of specificity from the person I was responding to, it felt important to correct.

Cooking != Tracking?

That's historically been a very prominent purpose of cookies.

Sure it's not exclusively tracking, but it's nonsense to make the assertion that "Cookies != Tracking"

Incentives and resources to promote said incentives.

She determines that by having three copies. Or four. Or eight.

Tis just probabilities and unlikelihood of hitting a refresh cycle across that many memory channels all at once.

And not all influential people are Elon Musk or Catturd.

Sometimes it's not just about quantity. Not all impressions are equal.

And like it or not - Twitter is still the preferred communication platform of quite a few influential people.

They're free to make changes to Asian country phones and not let the political pressure of Asian countries impact non-Asian countries.

Why the hell should we "mother may I" with Google for running apps on our own phones if it isn't sourced from the Play Store?

The "security" rationale is horseshit given just how much malware is readily download able on the Play Store. Google never cleans its own house before going after others.

Yeah, how dare someone do or say anything that some random crazy asshole could use to threaten that person's personal or professional life or even put them in danger of physical harm.

To hell with gay kids growing up in very traditional religious areas in much of the world.

That person who made a racist joke on Discord when they were 13 years old? That should be able to ruin them when they're 30!

Someone confiding to a friend over social media DMs that they're in an abusive relationship with someone violent? Well - she shouldn't be surprised when her partner beats her within an inch of her life when he finds out. If only she did what she was told, right?

And let's not forget the cringiest or most sexual thing you've ever said online - make sure that your every utterance in private would pass scrutiny by your employer's HR department!

Seriously...I don't understand people like you. What a small, listless, and unusually safe world you must live in.

You may as well have asked why can't everyone think and act like you as well as live in your particular region of the world with the same friends, family, romantic, and professional opportunities that you've been provided throughout your life.

And the only reason it is permissible to presumptively treat people as underage until proven otherwise in the physical world is that there isn't a constellation of intermediaries collecting all your habits and preferences when you buy porno magazines or alcohol in person.

Why is the answer people seem to arrive at being "mandatory collection of blackmail material that will ruin careers and relationships" when it comes to the Internet?

Incorrect!

There is an enormous amount of policy that doesn't require significant money to oppose this in your local jurisdictions! This is one of them.

It's almost like a well-monied or well-connected lobbyist is pushing this heavily. Multiple contenders out there as to who it could be. But regardless of who the originator is, the push can be kneecapped. Imagine jurisdictions that have an opposite push - one that criminalizes use of age verification software such as mandating providing government ID or facial scans. It can be done!

An offensive against Facebook is in order, then. If they're pushing war, then they shouldn't be surprised when they're targeted in turn.

So - given the law allows the NSA to do things given legal constructs, reality be damned, then what new legal construct do you think Wyden is sounding the alarm about?

When we un-tether the possibile from tech-specific delineations, you'll find things get more and more alarming.

Whatever it is Wyden is sounding the alarm about, you can be certain the sole protection we have - the sole guiding principle and bulwark against abuse - is the agency's culture given the rampant "incidental" collection and the public claims that putting the equivalent of a removable sticky-note over the names of U.S. citizens from their personal data is sufficient to satisfy the 4th Amendment as the NSA searches through our persinal data in bulk.

And what is culture if not the people we have to promote the practices?

Boy am I glad we have an administration that lets agencies largely lead themselves and doesn't engage in efforts to replace a large part of various agency's workforce - specifically those who care about the agency's culture!

There are news stories that come out occasionally from reputable sources.

While I personally agree, I figure an economic argument bypasses the often recited "but AI will get better!"

That very argument is also AI's downfall when it comes to writing books that'll sell.

From a purely economic standpoint, AI is its own worst enemy. Quicker to produce books made even cheaper and even automate-able?

You could have AI generate the next Shakespeare and you'll almost certainly never get noticed amidst the flood of competing books.

They welded shut the doors to Uyghur Muslims and had a bunch of donated food for them stacked outside their homes in one giant pile that they couldn't get to. It either rotted away or was eaten by animals.

So the military likes to keep saying.

Most people here have no cultural relationship to that era of 38 years back. You may as well talk about the bubonic plague that ravaged San Francisco in the early 1900's and how it changed the course of the city that eventually led to where it is today.

Have you?

To my knowledge they require the OS to have an API for websites and services to access a determination of the age range from.

This is a far cry from the breadth of what a "parental control API" would entail even if it would be part of such a thing.