Google Now has done the same for me, told me how long it will take to get to a bar I frequent. My reaction was quite exactly "Oh that's neat, thanks!" and I went and had a great burger that night.
Totally OK for me Google. I respect that people have different privacy thresholds, but I think the fact that it's different for everyone is being lost in articles like this.
One tiny caveat being that, Google (and others as well, to be fair) will be able to indirectly collect data even on the privacy-aware part of the population who don't use Google much. The simplest example being, even if you don't use GMail, still some part of your emails inevitably end up in GMail inboxes. Now also consider this: just being a guest in a Google-stuffed house means you are under surveillance.
So no, it is not just my problem or your problem, it's everyone's.
I fear you will be unable to recognize when that burger was your choice and when it was a reaction. You probably won't notice. And that is harmless.
I also fear you will be unable to notice in which areas of life and information the distinction between choice and reaction is harmless and which it isn't.
Of course, I'm not talking about "You" you, but just people. Me as well. I feel we are widening the field of unconscious decisions and I see that as inherently bad - in my fellow humans as well.
What I want mainly from Google is more and easier ways to customize my level of privacy. The article touches on the EFF's stance against incognito modes briefly, but it's an important one; I don't want lack of monitoring to be something I start a separate session for, with a logo of a creepy dude implying I should use this only for spying and pornography. I'd like to get as close as possible to an assistant that remembers relevant data on where I go and how long it takes, but ignores my browsing history to psychologically manipulate me into buying things--of course, that needs a different revenue model.
When it first told me it knew hiw long my commute would take, I realised it was creepy as all hell that the people (in another country with few protections on data) providing my phone software knew enough about me to tell where I worked and when I was going there.
And it annoys me that on maps, when you turn off all the spying capabilities there's no fallback to local history. You either share it with us or you get none.
It may be OK for you but there are at least three real concerns here:
1- There is no way to set your privacy level.
2- Things that Google/Siri/Alexa know about you are not limited with the name of the bar you go frequently. They know much more about you. And you don't know what they know. The sky is the limit here.
3- Things that they know are not limited with you personally. They know about you, your family, your friends and all their interactions. They know very much about the whole society.
"Hi Ubercore, Google and your health insurance company here. We are worried that you are frequenting a facility that serves too much alcohol and wings. We care."
My impression is that (in the main) younger people have lower privacy thresholds than older people. Not for everyone (of course). Just on average.
My impression also is that most early adopters of this kind of technology are younger people. (again: mostly)
So this brings up an interesting question about the future. As the young early adopters age, what will happen?
a) their privacy thresholds will also increase and they will have a "oh holy crap" moment in the future, where as a middle-aged or older person, who has lived a now much richer and problem-laden life, they will realize that google (and/or other co's) have what they consider now, as too much personal information about them,
or
b) they will keep their young-ish privacy thresholds as older people, and in general, across society, people will have lower thresholds than exist nowadays. In other words the world will change.
My experience has been quite the opposite in terms of convenience and relevance: I commute by car and train (for some parts of the same journey) and google Now, google Maps (etc) have been totally useless there: telling me about traffice jams when I'm in the train, not telling me about train delays, etc... it now somehow thinks my home is at the train station, it tells me the last bus home is leaving soon when I've been home for hours, also Google Now's insistence on bombarding the leftmost pane on my phone with the most click-bait articles ever, often about things I had a passing interest in months ago, is just laughable.
I would be glad to give Google some of my very precious privacy, implementing some countermeasures like multiple and burner identities as needed, if I thought they had any chance of actually providing real value. So far they have failed miserably, I am not sure the economics of providing a really useful service there for free just with marketing information as source of income work now, or for a very long time. You'd need strong AI to actually help my day to day life, with solid non obvious guessing based on many very local and specific factors. I guess as long as people kind of believe that this future is coming, they may tolerate the invasion and forget about the promises.
The sad part is that the user turned off Google Now because he didn't want google to know about the bar he visited. Google was tracking and recording his location before Google Now, he just didn't know it. It's still tracking it after he disabled Google Now.
Yeah, but that is also the equivalent of 24/7 surveillance of all locations you visit. Google will end up figuring out whom you sleep with, etc. from that information.
Pretty much your only privacy is in your head at that point.
I'm not sure that is a "threshold" of privacy but rather a "I am okay with 24/7 surveillance of all of my activity."
hypothetically: you express radical political ideas to your friend with the expectation of your statements remaining in confidence-- but google was listening. now, your feed recommendations steer you further down the path google thinks you were already on. you are ready to attend a protest and perform civil disobedience, as google now knows based off of your interest in what it has been suggesting to you. it suggests (as facebook does now regarding making events for birthday parties etc) that you and some other people form that protest, and, because it said so, you do it. except it's a trap. the police's google feed tells them that some undesirables have planned a protest, and you're imprisoned.
is this story unrealistic, or has it already occurred?
I remember the huge smile I got on my face the first time Google Now picked up on the fact that I went to the same bar every Wednesday evening.
