The problem with Facebook(twitter.com) |
The problem with Facebook(twitter.com) |
He goes on to defend his work at Google, arguing that they're similar on the surface, but Facebook is truly dangerous where Google is not.
I'm not sure I agree with that. Google is quite a bit more distributed across products and platforms, so Facebook has a simpler loop centered around the newsfeed. That said, Google can track a user's behaviour across nearly every website on the internet.
Facebook can run these "reinforcement learning on a global scale" experiments through its newsfeed. Google, it seems to me, can run them across the web as a whole.
Google persists in trying to justify its thirst for your data (we need it for maps traffic reports / google now suggestions / allo suggestions / to improve your maps experience / etc etc.)
The one point where Google wins out over Facebook (apparently) is that they're big enough to not need to expose your data to others. (Honestly I'd assumed Facebook was already at the point where they realised that the data they hold is worth more than a third party is likely to pay for it, which is the only reason the CA reveal was surprising to me...)
I agree that Google have a lot more data points and like Amazon are doing everything they can to invade physical space as well. LinkedNYC kiosks, Google Home and Toronto Waterfront projects are examples of making sure you're data is being collected 24/7.
> everyone who usually drives on this road is taking a detour, was there a accident or construction going on?
EDIT: grammar
I don't think there's a technological fix for avoiding location tracking of connected devices. The network must know where you are in order to deliver the connection, and you cannot control the network. Any control given at the device level is therefore an illusion. The only comprehensive solution is a legislative one. Outlaw improper use of location tracking information (GDPR-style), and allow people to use the courts to force good behavior.
Sometimes I'll read an article to get a sense of what some gossip is about and then I get half a dozen wack-a-doo suggestions there, it is pretty bad.
Also, since I marked that I'm interested in a couple of sports teams, I'm obviously obsessed with them and want to know everything repeatedly.
That aside, if you use Google as your main news outlet, all that goes out the window.
Google on the other hand is not so easy to replace, it's not a popular trend, it's in the browser i'm typing on, my pocket, my map/navigation, email, chat. Google knows a disturbing amount of information about me I never intentionally gave. Facebook just knows what I tell it.
A malicious google could do a unthinkable amount of damage to society, there is little we could do if we even knew it was happening.
In the case of Facebook there's a lot of peer pressure which keeps people on the platform. To leave Facebook (for most people), your friends also need to leave with you. Unfortunately, while this is slowly happening now, people seem to be flocking to platforms also owned by Facebook -- Instagram and WhatsApp.
After sorting through this guys first half dozen tweets I finally realized he's talking about AI and advertising. As an ecommerceguy here's my take. I'd love to be able to upload a product feed, have FB or whomever evaluate those products and push them to whomever the adbot/algorithm/ai/hall9k whatever we're calling it today; as long as it returns good ROI, happy customers and less work for me I'm happy.
This is already somewhat possible with Google Shopping Feed.
So again, besides this helped Trump, why the outrage? All I see is people freaking out at what has been public knowledge for years albeit obfuscated under a massive sheen of PRSpeak. FWIW I have always actively stayed away from Facebook as much as possible to the point I tell my sister to take photos off her feed of me. But here I am tangentially defending them.
I wanted to add a link to this site, It connects to over 200 trackers. https://segment.com/
They might demonetize some radical channels but they're still making money on users who get to YouTube through those channels.
https://mobile.nytimes.com/2018/03/10/opinion/sunday/youtube...
https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/11/04/business/media/youtube...
https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/d3w9ja/how-youtubes-algo...
His analysis is correct, but this:
> If you work in AI, please don't help them. Don't play their game. Don't participate in their research ecosystem. Please show some conscience
is a clear cut case of the pot calling the kettle black.
>Essentially nothing about the threat described applies to Google. Nor Amazon. Nor Apple.
>It could apply to Twitter, in principle, but in practice it almost entirely doesn't.
I don't believe this for one second. Google does the exact same "algorithmic curation" with its search results. Different people get different results based on internal profiles that Google has built: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filter_bubble. Over time that shift in search result content acts upon people in exactly the same way as the Facebook example he describes.
But he is right we are at a crossroad and the path that will be taken is clear for me. Manipulating/controlling populations is where the money will go and people will create those tools because those jobs pay well, its that simple.
In the next elections we will see deepfakes videos of candidates instantly responding to problems or defaming videos will be put out were you cant judge on the spot if its real or not. The trend of echo chambers will continue as we see it right now.
The only thing i can see is education if we look back at the recent history going from only a certain amount of people can who read/write or have access to books to everyone has to learn and has access to libraries. This is the next level.
And on the other side we have to fight for our right of privacy and kill some business models on the way. Right now this is for me on the same scale as Atomic / Chemical Weapons.
The real question I am having reading this thread is: is this guy being very naive, or just dishonest?
If you have all this data, make my life more fulfilling. I get more community out of IRC than I do on any of the major social media sites. They are really just media sites.
https://chorasimilarity.wordpress.com/2018/03/21/i-deleted-f...
If you work in AI, please don't help them. Don't play their game. Don't participate in their research ecosystem. Please show some conscience
When Facebook does something awful, their defenders rush to say "what about Google, they're even worse!"
There's a lot of false equivalence in HN discussions, but these two are not in the same galaxy when it comes to abusing the privacy of their users.
He's making the point that Facebook has the ability to apply machine-learning-like reinforcement algorithms to whole populations.
You or I, individually, still have agency. Large populations have inertia - they're slow to move - but I'm not sure they have real defense against this kind of manipulation. I guess the real defense here is a diversity of sources (but we all know people who get all of their news from [fox | cnn | facebook | whatever]).
1) Facebook has a view into the opinions and behaviors of the people that use it. Hopefully this statement is not controversial.
2) Facebook also has the ability to influence those opinions and behaviors, by controlling what you see when you use it. This statement may have been controversial at some point, but experiments have been run (by Facebook!) that demonstrate this is true.
Put the two together and you have a feedback loop that can be optimized to produce a particular set of opinions and behaviors. To pick an extreme (and extremely obvious) case, if Facebook decides it needs to goose revenue, one way to do that would be to selectively filter in the posts (both ads and non-ads) that reinforce purchasing things through Facebook ads.
Not really, if twitter is a good platform for him to get his message out, I'm all for it.
I also like the irony of using social media platforms to spread ideas that could hasten their downfall. Its sort of like in some martial arts where you exploit the weight and strength of your opponent to defeat them.
If you're arguing against social media, social media reaches the exact people you most need to reach.
Also the fact that you know how Facebook or Google makes money does not mean that the public knows, so my father does not understand why someone would put videos on youtube or would put fake articles about things, or click bait , most of the people do not know about trackers, about the fact that ads on pages make money for the website, that ads on the videos make money for publishers.
I hope this scandal will make some light on exactly what Facebook collect when I visit a webpage with FB buttons, I want us and the public to find out about the shadow profiles, about any experiments done on users, it would be good if we find if similar things happen in other countries elections and I am wondering how well this things work.
Also it would be good if we could get less crap on FB, I do not use it that much but I have people in my family that read articles posted in FB and most of them are fake news(not politics but other crap like medicine)
I hope we get some laws about tracking people outside your webpages and making shadow profiles illegal.
So even if you don't like Hillary or her party, I think you should desire the entire truth surfaces and we see all details, elections are done so it is nothing you can do now but maybe with more information the next ones will be better with less dirt and fake news in social media and more actual debates.