Via.
I, For One, Welcome Our New Self-Driving Overlords
Apple’s Siri AI assistant sends audio of sexual encounters, embarrassing medical information, drug deals, and other private moments recorded without users’ knowledge to human ‘graders’ for evaluation, a whistleblower has revealed.
Recordings from Apple’s Siri voice assistant are fed to human contractors around the world, who grade the AI based on the quality of its response and whether its activation was deliberate, according to an anonymous contractor who spoke to the Guardian. They claimed accidental activations are much more frequent than Apple lets on, especially with Apple Watch users – and wants the company to own up to the problem. […]
Siri isn’t the only voice assistant that transmits users’ private moments back to the mothership, of course – Amazon’s Alexa infamously has entire chat rooms for its human trainers to discuss difficult-to-understand audio clips (or mock funny recordings) and Google Home uses a similar system of outsourced “language experts” that allows the company to claim that no one at Google has access to the recordings its devices make.
h/t Larry (via BCF)
Break Them Up
Watch it while you still can.
Related: FTC fines Facebook $5B, adds oversight for privacy mishaps
July 24, 2019: Reader Tips
Life after Google — an interview with George Gilder. (2018)
Thread’s open.
Break Them Up
The U.S. Department of Justice opened a sweeping antitrust investigation of big technology companies and whether their online platforms have hurt competition, suppressed innovation or otherwise harmed consumers.
It comes as a growing number of lawmakers have called for stricter regulation or even breaking up of the big tech companies, which have come under intense scrutiny following a series of scandals that compromised users’ privacy.
President Donald Trump also has relentlessly criticized the big tech companies by name in recent months. He frequently asserts, without evidence, that companies such as Facebook and Google are biased against him and conservative politicians.
“without evidence”.
Break Them Up
NEW: Over 1,000 Google Employees Co-Signed Letter to Target Breitbart as “prohibited content,” Target Ads WATCH FULL: https://t.co/2An4f0bzrY pic.twitter.com/NaT06T7p4f
— Project Veritas (@Project_Veritas) July 10, 2019
I, For One, Welcome Our New Self-Driving Overlords
The article unwittingly provides a perfect example by quoting a business owner’s complaints about his employees who rejected new software because “importing an old address list into the new system generated so many errors that [he] had to hire two helpers.”
His diagnosis: “people are afraid of change.”
Look, dude, if something as simple as importing an address list creates multiple errors, the software you bought is a stinking PoS and you are a clueless bozo for blaming your long-suffering staff.
Remind me sometime to tell you the “when the sign company tried to computerize the layout department” story.
Break Them Up
Google’s Manual Interventions in Search Results
I happen to be an engineer who used to work for Google, and I have come here to explain the truth behind many of these stories, including the story of the three most consequential words I may have ever written at Google: “the smoking gun.” The account I will give will corroborate several of these stories from the perspective of an engineer who has firsthand knowledge of the blacklists and documents that I will discuss.
I, For One, Welcome Our New Self-Driving Overlords.
From the responses: “this is what happens when you fire all the humans and let badly programmed shit make the decisions”
It’s been a busy day.
Social Disease
Excellent read. Pass it along to the teenagers in your life.
I, For One, Welcome Our New Self-Driving Overlords
Medtronic insulin pumps recalled over fears they could be hacked.
Break Them Up
Into a hundred thousand million pieces.
Project Veritas has obtained a newly leaked document from Google that appears to show a Google employee and member of Google “transparency-and-ethics” group calling conservative and libertarian commentators, including Dennis Prager and Ben Shapiro, “nazis.” Project Veritas received this document after the release of its investigation into Google through the “Be Brave” campaign at VeritasTips@protonmail.com.
The email apparently was sent as part of the Google “transparency-and-ethics” group internal communications and suggests that content from PragerU, Jordan Peterson, and Ben Shapiro should be disabled from the “suggestion feature.”
More: Google Execs Suddenly Go Into Hiding After Project Veritas Exposes Trump Destruction Plans
And this: Reddit Suspends Users Who Post Project Veritas Videos
Break Them Up
David French and his fellow peacetime conservatives are at it again, wringing their hands and gnashing their teeth as U.S. Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) takes a run at curtailing the immense power of Big Tech.
As French channels Neville Chamberlain, the fact is that unless the tech companies are forcefully confronted, now, in the immediate, our self-governing republic will be over in less than a generation and we will be ruled by a tech oligarchy. […]
If we do not correct our mistakes, our great rights of speech and assembly, offline and online, are in danger. Someone is going to be the final defender of our natural rights as codified in the Constitution. Do we want un-elected global monopolistic corporations—entities that may or may not consider themselves American companies, ruling you by algorithms? Do we want them limiting the flow of information in the online public arena, manipulating it to benefit themselves and their view of the world? Or do we want duly elected leaders of a constitutional republic defending our rights?
In a constitutional republic, all power flows from the people to their various elected officials, not to corporations or private companies. And when monopolies develop, in order to reset to a free-market dynamic, monopolies must be broken up so that competition can benefit the consumer once more.
Break Them Up
Nothing here is surprising to anyone who witnessed the throttling of search terms like “Climategate”.
Update:
BREAKING: YOUTUBE/GOOGLE HAS REMOVED OUR GOOGLE INVESTIGATION as it was approaching 50K likes and a million views. IMPORTANT: Please download it on @bitchute and repost it. https://t.co/chDsGF0QCk
— James O'Keefe (@JamesOKeefeIII) June 25, 2019
Universal Basic Income For Deplorables
What is Universal Basic Income?
Universal Basic Income is a Plan to ensure that the millions of us whose jobs are permanently lost to “new technology” have sufficient income to “reduce conditions of scarcity, poverty, and financial insecurity”* while the Planners wait for you to die off.
That is all.
You’re welcome.
Break Them Up
The U.S. government is gearing up to investigate whether Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google misuse their massive market power, sources told Reuters on Monday, setting up what could be an unprecedented, wide-ranging probe of some of the world’s largest companies.
The Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice, which enforce antitrust laws in the United States, have divided oversight over the four companies, two sources said, with Amazon and Facebook under the watch of the FTC, and Apple and Google under the Justice Department.
With jurisdiction established, the next step is for the two federal agencies to decide if they want to open formal investigations. Results are not likely to be quick. A previous FTC probe of Google took more than two years.
Related: Big Tech Is Big Brother (h/t Jim)
Break Them Up
Into a hundred thousand million pieces: Google Should Be Afraid. Very Afraid.
Make an example of them.
“I want to say one word to you. … Mr. McGuire”
Discuss.
“They spent all their resources stealing technology.”
The accusations of Huawei stealing trade secrets from across the world are hitting a fever pitch, thanks to a new Wall Street Journal expose that blows open accusations of theft and stealing of trade secrets. The article includes insights from lawsuits, Huawei’s competitors and former employees. Allegations run the gamut against the company: from its business practices, to the science behind its 5G, all the way down to copying the text it used in its user manuals. […]
The United States is finally following in the footsteps of places like Australia and putting pressure on the company out of concern for national security. Just last week, the Trump administration unveiled measures to help cut Huawei off from American suppliers and stop it from doing business in the United States. The administration believes that the company takes its orders directly from Beijing and that its standing as the top telecom company in the world makes it a powerful tool for China’s authoritarian government.
Huawei writes the whole thing off as one big misunderstanding and says that it complies with laws in global markets: “We respect the integrity of intellectual property rights—for our own business, as well as peer, partner and competitor companies,” the company said.