One Wednesday afternoon, at work, I got a notification saying "Travel time to the Lion & Crown". The first thing that ran through my head was "oh my god, I'm living in the future".
I am actually quite uncomfortable that my stock Android is making suggestions on how long it should take for me to get home or work (when I have never explicitly mentioned that it is my home or work).
The problem is that I want to use Google Maps so what choice do I really have?
Sure I use a dedicated gmail for my phone but that really does not help much.
I would not want Google knowing I sometimes drink too much, or that I do so and get behind the wheel of a car. Easy inferences it could make, given the time I spent at the bar, and the purchases on my credit card. That could even have consequences for the cost of my auto insurance. Edit: and health insurance.
I actually thought the most interesting point this article raised - for me at least - is the implict branding associated with the "OK Google" command. All privacy concerns aside, if I'm going to have a "personal Google" I want to be able to thoroughly personalize it.
but I think the fact that it's different for everyone is being lost in articles like this.
I think that it is different for everyone is completely and utterly obvious. It's clear the author doesn't think it's OK, but that it's his/her opinion.
This location history is really bad though. I added a test gmail account to my device a few weeks ago, but didn't remember location tracking was a per-account setting - now Google has nice big logs to hand whoever wants them and I can only delete them on a day-by-day basis (from the Android app at least).
Extremely annoying. This sort of thing should not be acceptable, an honest mistake results in every place I've been being logged in such a way that anyone with access to my Google account, access to Google servers or with a subpoena can have my full location history in a matter of seconds.
This needs to be a big red option every time you add an account "we're gonna log everywhere you go and hand it over to whoever we feel like, you cool with that?". It'd be different if the log and analysis were done only on my device, but doing this on Google's servers is completely unacceptable by anyone with even the weakest standards of privacy.
What I think is interesting is that many of us nerds have probably innocuously fantasized about having a Star Trek-like AI assistant with us, but now that they're taking the first steps towards that, we're starting to realize that in order for it to do everything for us, it has to know everything about us, too.
Nobody was thinking about "the cloud" back in those days. Back then, your data, you programs all lived and ran on your own computer in your home. Most people didn't go online, and if you did, it was mostly to read and download data to use locally on your own computer. Connections were intermittent and slow. The idea that your own data would be stored online was almost unimaginable; even using network-depending applications like usenet or email involved downloading everything first before using it. Online applications were hardly even dreamed of.
Our expectations of how "Star Trek AI" would actually be implemented were completely different than how highly connected cloud-based services like Google Assistant work today.
Anyway, the point being, if the assistant lived entirely in your own computer, it would entirely different. Most people are not concerned about what their "computer" knows about them, they're concerned about what companies and their employees do.
I think there's an additional nuance, that of Google knowing everything about us. If I hacked together my own home automation AI system it would need to know everything about me too and that worries me far less.
Well the missing part is the dedication to ideals and to the greater good of all life that was supposed to be core to the federation. I realize Star Trek is fantasy, but the reason people are more at ease with the omnipresence of technology in Star Trek is because you see people living by these humanitarian and noble ideals. People fight and die to defend thems. The right to self and privacy and protection is held very high in the st universe, even if challenged.
When's the last time
Google risked itself or business or any tech ceo risked their livelihood for the sake of the greater good? The problem isn't necessarily the knowing everything part, it's who does what with it that's the problem. I can't really think of any company or person with influence in tech that'd be willing to dive onto that bombshell to protect us all.
The big difference is the Star Trek computer wasn't using its data about Kirk to provide him "enhanced advertising experiences", there wasn't a big corporation controlling the computer and no government was accessing the computer's information.
A truly user-aligned AI assistant would be great. Ideally in the future these things will not be tied to indirect business models, but rather will be something you buy and all data/services will be under your control.
Has Star Trek even a currency? It always feels like a socialist/communist thing to me.
You cannot compare the world's biggest seller of advertisement space with the ST universe. The motivation's aren't aligned: Google/Alphabet want to make sales based on my information.
I agree that I found these oh so clever AI fantasies interesting in my youth, still do to a degree. But I always pictured the data being held inaccessible to humans in general ("Where's my wife right now?") and not in the hands of a golden few with no oversight.
It doesn't though, does it? The only reason this is a problem is that Google's business is still advertising and they act like our problems can be solved by tools made to sell more ads. The moment I could buy an AI service for like $10 a month (it had to be good), I'd trust them with using my data responsibly.
The Star Trek fantasy is, "Computer, what were the principal historical events on the planet Earth in the year 1987?", and it could totally answer that without sending your entire fucking message history to google for deep AI inspection.
I think people also forget that the Star Trek AI was in a semi-militarized scenario where efficiency and information greatly outweighed individual privacy needs.
I think most fantasies are okay with the anthropomorphic AI assistant knowing everything about us, but don't involve the AI transmitting all of it's data back to "the cloud" where advertisers can mine this data or the NSA could listen in with a secret gag ordered wiretap. Probably wishful thinking, but maybe one day a privacy first company will dip their toes into this arena.
