Why the Race to AI is Bad for Consumer Privacy. The "Ethics" of AI debate just got cloudier.
Michael Spencer
A.I. Writer, researcher and curator - full-time Newsletter publication manager.
The push for AI will mean consumer privacy rights will deteriorate to record levels.
It's no longer just cookies, your web browser and what you hand over when using apps.
Amazon may share Alexa chats with third parties, and Huawei and Google are going further than ever before to mine your data.
When WhatsApp shared your number with its parent company Facebook, something it promised never to do, you knew something was very wrong in the world of privacy rights and consumer protection.
Tech Firms are living above the law.
Tech companies are segmenting us into echo bubbles and our data is being processed.
Snowden is in exile, and the shady world of internet control is on the rise, and George Orwell's book, 1984, seems to be the most readable dystopia that's coming true.
The Push for AI Heightens Data Concerns
The push for an improved AI and digital advertising advantages means Google now spies on shopping purchases by customers, which they claim is encrypted in a double-blind, though nobody really knows for sure.
If a lot of consumer data is needed to train the future AI, it's causing rivalries and controversies between tech giants that are unprecedented.
With Beijing's new edict for China to become the leader in artificial intelligence by 2030, things are heating up between Chinese companies as well.
Tech Companies Exploiting your Data
By tracking offline purchases Google enters new levels of creepy. Tracking credit cards and loyalty cards is not something consumers have opted in to.
There isn't a clear informed consent for handing over the control of our personal data. Tech companies are making the transition as normal as possible, to grow their businesses to realities we cannot imagine yet, but they can.
Facebook unifying its companies to turn your data into profit was to be expected and continues Facebook's sketchy history of using consumer user data for monetization.
Hauwei mining your WeChat data shows China has virtually zero protection for the consumer regarding data rights.
Huawei is collecting user-activity information on its advanced Honor Magic smartphone in order to “build its AI capability”, including WeChat log activity.
Tech companies are colluding with each other to get ahead collectively. Better targeted Ads mean more revenue, but they are also systematically in a battle over our data.
China's Crackdown Mirrors Data Exploits
If China is blocking Whatsapp, cracking down on VPNs and appear poised to create their social credit system. You may have noticed that in some countries, entry to the country may mean giving over access to your social media accounts.
If data is your most valuable asset in the world of technology secrets, corporate espionage between rival countries and technology firms has made cybersecurity a top priority over the last decade.
Now with AI as the focus, how to get consumer data without paying for it becomes the new key exploit. It's coming.
Social Credit System and the Dark Data Matrix
Microsoft just named artificial intelligence as one of its top priorities in a financial filing.
The age of AI is also the age of data brokers and the dark net. If HBO can be so easily hacked, Data breach at the Swedish Government and hacking conferences can hack into voting machines in minutes, you see the connection of cyber-security and the future of AI in a nutshell, something Microsoft acquisitions can attest to.
Microsoft who recently publically stated AI was their top priority knows a thing or to about the future of data.
If data is the blood of the age of AI, our personal data can and will be used against us as consumers.
To compete with China's use of personal data in the blood sport to AI, western tech firms will have one arm behind their back to comply with exploitive data harvesting tactics.
The Ethics Debate of AI Is Lost Before it Even Began
Which means you can throw ethics out the window right now in the race to AI and the future of consumer privacy.
LinkedIn's own Chinese office must grapple with the challenge of how to please Beijing while blocking "sensitive content" from the west that might violate local laws.
In an unanticipated occurrence, the so called free media's influence on the Chinese consumer may end up being less considerable than the influence of China's own hardline data policies on how Tech firms such as Amazon, Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and Apple use our data just to keep up.
The profit motive and ruthless competition means a major decline of consumer rights and privacy for us and future generations.
AI may solve problems, but the new problems it creates may overshadow its benefits.
This article is just one in a series of blogs I'm doing on AI, tech firms and the future of data policies.
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Are tech firms reducing the value of the human right to privacy and control over our own data?
Vice President at Mastercard | BCG
7 年Michael, enjoy reading your posts they are well written, to the point, and in layman terms. The war for no-privacy has already begun. One of the largest democracies on the planet is defending its stand in the Supreme Court that 'Privacy is not a right of its citizens'. https://www.dhirubhai.net/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6298260366791057408 The Indian Government wants to make biometric data (and data captured as part of the Aadhar or UDID scheme) of its citizen public, open for all. If that happens, India soon to become paradise for corporations like FB / Google? but ....at what cost?
Cloud Engineer | DevSecOps | Software Engineer
7 年The day we embraced AI in our daily lives. Privacy became a part of history. Now it's all about how much of your personal data is being shared out there between AIs
Erik Vos : art director - the ideas guy
7 年What if my new "ghost surfer" programm uses my computer and smart phone and visits random sites while I am asleep or mowi g the lawn and will totally mixe up my profile for the data experts and internet giants ?
Global Salesforce CRM and e-commerce lead, AVP customer experience
7 年Michael, I am actually more worried about the other side of that coin: the "attention engineering". The goal of the Digital giants is not to capture data per se but to control the consumer attention to take their cut on all the transactions. Building addictive products is a more potent (and cheaper) way to improve that equation. Of course they have to do both. But maybe because I am a tech guy I always find the manipulation of people emotions more dangerous than anything else (and I vote in the US). Another thought is that tech may have some answers, for example Tim Berners Lee's Blockstack project that moves data ownership to a blockchain system.