[jruohonen]

A decent but a little bit too alarmist essay in my opinion. A few reservations also, starting with:

"Our actions, our words, even our thoughts, are being monitored, recorded, and analyzed. The sanctity of our homes, once our refuge from the world, is under threat."

"It’s not just mere data; rather, it’s a master key to the sealed vaults of our thoughts and experiences."

The mind-reading stuff is still a fantasy and will be so also in the future. Then:

"An individual’s freedom of speech hinges significantly on their ability to communicate privately without fear of reprisal."

True enough in principle, but I'd reckon that in the current infodemic it is more about who is given a voice (or a megaphone). Furthermore:

"Enterprises are no longer solely engaged in the commerce of goods or services; they are also playing a part in a grand, global data accumulation endeavour, where consumer data assumes colossal worth."

Once again true enough, but then again, most of data is garbage, useless beyond the immediate moment of pushing an ad or two. Finally:

"This isn’t a criticism aimed at those agencies responsible for our national security."

I am not sure whether their job either is made easier or worse by the vast amounts of garbage.

[escape-big-tech]

> The mind-reading stuff is still a fantasy and will be so also in the future.

Haha, of course they don't literally read our minds, but with enough data, it's possible to gather a lot about the way a person thinks

[ben_w]

> The mind-reading stuff is still a fantasy and will be so also in the future.

Fantasy today, sure — judging by advertising categories I was getting placed in at least a few years back, the AI don't generally have the ability to infer much from revealed preferences, despite the odd headline every so often.

But in the future?

Even ignoring the possibility that the aforementioned advertising-AI get better, there's Neuralink and whatever competition it ends up getting.

[jruohonen]

> Even ignoring the possibility that the aforementioned advertising-AI get better, there's Neuralink and whatever competition it ends up getting.

I am skeptical. AI, Neuralink, or whatever might infer better on many things, sure, but these certainly will not be able to infer what non-dogmatic people think about, say, philosophy or politics already because humans have always a capability to change their minds, while AI is terribly bad at reorienting itself.

[ben_w]

Wires on synapses, however, are very good at sensing exactly what's up.

They're too expensive right now, and I really hope Neuralink turns out to be as much of a business disaster as buying Twitter, because if it's as much of a world-changer as Tesla or SpaceX…

…well, if cheap-and-good BCI comes, there's too many dystopian ways for it to be abused for comfort.

[jruohonen]

> ... well, if cheap-and-good BCI comes, there's too many dystopian ways for it to be abused for comfort.

I am all for dystopia; already with VR/XR/etc. you can probably infer a lot, especially once they start (or have done already?) scanning retina movements and such. But still: stimuli is a one thing and mind-reading (thought control?) is another.

[ben_w]

BCI is literal mind-reading: when the thought goes ping, it shows up on the wire.

The current limitation is that the number of sense-wires we can put on a BCI implant is a factor of ~2^30 smaller than the number of synapses in a human brain.

[Clubber]

>A decent but a little bit too alarmist essay in my opinion.

A trend that has been going on since at least 9/11. Alarmism is the norm. When alarmism is the norm, only escalating alarmism will be heard. We can't have a normal conversation anymore.

Before: Here's a problem, here's where I think it would go if we ignore it.

Now: Here's a problem, everyone is going to die!!!!!!!!!!!

[gjsman-1000]

> “ This isn’t a criticism aimed at those agencies responsible for our national security.”

Why the heck not? Snowden? NSA? GCHQ? FBI having 280,000 abuses? I don’t get this logic.