So, at the risk of making myself ridiculous and branded a Luddite:
I've totally passed on the 'mobile revolution', I do have a cell phone but I use it to make calls and to be reachable.
This already leaks more data about me and my activities than I'm strictly speaking comfortable with.
So far this has not hindered me much, I know how to use a map, have a 'regular' navigation device for my car, read my email when I'm behind my computer and in general get through life just fine without having access 24x7 to email and the web. Maybe I spend a few more seconds planning my evening or a trip but on the whole I don't feel like I'm missing out on anything.
To have the 'snitch in my pocket' blab to google (or any other provider) about my every move feels like it just isn't worth it to me. Oh and my 'crappy dumb phone' gets 5 days of battery life to boot. I'll definitely miss it when it finally dies, I should probably stock up on a couple for the long term.
I feel like an old fool fighting against its time, but to me all those new applicances are scary not because of privacy (have my data, I couldn't care less), but because of how they shape our world.
Most of the coolest memories I have were the product of something spontaneous, or mistakes, that become close to impossible with a computer and internet in your pocket 24/7.
Assessing what's around you, talking to strangers, actively looking for something without it instantly popping in suggestions after you've typed 4 characters, all those things have been a great source of circumstance-based, little everyday life adventures.
This is the difference between risking buying a random book, or browsing reviews and picking a 5 star one to download.
This is the difference between discovering a place you'd never thought existed while waiting for someone and poking your nose around, instead of standing there, frantically watching their dot on the map get closer to you.
This is the difference between the mesmerizing feeling of playing the first expansions of world of warcraft, versus the tiring experience of the super streamlined versions that followed. Yes, they are less frustrating, but they don't bring tear to your eyes when you thing about them, they just feel averagely satisfying.
A few minutes ago I got up to open the door for my cat, and in a few minutes she'll be back and I'll be interrupted again. I feel like those interruptions are precious. They keep you connected to reality. I could install an RFID cat door, hell I could make a voice activated one in a couple weekends, and I would not be annoyed anymore. I would also never have seen all the things I witness every time I get to that damn door.
For consumers this will be a choice between keeping their data private and having intelligent systems that perform better.
So far I haven't seen much, but based on my limited experience I believe customers are going to continue handing over their data to Google and Facebook in exchange for personalised services.
The truth is, the only times my smartphone has actually felt smart is when Google has been mining my information from various services (mainly Gmail and Calendar) and presented it to me at correct time, enhanced with other information they have gathered from web.
I don't think there will be any major backslash from consumers. The old comparison about boiling frog applies here.
I have an open ended question-- mostly born out of ignorance; But why is this a bad thing? Isn't an artificial assistant that not only knows and understands us but anticipates our needs incredibly useful? In the process, sure they'll collect your info for better advertising, but short of Totalitarian Surveillance or Data Breach Concerns (The former is a bit of a reach if you live in the west, and they can survey you anyway if they really want to, the latter also seems somewhat unlikely)-- whats the issue here? Genuinely asking because I'm trying to understand.
Here's why I am afraid of Google. Google could have the best intentions, but its wife NSA that Google occasionally sleeps with doesn't. Everything you say to Google Home could possibly be recorded. Storage and Computing power for google is cheap. They can record everything you say in your home. Their algorithms can connect all sorts of information about you. If trump wants to create the next Muslim holocaust, Google and FB have the perfect information.
This is what Elon means when he says AI is like inviting the devil. We have this algorithm in our mushy brain. Its takes about 20 years to train and lives for about 80 years. Its communication bitrate is pretty low (mostly blabbering through mouth) and doesn't retain much information. Only patterns.
Now imagine this algorithm from the mushy brain is run on a silicon chip, with gigabit bitrate, retains almost everything indefinitely and can learn from entire history of humanity.
That algorithm would just need to deceive us until it was powerful enough to wipe us in one sweep.
Google already manipulates humans psychologically to click on their ads en-masse. Giving them more of your personal data is just feeding the devil.
"AI" is incredibly overhyped. Most of the features and applications I've seen can be relegated into the "that's neat" category, before they are turned off and never used again.
Google recently started telling me how heavy the traffic is on my commute because they've figured out I do it every day, and when I'm doing it. That's nice, but I don't care. I could already get that information from my car's GPS and seeing how red the roads were.
I wonder how much infrastructure, fancy pants machine learning and effort when it to just creating those useless alerts?
Google, as a problem, has already solved the problem they were created to solve: search the Internet. Now they need to find something for all those twiddling thumbs to do, so we get braindead features that tell me what I already know.
Imagine you're a something like a muslim in the US, and somoene like Trump is elected 5 years from now. You've been here all your life, you have a job, you pay your taxes, you're just a person who happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Much like a jewish person in Poland in the 1940's. Now even back then, it was not easy to escape persecution... but it was possible. In a google world though, there's nothing preventing a corrupt government, or even a corrupt corporate governence from take over, or leveraging this data to your disadvantage. Perhaps your car recognizes you, and locks you in until police come, perhaps you felt safe enough to go to a bar, and that data was forwarded.
