Allison MeloyCan the AI haters give it a rest already? Yes, I know there are concerns, but as a person with a disability, if I didn’t use every tool that was out there because I had concerns about it, I wouldn’t use anything. All this AI hatred is just cutting off our nose to spite our face.
@technocounselor It's not AI that most people I've heard this from hate. It's the fact people insist AI can and should be used for everything everywhere. There's a time and a place. It's a tool, not a support system and not a replacement for people.
@quanin @technocounselor It's also not AI so much as its implementation. The concerns acknowledged in the original post include: boiling the planet and sapping its dwindling water supply; the cognitive atrophy, proven by studies already, that results from using AI to do thinking for you; the privacy and unwarranted surveilence risk inherent in using AI to read your confidential letters etc; and its use to divorce scapital from labour and concentrate wealth.
@quanin @technocounselor You may personally view those concerns, in addition to current AI's unreliability as being less important than the empowerment it offers to describe things to visually impaired people, sometimes inaccurately etc, and that is your perogative, but, given the magnitude of these concerns, I think it is unreasonable to ask people to stop expressing them. A more constructive approach might be to counter-argue how the benefits outweigh them
@JustinMac84 @technocounselor First, I haven't asked anyone to stop expressing anything. Second, I have no idea what original post you're referring to. The original post I replied to said nothing about that and it's not in the thread. Third, you'll need to look elsewhere if what you're after is a view from nowhere.
@quanin Perhaps things have become mis-threaded or I have replied with an inappropriate syntax. I apologise in either case. The OP I was referring towas the exhortation for everyone to stop hating on AI because of its benefits to disabled people.
@JustinMac84 The post in question explicitly stated that the poster is aware there are concerns. However, you do not need to bring those concerns up every single day. They existed yesterday. They exist today. They will exist tomorrow, even if you say nothing. You are no better than the AI all the time everywhere folks, and both of you need to knock it off.
@quanin It is only because of massive pushback that Mosilla has done its users the courtesy of allowing its user-base to opt out of AI features...for now. I'm not sure what kind of opposition you would, therefore, be okay with. The only alternative I can see would be, "Hey, remember those worries we had about all the negative effects of AI that we stopped talking about because people asked us to? We're just back to point out that
@quanin they're still here and a lot worse. Do you fancy putting the brakes on a bit or should we go back to being quiet?"
@JustinMac84 Scream at the companies, not the users. The users likely already know, and the ones that don't agree with you are probably using it in those concerning ways to begin with. I cannot do anything about the damage AI is doing to the planet. OpenAI can. Yell at them, not me.
@quanin I return to my original point, as a disabled person, I'm not against the benefits AI *might* bring. I am against the negatives. The more users that are alive to those negatives and refuse to use products saddled with those negatives or push back in other ways, the better the final situation might be.
@JustinMac84 And I return to the original point of the thread. If we refused to use every device that was to our benefit because we had concerns, we'd get absolutely nowhere. People have concerns about video games. Should we stop using those, or should we address and/or disprove those concerns? People have concerns about microwaves. Should we stop using those? People have concerns about wifi. Should we stop using that? The list, she goes on.
Kitty@quanin @JustinMac84 Oh cuh riste. And heeeeeere we goooooo! Because, you know, the whole reason I use AI to, you know, read things? Is because the people around me do a shitty job of it. And I don't want people, you know, reading my mail. So, like, what do I do then? Make the government hire a special helpyperson to come do it for me? '
@Meepercat @quanin If the other negatives of AI I have cited in this thread don't sway you, this article may be of interest as a succinct reply to your specific question. https://appleinsider.com/articles/26/03/03/what-privacy-as-expected-meta-ray-bans-are-a-privacy-disaster?utm_medium=social&utm_source=mastodon
@JustinMac84 @quanin News briefing: *Everything* is a fucking privacy disaster. Because our data can get stolen. From anywhere. The data your phone company has on you? Yeah. You think that's private? No, sorry. Your medical records? Health insurance info? That data can get stolen too. I'm not worried about my Meta glasses telling me there's... a bottle of Mountain Dew on my desk. Because anyone anywhere who knows anything about me? Knows that. So you, good sir, can take your scare tactics and your bullshit and shove them directly in your left auricular orifice.
@Meepercat @quanin um wow. there's really no need to be rude. I would argue that there's a difference between your data being stolen by an unauthorised bad actor and that bad actor being your service provider. The information is there. It's for you to do what you like with it. You asked a question. I gave my answer. If the answer doesn't concern you, that's absolutely fine. Keep your abuse for a respectful answer to yourself.
@JustinMac84 @Meepercat I think her point is the bad actors are absolutely your service providers. I have 0 doubt my data is being sold, and I have even less doubt my phone company's the one selling it. But I need a phone company, so that's the baseline. But when that's the baseline, the rest is basically just Tuesday.
