I generally err towards the side of wanting relatively free rein for technology and placing the responsibility upon users to determine their own interactions with it, and having little sympathy with those who throw themselves headlong into shiny new toys and come unstuck, but this is quite fucked.
25 Apr 2023
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I would like to agree on the free rein thing, but these giga-corps have, by design, turned themselves into borderline utilities via insidious, exploitative and monopolistic practices. It’s just about possible to opt out of their ‘services’, but impossible to avoid the effects of them. Then throw in AI which is a global copyright abuser and general theiver of creative works, is degrading the tools we rely on, is polluting our pool of knowledge.. all whilst burning every resource imaginable (from fuel to human talent).. doing things that nobody asked for and nobody really seems to want…. well it’s all an absolute shitshow and ‘let the people decide’ has failed monumentally as an approach.
And yeah.. when it comes to kids.. even if we did make personal responsibility the guiding principle… they do not have the the capacity to understand what they are getting into and these companies absolutely should not be getting away with the shit they have been getting away with for a long time.
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I don't think you are quite getting the scale of it yet. They have all your data, they know your health records, your financial transactions, they know who you talk to*, and about what. The problem with kids is that they don't produce as much incontrovertible data. Quite inevitable that they will wish to extend their reach to controlling and shaping your children, as they control and shape you.
Don't think there's some level of proprietary decency embedded in the system. There isn't, that's why they spend so much effort persuading you that fascism is best. So that no social level structures can interfere with them doing whatever the fuck they want with you.
The choice is stark. We have to become socially cohesive and fight for real rights and freedoms, along with meaningful regulation, or accept digital slavery. The direction of this particularly supine and pathetic country is meek capitulation.
* I did this experiment with some old services (outlook online etc.), where I had log ins that weren't tied to anything else. Had been created in different times. Couldn't be traced to me individually or one of my IP addresses. Tried various ways of logging into them without giving that sort of information (tor, not authenticating with another service that was 'known'). It was essentially impossible. Where another email address was also not known, it was impossible to use this to verify a log on. Basically being passed around until you compromise your identify by connection or known service 'for your security'. Which it is of course nothing of the sort. I do not think any of us are safe, until we take steps to protect ourselves and those that we care about. The sort of ghouls who own and run these services rarely let their children access the public internet.
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It’s okay. I don’t.
Meta has openly admitted that it is ready to put interactive AI profiles into its platform to help maintain ‘engagement’. Zuckerberg can keep twatting on about ‘connecting people’ but their objectives are only getting more obvious. And yeah, some other version of the same shit is embedded in all of the others, as well as those that aspire to join them and the oceans of cash that are funding the whole thing.
This isn’t headed anywhere good.
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Hasn't Russia already filled Meta with AI?
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It proved too difficult to make AI smarter, so they settled for making people dumber.