Perhaps an exaggeration, the point is, even if you trust google today. There's no guarantee that data will always be held by the people who are google today. We know for a fact the NSA had access to all google data up until at least the snowdon leaks. To me that's the concern about privacy, you have no idea how it can be used AGAINST you in the future.
From the article-
"In other words, your daily business is Google’s business."
From Google-
"Google's mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful."
One thing that drives me mad about Google is how they say "the world's information", then ignore 99.9% of the worlds information, and then expect their consumers to give them a pass and not call them to account for how they privatize user information.
Looking at the information that Google organizes and makes accessible and useful I don't see things like "species extinction", "oceanic water temperature history", or say "dolphin linguistic data", equally represented when compared to "my browsing history", "my location history", "my search history", "an archive of my voice searches", "when I leave or return home via Nest", "who I associate with via Google's communication suite". Google is organizing exactly that data which Google can monetize, which is not the world's data. Not a lot of people want to buy data on deforestation so it's much more difficult to get Google to put resources into that. How many people chew pieces of gum until 100% of the flavor is gone? I'll never know, and Google isn't going to help me, because it isn't a profitable data set.
Simply stated, Google needs to stop acting benevolent and start fessing up to attempting to be omniscient in order to be all knowing about its users, not "the world's data".
I'm confused as to why in this thread there's very little contrastive commentary on the different stance taken by Apple and Google about privacy.
Apple has made preserving user privacy a paramount goal, investing in research and technology to achieve it with minimal loss (however much it is) of (intelligent) functionality.
I find that a very strong point for the Cupertino based company.
The idea behind so called checks and balances in the political arena is now needed in the tech arena - more specifically the megacorp arena.
People say, competition will ultimately take care of it. Yet, there really isn't a serious competitor for Google's search engine. And don't even get me started about social networking with respect to your private lives, where the only player is FB as far as I can see.
People say they don't want the government involved, and often for good reason. But if there is no expectation that these tech giants will self-police when it comes to privacy, and people don't want these organizations to be policed by the government either, then how exactly does this play out? How far is too far before we start demanding more respect for our rights from these organizations?
Another thing to think about: when dealing with tangible goods, the creative destruction of capitalism is somewhat reasonable to justify because it is usually easy to see. How does it work with information? Suppose FB just completely blew it for a few quarters in a row, and starts tottering towards its demise, what happens to the "defensible barrier" called data? Does it belong to FB to do as it sees fit, like the assets of a company about to be liquidated? Or is FB going to "return" it to the people from whom it got it? If some other company now got possession of its assets, including data, what is the expectation around what are reasonable uses for such info? Or, is FB, with its trove of data about every single person who has held government office, now just too big to fail?
And all this can be asked just of the data that FB collects from you directly by asking you to fill it in. What about the stuff that it "infers" behind the scenes? What about the "connections" it adds to its social graph without your permission in order to provide a "local marketplace" which apparently gets rid of the "private information" challenge? [1] Not that Google is any better in this regards, of course.
I think the time has come for some serious thinking about checks and balances in the privacy arena.
This is literally the perfect end-game for an advertising company: total awareness of need under the guise of 'optimization' or 'AI enhancement'. They can see what your'e searching for, where you're going, when you run out of Mayo in your GoogleFridgeAppAssistant. What better way to offer ads than EVERY time you have a want? It's an advertising utopia!
Is the market really so bad that Google needs to invade people's privacy to this extent in order to grow?
I bet Google's CEO will not use the products himself. Google is almost behaving like a pusher, promising people comfort at the expense of their livelihood (the chilling effect).
Perhaps this should simply be illegal. If people want a personalized AI assistant, why not train the AI on the user's device? I seriously doubt that it has to know everything about everybody's behavior in order to know some things about the user's behavior.
You really have to wonder who truly needs / wants AI in their lives? It's really just being pushed on. Google should be careful not to make themselves irrelevant.
I've been experimenting spending less time with my devices and it's hard because I'm addicted, but life is more fun when it's being lived and not having to even think about technology, leaving devices of all kinds at home and just sitting in a park is a real luxury.
I guess, reading through these comments, that I'm the only one who wants this future? Yes, sign me up, google. I'll give you more of my information, if you can take it. Can I wear an implant that measures my heart rate, body fat content, blood pressure, glucose level, and brain activity as well? Because as soon as I can I will be the first in line for it.
What some of you don't seem to realize, (and this happens in EVERY SINGLE ONE of these threads) is that:
1) AI is not magic. Yes, we call it "AI", but you use words like "know" as if there is a conscious entity that "knows" something about you. The AI doesn't "know" anything. It's a computer.
2) Yes, actually you can opt out if you want to. Get a flip phone, don't use google services, use an adblocker, block javascripts that you don't like, don't send emails to gmail addresses, etc. Just don't use their services if you don't want them. Yeah, this might be harder. It might feel like you are living in the 1990s/1980s, but it sounds like that is what some of you want.