@quanin @Meepercat The particularly disturbing part of that article, though, is that it's not just data you chose to share being abused, your device is collecting data from you and doing God knows what with it without being asked. I think this is unacceptable and would push back by all possible means against such practices. Judging by her extreme reaction, perhaps that makes me weird, who knows?
@JustinMac84 @Meepercat Like I said. Basically Tuesday. You don't even need a Facebook account for Meta to track you. It's everywhere now. Getting hot and bothered about one component of that everywhere is not very productive.
@quanin @Meepercat Change won't happen overnight. You can't push back against everything all at once, though goodness knows I try. But you can push back against the latest incursions. You can raise awareness and hope that others will push back too. Some will, most won't. That's how it goes. Hopefully the little pushes will add up to something, maybe they won't. Bottom line is, I'd rather do something than nothing.
@JustinMac84 @Meepercat I would respectfully submit that that might very well be your addiction, my friend.
@quanin @Meepercat An interesting point of view. Not sure how tongue in cheek you're being. I want to be free. I want not to be abused. I want to suffer as little abuse as possible, for that to be the case for all of us. If that is an addiction and, honestly, I don't accept that, since I define addiction as something that harms you, so be it.
@JustinMac84 @Meepercat Addictions can also be harmful to other people, even if they don't directly harm you. The fact that your position is being seen as a choice between a consentual relationship that you see as abusive and a non-consentual relationship that someone else sees as abusive... that's the harm. You're literally asking them to prefer the non-consentual abuse. That may not be what you're intending, but if it needs to be pointed out to you, it's also because you can't see that. Addiction blinds people.
@quanin @Meepercat that's a mis-representation of my argument. I'm not saying that and I think you know that. Even you acknowledge it as abuse. I myself, grudgingly, use the same services she does. Doesn't mean I have to like it, nor that I have to take it lying down, nor that I don't use other alternatives that I hope aren't abusive wherever and whenever possible.
I literally did not say she should prefer being abused one way to another.
@JustinMac84 @Meepercat I mean, I used your wording, but I don't agree with it. Which is my entire point. You define abuse the way you do and that's fine. But now you're arguing against someone else's definition of abuse, and that's harmful.
@quanin @Meepercat This is getting absurd. She argued against my definition of abuse. By your metric, that is harmful yet I am the one you are attacking. I said such and such was abusive, she disagreed so I defended my position. But if we are really doing this: the Webster dictionary defines abusive as: 2
: characterized by wrong or improper use or action
especially : CORRUPT
abusive financial practices. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/abusive
: characterized by wrong or improper use or action
especially : CORRUPT
abusive financial practices. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/abusive
@quanin @Meepercat If you don't regard giving someone a camera that will collect sensitive images without their consent and distribute them without their consent, especially doing it to people who have little other recourse other than to put up with it as falling within that definition, I am not the one with the problem. That is an abuse of power. That is an abuse of trust. That is an abuse of the other person's vulnerability and relative lack of power.
@JustinMac84 @Meepercat First of all, I am not attacking you. You will absolutely know it if I am. Second, nowhere is anyone's sensitive images being collected without their consent from their own camera, unless the app that's doing it is legitimately spyware, and at that point you've got bigger problems. Even TikTok doesn't do that. Please provide an actual citation of a legitimate app actually doing that.
@quanin @Meepercat You clearly didn't read the article she had such an extreme reaction to. In it, it records instances of Meta Glasses literally recording people not their owner as long as 5 minutes after users left the room. Same article references Siri eavesdropping. So spyware. But I would argue they are just the most extreme cases. Sharing the naked pictures I may choose to share with my partner on *my* device *without my consent* is also...
@quanin @Meepercat I strongly maintain, abuse. Those are images I have chosen to take and share within strict parameters. For a company to take it upon itself to do what it likes with them is violation.
@JustinMac84 @Meepercat And if that is happening, and can be proven, you'll have a case. But Siri eves dropping? Solveable by turning that part of Siri off. Takes 5 seconds, if that bothers you. There are more than a few people who are okay with that and do not see it as abuse. I don't see it as abuse but also don't have a use for it, so it's off. You can't turn that off with Alexa, so I don't own one. I still don't see it as abuse, I just don't have a use for it.
@J3317 If you look back through the thread, you will see I sent Kitty a link. The info is in that article. Since it forms a pattern of behaviour with other malpractice by tech companies, particularly Meta, I am wholeheartedly convinced, but, as I added, that represents an extreme example, even to share audio, video, images or data a user voluntarily collects beyond the parameter of their consent, I would argue, is abuse, esp if they know about it and feel powerless to escape
@J3317 I would share the link again, but I closed the window and can't easily find it. None of what I say is to detract from any other abuse Kitty or anyone else may have suffered though. If you're pushed from one form into another and prefer the latter form though, that doesn't make the latter form any less abuse.
@quanin @Meepercat That is, unless you regard the dictionary's disagreement with her definition as also harmful, abuse. It may not be physical, it may not be overt, she may consent to it, by her own admition because she feels she has no choice, but it is abuse.
@quanin @Meepercat The ideal is obviously no abuse at all.