Concerning A.I.

[Captain Caveman]

Just found a thing that gave a list of guests and usesrs viewing this site and what they were looking at, and two on this list were "Google robot" and "Bing robot" which were both notlooking at articles or threads on this site but rather were looking at members on the site, which concerns me.

 

[Forest Cat]

Just found a thing thatgave alist of guests and usesrs viewing this site and what they were looking at, and two on this list were "Google robot" and "Bing robot"

There are always dozens if not hundreds or thousands of bots like that viewing and trawling every site on the net. Not sure if it's possible to avoid it. And with the latest A.I surge, it will quickly get much worse.
I don't think our permission means anything, if we use a site, any site, we will get trawled and studied by bots.

 

[Captain Caveman]

There are always dozens if not hundreds or thousands of bots like that viewing and trawling every site on the net. Not sure if it's possible to avoid it. And with the latest A.I surge, it will quickly get much worse.
I don't think our permission means anything, if we use a site, any site, we will get trawled and studied by bots.

Here is part of the issue, where A.I., not being human, does not know what the term "Decency" is or what "Privacy" is.

 

[Hypnalis]

@Captain Caveman

If a human can see something on the web, "spiders" (bots) will see it and report it to their owners. This has been going on since years before the Google search engine was made available to the public.

It's easy to test: make a post with an easy search term, come back in a day, and try to find it with google.
If you find it, they've saved your post. And every other post on the site.
And every post on most other sites on the internet. And, for example, all of your Gmail emails - that's why they provide that "free" storage with Gmail.

It's quite difficult for a site to defend against this. Very few do. If many did, the spiders would get better, so it's unlikely to ever happen.

AI's won't change what big players have access to - particularly Governments. And while they'll make it easier for Data Brokers, they won't add as much as you think in terms of access or analysis for big players.

What current AI tech will change is that they will make medium and large companies able to do what Governments already do.

Note that this was all decided (largely by inaction) when "toxic safety and security" became a political norm.

It might have been possible to resist Governments doing this for themselves (e.g. in the USA). But the combined interests of Law Enforcement, Government Security Organizations, and the (foolish) principle among voters of "100% safety" was impossible to resist.

Online privacy wasn't taken away. It was given away without a second thought by people who ignored sensible, well argued, well presented warnings.

BTW: turning off "optional cookies" doesn't help against big players, and much less than you'd think against smaller ones. Soon enough, if not already, it won't help at all against AIs.

The right to choose which cookies are saved is real, but it's also a distraction. It has an effect, but it's much less than you'd think. Cookies don't hide data like e.g. this post, and don't stop a spider copying them to their owner.

 

[Neonatal RRT]

Everyone has a digital footprint. It is a surveillance state no matter where you are. Under the guise of "customer service" and providing you with additional adds and media "that you might be interested in", "tailoring your experience". What it can be is a form of mind control by which it slowly guides you down a path of thought, sometimes as a shopping experience, sometimes it's just more funny videos, and other times, down a political extremism pathway. You think you are choosing your content, but the algorithms are guiding you.

 

[Hypnalis]

An simple technical example of @Neonatal RRT 's point.

Almost all commercial sites continually "split-test" to tune the content to get the effect they want.
They spend (in terms of their size) significant resources on it too, because it's effective.

A/B testing - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

I haven't checked the whole page (this isn't news to me - I work in IT) but the links to terms and concepts look ok.

I think it would be worth clicking on interesting-looking links if you stay away from the math stuff, and follow the site design and user engagement terminology.

Between "privacy" (mostly absent) and subtle techniques to "guide" user behavior, it's a bit depressing, but it's long past the point at which individuals can have any effect.
The best plan is to stay happy, and enjoy complaining about it

 

[Judge]

Between "privacy" (mostly absent) and subtle techniques to "guide" user behavior, it's a bit depressing, but it's long past the point at which individuals can have any effect.
The best plan is to stay happy, and enjoy complaining about it

I haven't been in IT in many years. Though I still recall the optimism expressed around the turn of the century by some over the existence of the "Robot Exclusion Standard". Which now seems laughable at best.

Good intentions for an industry to self-regulate itself that have long since been replaced by the urgency of who can index the most data for the most profit apart from shamelessly manipulating users through algorithms that often appear to me as being dependent on perceived stereotypes.

Making it difficult at times to differentiate criminal hackers from corporate giants. Though it does make me wonder how much further and more sinister such processes will get through the use of artificial intelligence. Particularly its use by state actors and formal intelligence gathering entities with potentially unlimited resources.

 

[Gerald Wilgus]

It is just a reminder that on social sites, we are the product.

 

[MNAus]

Online privacy wasn't taken away. It was given away without a second thought by people who ignored sensible, well argued, well presented warnings.

Everyone tosses away their privacy anyway. Stick a stupid app on mobile stores and people sign up to anything. Case in point was the face changer app a couple of years ago that was pretty open they would be using the image of your OWN FACE for whatever they wanted. Everyone quite happily gave permission for that because they wanted to do funny things like age their appearance just like their friends had. You can (and I did/do) fight for this stuff, but most people really don't care until it's too late.

 

[Outdated]

I think a lot of people don't understand the meanings or the differences between Public and Private spaces. The internet is a public space and privacy in a public space is not a reasonable expectation.

Australian law regarding photography is a good example of this philosophy. If you are in a public space I don't need to ask your permission to take your picture, or to publish it. If you want to remain private then you should remain in a private space. There's a big difference if people are using their cameras to harass or victimise someone and we have laws about that too, but as a general rule of thumb if you are in a public space then you can not have the expectation of privacy.

 

[Captain Caveman]

I think a lot of people don't understand the meanings or the differences between Public and Private spaces. The internet is a public space and privacy in a public space is not a reasonable expectation.

Australian law regarding photography is a good example of this philosophy. If you are in a public space I don't need to ask your permission to take your picture, or to publish it. If you want to remain private then you should remain in a private space. There's a big difference if people are using their cameras to harass or victimise someone and we have laws about that too, but as a general rule of thumb if you are in a public space then you can not have the expectation of privacy.

Britain used to be like that until we got involved in the EU where our laws changed.

 

[Outdated]

Britain used to be like that until we got involved in the EU where our laws changed.

Our laws were uncertain as to which direction we'd head in, until we gave police speed cameras. That sparked a huge debate over privacy concerns. We made it part of the conditions you agree to when you apply for a driver's license, as well as random alcohol and drug testing, but it also sparked debate over the rights of photographers and journalists. If someone takes a photo of you on private property without your express permission then they are in breach of privacy laws but if you're in a public park or walking down a public street it's likely you'll appear in lots of people's pictures. Especially considering the high numbers of tourists we get here.

 

[Mary Terry]

Here is part of the issue, where A.I., not being human, does not know what the term "Decency" is or what "Privacy" is.

LOL. There are plenty of humans who don't know what decency or privacy is.

 

[Dagan]

This makes me want to start a company that buys all of the information to the profiles of these millions of bots and sell their information to some other company. I bet it'd work. I might get rich overnight.