I, however, want a future where an AI can tell me things like "Flights to Shenzhen are really cheap right now, and you have the discretionary income to afford a trip there. Here is a possible itinerary for you based on the types of things I know you are interested in. You could leave this Saturday and there is nothing on your calendar that you need to be at for the week."
Or
"I noticed that you have been bicycling a lot lately, and based on the patterns of where you go, I think that the following bike trail would be interesting to you. The route is loaded up on your phone already."
The other thing: google is an advertising company. Yes, because I know this, I am able to take this into account when listening to google's suggestions. But here's the thing: I like being [well] advertised to. I have discretionary income, that is WHY I HAVE A JOB. I am going to spend that money on things. If there is an AI that is helping me find the perfect nexus of things I want and things that I can afford, that is a GOOD thing. That is helping me more efficiently spend the money that I got.
Yes this stuff is subtle. Yes this stuff is pervasive. No we don't need yet another "2edgyforme" "if you aren't the customer you're the PRODUCT" articles about google.
I think there are two problems with this suite of crap from Google: the privacy issues and the fact that Google is putting corporate objectives ahead of creating useful things.
It's clear Google wants to "own the home" and all their products were built to further this goal (rather than be useful themselves). This is why Google bought Nest for 12 jillion dollars. And it's why the iWatch failed and Google Glass failed - right now, these are niche products that barely have purpose.
Now this stuff may become integral to our lives, as depicted in so many sci-fi stories, but if they become embedded in our lives and are wholly owned by one huge company, that should be terrifying to everyone.
Here are some real world reasons why: a virus is installed on your Google box through your wifi - now house robbers know everything about your schedule and habits. Your parent goes through your every personal action to make sure you aren't getting in trouble. A spouse uses the system to track your every movement and make sure you aren't cheating. And of course, the gov't has access to all of this data by default. Imagine being a famous celebrity with every action in your house known and accessible to any gov't peon with access and a bit of curiousity. This isn't some conspiracy theory, this is exactly the access Snowden had (and he was a contractor).
It isn't what these products are, it's the direction they represent: complete surveillance of every personal action, stored and owned by one monolithic corporation and the government. And not only is this is sort of where we are heading, it's Google's clearly stated objective.
It reminds me of the 50s when plastics were going to revolutionize everything... which they did, but we melted off the ozone layer before realizing the consequences of slapping new technology across the world. Especially when the benefits are so minimal and the threats are so real - imagine McCarthy with the type of access and control these devices would provide if Google succeeds in pushing this across 80% of homes.
When IR remotes hit college campuses, the game was to shut off someone else's TV through an open door. There's even a one button remote from that era that shuts off any TV in sight [0]. Voice control is like IR on steroids.
Guest at house party: "Ok google, show naked pictures of [host's ex-girlfriend]"
Does anyone else find the tone of this article off-putting? I mean, I agree with the author, but the presentation feels like fear-mongering. Maybe this is what we need to get people to pay attention to the details, but I instinctively mistrust things I perceive as trying to appeal to by fear at a base level, and this triggers that fairly heavily.
I have very conflicted feelings about this article.
Many readers are skeptical about the usefulness of personal AI assistants. This reminds me of what Jeff Bezos said about disruptive technologies [1], which I think resonates well among many tech company executives. You (they) need to be willing to be doubted for a very long time.
Any time you do something big, that’s disruptive — Kindle, AWS — there will be critics. And there will be at least two kinds of critics. There will be well-meaning critics who genuinely misunderstand what you are doing or genuinely have a different opinion. And there will be the self-interested critics that have a vested interest in not liking what you are doing and they will have reason to misunderstand. And you have to be willing to ignore both types of critics. You listen to them, because you want to see, always testing, is it possible they are right?
[+] [-] ubercore|9 years ago|reply
Totally OK for me Google. I respect that people have different privacy thresholds, but I think the fact that it's different for everyone is being lost in articles like this.
[+] [-] mojuba|9 years ago|reply
So no, it is not just my problem or your problem, it's everyone's.
[+] [-] Eupolemos|9 years ago|reply
I also fear you will be unable to notice in which areas of life and information the distinction between choice and reaction is harmless and which it isn't.
Of course, I'm not talking about "You" you, but just people. Me as well. I feel we are widening the field of unconscious decisions and I see that as inherently bad - in my fellow humans as well.
You could say that Plato wanted us to make easy things simple (link for distinction: https://www.infoq.com/presentations/Simple-Made-Easy).
I believe this to be a move in the opposite direction. We should have a care.
[+] [-] bbctol|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Nursie|9 years ago|reply
And it annoys me that on maps, when you turn off all the spying capabilities there's no fallback to local history. You either share it with us or you get none.
[+] [-] ozgung|9 years ago|reply
1- There is no way to set your privacy level.
2- Things that Google/Siri/Alexa know about you are not limited with the name of the bar you go frequently. They know much more about you. And you don't know what they know. The sky is the limit here.
3- Things that they know are not limited with you personally. They know about you, your family, your friends and all their interactions. They know very much about the whole society.
