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11 posts total
Meredith Whittaker
📢 New from me! On why "privacy for me but not for thee" amounts to "privacy for no one," and how a German Military comms leak demonstrates that mass private comms services, like Signal, are the only way to ensure privacy--for anyone and everyone.👇 https://netzpolitik.org/2024/taurus-leak-when-it-comes-to-privacy-its-all-or-nothing/
Meredith Whittaker
Notable that this longstanding problem, which I and a few others have been naming for ~a decade, is now common sense. It's true. AI is fundamentally a technology controlled by Big Tech. But the current 'solutions' to this problem would extend, not dilute, Big Tech control. 1/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/03/10/big-tech-companies-ai-research/
Meredith Whittaker
The issue: Big Tech has the $$ infrastructure, data, ability to pay talent, and access to market which no one else does. So as academics, you either pay retail for access, or get it discounted/free by yoking yourself to Big Tech (via dual affiliation, or just being hired). 2/
Meredith Whittaker
Usernames...for everyone!!! Usernames are now out of beta and available for anyone using the latest version of the Signal app--≥7.0. 🎁❤️
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ex_06
@Mer__edith is it necessary to wait for everyone to get on 7.0 (those 90days) to avoid leaking the account to people that already have my number?  
Sunshine
@Mer__edith Thank you @signalapp team! I have now sent reminders to all my Signal contacts about this, signing the message with "Signal's heiress". :ablobcatwink:
Meredith Whittaker
IT IS HAPPENING! Today, Signal launches phone number privacy & usernames! These features let you use Signal w/o sharing your phone number with the people you talk to Proud to add more privacy to Signal, & proud of the smart, careful work the team did to make this happen ♥️ You can read more here: https://signal.org/blog/phone-number-privacy-usernames/
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Meredith Whittaker
MS--Open AI's ~parent company--already has massive US military contracts. This is the biz model. This news is also one more alarm re. the current AI paradigm, its reliance on concentrated corp power, & the undemocratic decision making power this gives these (primarily) US-based corps. https://theintercept.com/2024/01/12/open-ai-military-ban-chatgpt/
Meredith Whittaker
...for anyone preparing to step to this post with arguments re. AI's potential efficiencies/precision leading to harm reduction in war, no. That's an unevidenced hope. Where we do have insight (which is scarce, given the pernicious intersection of trade secrecy and classification), it points to AI enabling "Jevon's paradox, but for death." See: https://www.972mag.com/mass-assassination-factory-israel-calculated-bombing-gaza/
fool
@Mer__edith If all major military powers use AI to a similar extent, would it revert warfare back to primitive stage because nothing is reliable without naked eye confirmation? Either that, or kill everyone and nuke everything.
Meredith Whittaker
I did not sign this statement, tho I agree “open” AI is not the enemy of “safe” AI I can't endorse its premise that “openness” alone will “mitigate current+future harms from AI,” nor that it’s an antidote to concentrated power in the AI industry 1/
Meredith Whittaker
This is esp true in an ecosystem where the term “open”, in the context of AI, has no clear definition, leaving it ripe for abuse + instrumentation by firms like Meta (who signed on + are currently brandishing this same statement to promo their ersatz "open" AI offerings). 2/
Meredith Whittaker
Confirming the EU law enforcement (& AI company) mass surveillance aspirations animating the EU push to scan everyone’s private messages. It’s critical that people understand what’s going on here.
Jos
"All data is useful and should be passed on to law enforcement, there should be no filtering by the [EU] Centre because even an innocent image might contain information that could at some point be useful to law enforcement," Brrr
Aliki Souma
@Mer__edith In addition to the obvious data privacy and surveillance dangers of #CSAR, it should also be noted that the proposed law is harmful because it disorients the public discourse about what measures should ACTUALLY be taken to effectively protect children and minors from online violence and abuse. The imposition of chat scanning could create a false sense of security, which in turn could potentially lead to children using social media uncontrollably, without any parental guidance or supervision.
Meredith Whittaker
SO good -- the best follow the money reporting on who's behind the global attack on digital privacy yet. TLDR: it's law enforcement x AI companies posing as NGOs w a commercial interest in selling scammy mass scanning tech. Deeply cynical, deeply shady. 
hnapel
I hope the public and legislators will soon understand that #AI is not the solution to the exploitation of children but much more part of the problem. https://www.businessinsider.com/fake-naked-pictures-young-girls-ai-spark-outrage-spanish-town-2023
Meredith Whittaker
This is the real, human cost of mass surveillance of everyone's private digital communications. If we actually care about keeping people safe, we need more end-to-end encryption not less.
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maddie (:goodfortrout:) :QueerCat: :verifiedtrans:
@Mer__edith sure, you may have "nothing to hide", but these people do, and therefore we need less surveillance.
Trash Panda
@Mer__edith@mastodon.world
Meredith Whittaker
Early 2000s profitable startups gave their handful of workers novel perks/freedom. These cos/their workplace culture got big. Late 2010s tech labor gained power + made demands. Now a hint of recession = excuse to break promises/reestablish dominance over workers. It's not about $
Meredith Whittaker
Climate change is already threatening the data centers required to power large scale tech, like "AI". Or, accounting for climate we see a tech future that's patchier & less always-on + ubiquitous, NOT larger and more powerful. This doesn't mean that those with power to shape and control tech will themselves grow less powerful. But it does mean that the colloquial Moore's law fantasies of tech, particularly popular in "AI", will face a series of hard stops. @mel_hogan
Nadia/Надя/नाडिया/娜迪亚/ نادية
It might degrade the quality & performance of new parts more than shut things down in itself, but some materials used to build computers (hafnium noted in the article) are dwindling: https://www.engineering.com/story/what-raw-materials-are-used-to-make-hardware-in-computing-devices |
Gregory's Server
Also in German: https://netzpolitik.org/2024/taurus-abhoeraffaere-privatsphaere-fuer-alle-oder-niemanden/
@Mer__edith I just say: "Military grade encryption"