[cupofpython]

you dont disappear. you become embedded. they are metaphorically assigning you a number and stripping you of an identity. It is dehumanizing.

At the end of the day, it's just you by a different name. Instead of owning it and claiming "we have this information on Gehlitio" they say things like "We have these generalizations about anybody who happens to use HN, speaks in English, bought X Y and Z, subscribes to A, <insert 100 more details that effectively fingerprint you>"

[Gehlitio]

It sounds to me that you put a negative empathis on 'dehumanizing' but you only talk about an ad id.

I disagree on this sentiment, I don't care if there is an dehumanizing number for me in a ad context. I would prefer it over a personal id.

Anyway I still care much more for having a cure for my chronic pain.

Good for you if you don't need this.

[cupofpython]

My post wasnt clear on this, but I support doing whatever we can to ease chronic pain.

I just disagree with the position that Google can do so while preserving privacy. If we are going to trade privacy for cures, let's at least do so openly.

[monetus]

I wonder how this will play out in court when a neural net that underpins the tech of a company also can't properly handle health data. Start over?

The right to be forgotten would have to be built into it all right from the get go, wouldn't it? Neural nets embed things, like you said. If Facebook pivoted towards being a hub for healthcare data as oracle seems want to do, could they use all of their facial recognition tech trained from profile pictures now that it is supposed to be detached from any one identity? I'm thinking of the equivalent of github's co-pilot spitting out comments alongside the code.

[cupofpython]

>I'm thinking of the equivalent of github's co-pilot spitting out comments alongside the code

yes exactly. I am having trouble articulating my underlying point but this is along the lines of it.

A facial recognition algorithm is ultimately saying "you look similar to this specific set of people". If the training set was 1 person, for example, then the algorithm would pretty much just be saying "you look like this photo of this 1 person". Scaling that up does not improve privacy - it only blends you into a population. Additionally, it is distilling out the things about you that separate you from that population (things that make you, you) since those distinguishing features are exactly what the model needs to use as the line to draw on whether or not new data points are similar to the population set or not.

[Dudeman112]

Have you lived with chronic pain, or expected to live the rest of your life disabled?

Because privacy doesn't seem all that important once you actually are going through it.

If you had to pick between being a cripple (say, with your arms or your legs useless) and forgoing your privacy are you really sure you'd give more value to privacy?

Do actually consider what life is like under these circumstances before answering. I don't think there are many quadriplegic people out there who'd pick privacy over being healed.

"X is more important than Y" isn't honest if you never lacked Y and can't even consider a future where you lack Y

[cupofpython]

I am not sure where I argued that privacy is more important than health. I am saying call it what it is. You are arguing privacy is worth trading for health. I actually agree with that. I dont agree with claims that what google is doing is preserving privacy.

My beliefs are quite the opposite of what you implied about me. I think we should move away from all this embedded bullshit and keep peoples identities intact because the generalizations will never be perfect and it might be useful to know who the actual people are that those generalizations are based on. Maybe that would facilitate human connections. Maybe that would make it easier to reward individuals for sacrificing their privacy in order to improve healthcare. Instead of just pretending they arent sacrificing privacy and are just a drop in the ocean of data providing results.

You are not a drop in the data ocean. Your data is important. There are not a lot of people like you. Google emphasizes generalization because it cheapens the value of your individual data point. Their policy creates an illusion I aim to dismantle.

Also, I do have chronic illness but that is not relevant here. Mine does not directly cause pain, though, full disclosure

[jcranberry]

All statistics are dehumanizing. I'm no data scientist but I'd imagine including the whole human when doing statistics would produce a pretty low signal to noise ratio.

[cupofpython]

Statistics are dehumanizing, you are correct. We do not judge individuals based on the statistics of their categorical groups for this reason. Doing so under the obfuscation of a ML model doesn't change that.

Health is very personal. Family history is usually pretty relevant. I am not sure what we gain by pretending we arent talking about actual people, or that by removing your name from all your specific health details it somehow means you cant still be personally targeted. I know Google gains the benefits of less regulations, though.