[+] [-] Spooky23|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] plg|9 years ago|reply
My impression also is that most early adopters of this kind of technology are younger people. (again: mostly)
So this brings up an interesting question about the future. As the young early adopters age, what will happen?
a) their privacy thresholds will also increase and they will have a "oh holy crap" moment in the future, where as a middle-aged or older person, who has lived a now much richer and problem-laden life, they will realize that google (and/or other co's) have what they consider now, as too much personal information about them,
or
b) they will keep their young-ish privacy thresholds as older people, and in general, across society, people will have lower thresholds than exist nowadays. In other words the world will change.
My money is on a)
[+] [-] rch|9 years ago|reply
Of course it also once told me how long it would take to get to an ex's house from my current girlfriend's place.
How about an 'OK, funny once' command?
[+] [-] polotics|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ams6110|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sciurus|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fweespeech|9 years ago|reply
Pretty much your only privacy is in your head at that point.
I'm not sure that is a "threshold" of privacy but rather a "I am okay with 24/7 surveillance of all of my activity."
[+] [-] cryoshon|9 years ago|reply
is this story unrealistic, or has it already occurred?
[+] [-] amyjess|9 years ago|reply
One Wednesday afternoon, at work, I got a notification saying "Travel time to the Lion & Crown". The first thing that ran through my head was "oh my god, I'm living in the future".
[+] [-] sireat|9 years ago|reply
The problem is that I want to use Google Maps so what choice do I really have?
Sure I use a dedicated gmail for my phone but that really does not help much.
[+] [-] 0xmohit|9 years ago|reply
"Hey, it's a been a while. Why don't you go to ... today? Traffic conditions are favorable too."
[+] [-] hughw|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] drvdevd|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] e40|9 years ago|reply
I think that it is different for everyone is completely and utterly obvious. It's clear the author doesn't think it's OK, but that it's his/her opinion.
[+] [-] throwawaymaroon|9 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] problems|9 years ago|reply
Extremely annoying. This sort of thing should not be acceptable, an honest mistake results in every place I've been being logged in such a way that anyone with access to my Google account, access to Google servers or with a subpoena can have my full location history in a matter of seconds.
This needs to be a big red option every time you add an account "we're gonna log everywhere you go and hand it over to whoever we feel like, you cool with that?". It'd be different if the log and analysis were done only on my device, but doing this on Google's servers is completely unacceptable by anyone with even the weakest standards of privacy.
[+] [-] TulliusCicero|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pimlottc|9 years ago|reply
Our expectations of how "Star Trek AI" would actually be implemented were completely different than how highly connected cloud-based services like Google Assistant work today.
Anyway, the point being, if the assistant lived entirely in your own computer, it would entirely different. Most people are not concerned about what their "computer" knows about them, they're concerned about what companies and their employees do.
[+] [-] someone7x|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] johngalt|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] csydas|9 years ago|reply
When's the last time Google risked itself or business or any tech ceo risked their livelihood for the sake of the greater good? The problem isn't necessarily the knowing everything part, it's who does what with it that's the problem. I can't really think of any company or person with influence in tech that'd be willing to dive onto that bombshell to protect us all.
[+] [-] erdevs|9 years ago|reply
A truly user-aligned AI assistant would be great. Ideally in the future these things will not be tied to indirect business models, but rather will be something you buy and all data/services will be under your control.
[+] [-] darklajid|9 years ago|reply
You cannot compare the world's biggest seller of advertisement space with the ST universe. The motivation's aren't aligned: Google/Alphabet want to make sales based on my information.
I agree that I found these oh so clever AI fantasies interesting in my youth, still do to a degree. But I always pictured the data being held inaccessible to humans in general ("Where's my wife right now?") and not in the hands of a golden few with no oversight.
[+] [-] nothis|9 years ago|reply
The Star Trek fantasy is, "Computer, what were the principal historical events on the planet Earth in the year 1987?", and it could totally answer that without sending your entire fucking message history to google for deep AI inspection.
[+] [-] yid|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] crisnoble|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jacquesm|9 years ago|reply
I've totally passed on the 'mobile revolution', I do have a cell phone but I use it to make calls and to be reachable.
This already leaks more data about me and my activities than I'm strictly speaking comfortable with.
So far this has not hindered me much, I know how to use a map, have a 'regular' navigation device for my car, read my email when I'm behind my computer and in general get through life just fine without having access 24x7 to email and the web. Maybe I spend a few more seconds planning my evening or a trip but on the whole I don't feel like I'm missing out on anything.
To have the 'snitch in my pocket' blab to google (or any other provider) about my every move feels like it just isn't worth it to me. Oh and my 'crappy dumb phone' gets 5 days of battery life to boot. I'll definitely miss it when it finally dies, I should probably stock up on a couple for the long term.
[+] [-] ht85|9 years ago|reply
Most of the coolest memories I have were the product of something spontaneous, or mistakes, that become close to impossible with a computer and internet in your pocket 24/7.
Assessing what's around you, talking to strangers, actively looking for something without it instantly popping in suggestions after you've typed 4 characters, all those things have been a great source of circumstance-based, little everyday life adventures.
This is the difference between risking buying a random book, or browsing reviews and picking a 5 star one to download.
This is the difference between discovering a place you'd never thought existed while waiting for someone and poking your nose around, instead of standing there, frantically watching their dot on the map get closer to you.
This is the difference between the mesmerizing feeling of playing the first expansions of world of warcraft, versus the tiring experience of the super streamlined versions that followed. Yes, they are less frustrating, but they don't bring tear to your eyes when you thing about them, they just feel averagely satisfying.
A few minutes ago I got up to open the door for my cat, and in a few minutes she'll be back and I'll be interrupted again. I feel like those interruptions are precious. They keep you connected to reality. I could install an RFID cat door, hell I could make a voice activated one in a couple weekends, and I would not be annoyed anymore. I would also never have seen all the things I witness every time I get to that damn door.
[+] [-] jpalomaki|9 years ago|reply
So far I haven't seen much, but based on my limited experience I believe customers are going to continue handing over their data to Google and Facebook in exchange for personalised services.
The truth is, the only times my smartphone has actually felt smart is when Google has been mining my information from various services (mainly Gmail and Calendar) and presented it to me at correct time, enhanced with other information they have gathered from web.
I don't think there will be any major backslash from consumers. The old comparison about boiling frog applies here.
[+] [-] aRationalMoose|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nojvek|9 years ago|reply
This is what Elon means when he says AI is like inviting the devil. We have this algorithm in our mushy brain. Its takes about 20 years to train and lives for about 80 years. Its communication bitrate is pretty low (mostly blabbering through mouth) and doesn't retain much information. Only patterns.
Now imagine this algorithm from the mushy brain is run on a silicon chip, with gigabit bitrate, retains almost everything indefinitely and can learn from entire history of humanity.
That algorithm would just need to deceive us until it was powerful enough to wipe us in one sweep.
Google already manipulates humans psychologically to click on their ads en-masse. Giving them more of your personal data is just feeding the devil.
[+] [-] iamleppert|9 years ago|reply
Google recently started telling me how heavy the traffic is on my commute because they've figured out I do it every day, and when I'm doing it. That's nice, but I don't care. I could already get that information from my car's GPS and seeing how red the roads were.
I wonder how much infrastructure, fancy pants machine learning and effort when it to just creating those useless alerts?
Google, as a problem, has already solved the problem they were created to solve: search the Internet. Now they need to find something for all those twiddling thumbs to do, so we get braindead features that tell me what I already know.
[+] [-] swalsh|9 years ago|reply
Perhaps an exaggeration, the point is, even if you trust google today. There's no guarantee that data will always be held by the people who are google today. We know for a fact the NSA had access to all google data up until at least the snowdon leaks. To me that's the concern about privacy, you have no idea how it can be used AGAINST you in the future.
[+] [-] throwaway98237|9 years ago|reply
From Google- "Google's mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful."
One thing that drives me mad about Google is how they say "the world's information", then ignore 99.9% of the worlds information, and then expect their consumers to give them a pass and not call them to account for how they privatize user information.
Looking at the information that Google organizes and makes accessible and useful I don't see things like "species extinction", "oceanic water temperature history", or say "dolphin linguistic data", equally represented when compared to "my browsing history", "my location history", "my search history", "an archive of my voice searches", "when I leave or return home via Nest", "who I associate with via Google's communication suite". Google is organizing exactly that data which Google can monetize, which is not the world's data. Not a lot of people want to buy data on deforestation so it's much more difficult to get Google to put resources into that. How many people chew pieces of gum until 100% of the flavor is gone? I'll never know, and Google isn't going to help me, because it isn't a profitable data set.
Simply stated, Google needs to stop acting benevolent and start fessing up to attempting to be omniscient in order to be all knowing about its users, not "the world's data".
[+] [-] spac|9 years ago|reply
Apple has made preserving user privacy a paramount goal, investing in research and technology to achieve it with minimal loss (however much it is) of (intelligent) functionality.
I find that a very strong point for the Cupertino based company.
(edited for legibility)
[+] [-] thr0waway1239|9 years ago|reply
People say, competition will ultimately take care of it. Yet, there really isn't a serious competitor for Google's search engine. And don't even get me started about social networking with respect to your private lives, where the only player is FB as far as I can see.
People say they don't want the government involved, and often for good reason. But if there is no expectation that these tech giants will self-police when it comes to privacy, and people don't want these organizations to be policed by the government either, then how exactly does this play out? How far is too far before we start demanding more respect for our rights from these organizations?
Another thing to think about: when dealing with tangible goods, the creative destruction of capitalism is somewhat reasonable to justify because it is usually easy to see. How does it work with information? Suppose FB just completely blew it for a few quarters in a row, and starts tottering towards its demise, what happens to the "defensible barrier" called data? Does it belong to FB to do as it sees fit, like the assets of a company about to be liquidated? Or is FB going to "return" it to the people from whom it got it? If some other company now got possession of its assets, including data, what is the expectation around what are reasonable uses for such info? Or, is FB, with its trove of data about every single person who has held government office, now just too big to fail?
And all this can be asked just of the data that FB collects from you directly by asking you to fill it in. What about the stuff that it "infers" behind the scenes? What about the "connections" it adds to its social graph without your permission in order to provide a "local marketplace" which apparently gets rid of the "private information" challenge? [1] Not that Google is any better in this regards, of course.
I think the time has come for some serious thinking about checks and balances in the privacy arena.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12628808
[+] [-] mrgreenfur|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thsealienbstrds|9 years ago|reply
Is the market really so bad that Google needs to invade people's privacy to this extent in order to grow?
I bet Google's CEO will not use the products himself. Google is almost behaving like a pusher, promising people comfort at the expense of their livelihood (the chilling effect).
Perhaps this should simply be illegal. If people want a personalized AI assistant, why not train the AI on the user's device? I seriously doubt that it has to know everything about everybody's behavior in order to know some things about the user's behavior.
[+] [-] pmyjavec|9 years ago|reply
I've been experimenting spending less time with my devices and it's hard because I'm addicted, but life is more fun when it's being lived and not having to even think about technology, leaving devices of all kinds at home and just sitting in a park is a real luxury.
[+] [-] blhack|9 years ago|reply
What some of you don't seem to realize, (and this happens in EVERY SINGLE ONE of these threads) is that:
1) AI is not magic. Yes, we call it "AI", but you use words like "know" as if there is a conscious entity that "knows" something about you. The AI doesn't "know" anything. It's a computer.
2) Yes, actually you can opt out if you want to. Get a flip phone, don't use google services, use an adblocker, block javascripts that you don't like, don't send emails to gmail addresses, etc. Just don't use their services if you don't want them. Yeah, this might be harder. It might feel like you are living in the 1990s/1980s, but it sounds like that is what some of you want.
I, however, want a future where an AI can tell me things like "Flights to Shenzhen are really cheap right now, and you have the discretionary income to afford a trip there. Here is a possible itinerary for you based on the types of things I know you are interested in. You could leave this Saturday and there is nothing on your calendar that you need to be at for the week."
Or
"I noticed that you have been bicycling a lot lately, and based on the patterns of where you go, I think that the following bike trail would be interesting to you. The route is loaded up on your phone already."
The other thing: google is an advertising company. Yes, because I know this, I am able to take this into account when listening to google's suggestions. But here's the thing: I like being [well] advertised to. I have discretionary income, that is WHY I HAVE A JOB. I am going to spend that money on things. If there is an AI that is helping me find the perfect nexus of things I want and things that I can afford, that is a GOOD thing. That is helping me more efficiently spend the money that I got.
Yes this stuff is subtle. Yes this stuff is pervasive. No we don't need yet another "2edgyforme" "if you aren't the customer you're the PRODUCT" articles about google.
[+] [-] lubujackson|9 years ago|reply
It's clear Google wants to "own the home" and all their products were built to further this goal (rather than be useful themselves). This is why Google bought Nest for 12 jillion dollars. And it's why the iWatch failed and Google Glass failed - right now, these are niche products that barely have purpose.
Now this stuff may become integral to our lives, as depicted in so many sci-fi stories, but if they become embedded in our lives and are wholly owned by one huge company, that should be terrifying to everyone.
Here are some real world reasons why: a virus is installed on your Google box through your wifi - now house robbers know everything about your schedule and habits. Your parent goes through your every personal action to make sure you aren't getting in trouble. A spouse uses the system to track your every movement and make sure you aren't cheating. And of course, the gov't has access to all of this data by default. Imagine being a famous celebrity with every action in your house known and accessible to any gov't peon with access and a bit of curiousity. This isn't some conspiracy theory, this is exactly the access Snowden had (and he was a contractor).
It isn't what these products are, it's the direction they represent: complete surveillance of every personal action, stored and owned by one monolithic corporation and the government. And not only is this is sort of where we are heading, it's Google's clearly stated objective.
It reminds me of the 50s when plastics were going to revolutionize everything... which they did, but we melted off the ozone layer before realizing the consequences of slapping new technology across the world. Especially when the benefits are so minimal and the threats are so real - imagine McCarthy with the type of access and control these devices would provide if Google succeeds in pushing this across 80% of homes.
[+] [-] yodon|9 years ago|reply
Guest at house party: "Ok google, show naked pictures of [host's ex-girlfriend]"
[0] https://www.tvbgone.com
[+] [-] kbenson|9 years ago|reply
I have very conflicted feelings about this article.
[+] [-] davidcgl|9 years ago|reply
[1] http://www.geekwire.com/2011/amazons-bezos-innovation/
Any time you do something big, that’s disruptive — Kindle, AWS — there will be critics. And there will be at least two kinds of critics. There will be well-meaning critics who genuinely misunderstand what you are doing or genuinely have a different opinion. And there will be the self-interested critics that have a vested interest in not liking what you are doing and they will have reason to misunderstand. And you have to be willing to ignore both types of critics. You listen to them, because you want to see, always testing, is it possible they are right?