After-the-fact opt-outs are something I never trust. Most data selling is opt-in and requires the user to opt-out. It seems to me that when I submit the form, the data would be instantly sold and by the time I get to the opt-out form it’s too late.

If this isn’t how it works, I’d be interested to know. The whole idea of these opt-outs seem like smoke and mirrors to act good while still gaining the advantage from the dark pattern. The only way to truly opt-out is to not register or use a service at all. There really needs to be legislation around this.

That's how it worked the last time I bought a car. I submitted the opt-outs with the purchase paperwork, the ~sales~ data sharing agreements with 10k of the dealership's closest, paid friends were processed first, and I had no end of bullshit from a hundred companies I'd never interacted with previously.

That sounds lawsuit worthy. If you submitted both sets of paperwork at the same time, a reasonable expectation would be for your opt-opt application to be processed first, otherwise it’s pointless.

The GDPR specifies that opt-outs are also retroactive, but of course we know that all corporations happily follow the law.

You can’t un-sell data though. Sure you may ask nicely that the buyer doesn’t use it and deletes it, but at that point the cat’s out of the bag.

In praxis, yes especially if it has already left the jurisdiction.

Disregarding that, laws don't apply to the first processing party only. If you keep data, that you got informed are not consented to anymore, it is the same as if you keep selling fenced goods.

I'm not sure the entities buying that kind of data care too much.

Corporations seem deathly scared of GDPR, for some reason, while in reality it's enforced about as much as American antitrust (not at all).

Same goes for any "regulation" in the states. Gov't does their job only when it brings revenue in the $$$$$$ territory. Everything else is civil and ignored - even if it's promoting the sale of millions of protected information.

Of all the reports I've submitted (evidence included) followups and fines have been issued to exactly 0 companies. Hell, Quadlock [phone mount company] happily acknowledged that their policy is to verify identity by requesting plain emails including photocopies of the credit card used for purchase and full state ID. Absolutely against regs.. who cares? Not the SCC nor the FTC.

While it’s not enforced perfectly, saying it’s not enforced not at all is just untrue.

Noyb alone has several hundred successful GDPR lawsuits: https://noyb.eu/en/project/cases

>The AI product rollouts in the last two years have been some of the most aggressive and user hostile product rollouts in my entire life.

>I’ve had the worst customer experiences of my life in the last few months.

I attribute that to the massive amount of tax breaks and money that has been funneled to them by various governments. The government is the customer that they are appeasing right now. As soon as the spigot is turned off, they will be more inclined to appease us.

I do not know the consumer or b2b AI market well right now. I do know that billions of dollars are at stake from government sources. A smart company would focus on that.

I'm not aware of any government handouts for tech companies adding AI to their products, can you give an example, please?

The Department of War is a customer, there's no handout here.

The government does procure services from private firms, this isn't new or special.

Uhh, the entire contract is a form of corporate welfare. So yes, the DoW giving money to these companies is a handout.

Just because it benefits them doesn't mean it's not a handout, especially when said money could be used elsewhere for purposes that actually benefit everyone and not a dozen people living in SF.

No, welfare is when you're given money for value you're not providing. It's a net drain on the system.

This is a government entity procuring a product they need from a private entity.

You can dislike it, but it's not a handout. Words have meaning.

Except it's buying a product that doesn't even exist yet…

The AI Workforce Training Act is closer to what OP was mentioning; the last paragraph of this article suggests more. https://fedscoop.com/ai-workforce-tax-credit-house-bill/

One fascinating thing about LLMs is the degree of evangelism it inspires in some. You can explain some of that with paid micro influencers, people invested in the success of AI, consultants looking for workshop opportunities and all that, but I know enough people with no skin in the game at all, that turned into very vocal advocates.

I think to some degree, that effect is also at play here. CEOs, product managers etc are simply amazed, and want to spread the good news. I doubt they can even _comprehend_ that others might not be as excited as them.

You also have to consider a ( I would argue large ) percentage of those evangelists are simply lying for financial gain. They see profit, or at least reduced costs, and quite simply don't give a shit about customer experience or anything like that.

Or this is finally their chance to be the smart guy who was in on the ground floor.

And this is the first technology that directly strokes their ego

I think there’s a lot of that dream — note how many of them became AI experts after striking out in cryptocurrency — but also a huge undercurrent of desperation. The rich guys who run most of the economy have made it clear that they want mass layoffs and that LLMs are the tool they’ll use to get there, so these guys are hoping that if they get on board early enough they’ll be the people doing it to everyone else rather than the targets. I’m not sure how successful that’ll be but it’s somewhat understandable how people might find themselves thinking that’s the best option available in the current economy.

I'm sure there is an effect when people talk on socials (linkedin, company intra etc) that they are marketing themselves. This is why I won't take any claims on socials that seriously.

I'll believe it when I see it.

I can't decide how much I like it myself. It can help me with really complicated projects. Software and otherwise. It has completely replaced my usage of non site local search engines. But I don't like how lazy it makes me. I don't vibe code, I understand what it is doing, and have it make adjustments typing it examples of what I want. But I can see myself getting lazier quckly. And when I find a task too hard for it I waste a lot of time trying to get my prompts correct before taking over.

One character I find interesting is Ezra Klein from the New York Times who desperately wants to see something positive come out of markets and industry and has an enthusiasm for AI which is not shared by his audience. He struggles to understand that skepticism and I think that's bad for his project.

At least he's not one of the many mooks who are doing ChatGPT-assisted (Grok-assisted?) blogging and boasting about it, even when it goes wrong, like Casey Handmer.

The entire purpose of people like Ezra Klein, Derek Thomas, and the elite journalist + consultant establishment is to simply preserve the neoliberal order and make sure any questions regarding it are confined in a box they defined where the outcomes never address material needs of the people.

I think comparing Klein and Thompson is like comparing Chess and Tic-Tac-Toe. At the very least Klein patiently reminds Jewish people that they really can be the baddies if they choose to be.

Lol. Disregarding risk of bringing Chess to TTT's level, it's bc Klein seems to have a broader actually inclusive self-identity. so usually, when he reminds, he is also reminding himself..

I'm someone who makes extensive used of LLMs and agents for daily research, and I 100% of the time ignore the AI summary that google gives at the top of the page. If I am performing a web search, I've already decided that I'm explicitly NOT looking for an LLM summary.

I think Google's "AI Mode" does better at integrating search results and answering questions. It can find articles and scientific papers that match my memory in most situations and does a lot better at Arknights question answering than Microsoft Copilot (reskinned ChatGPT) does.

> posthogs opt-out training,

It should seriously be 100% illegal to force someone's content into AI training without their explicit consent, and no not opting out should not be an escape hatch.

One of the recent rollouts that really grind my gears was Spotify rolling out LLM explanations of songs. Which is the most useful wasteful piece of sh*t ever. Why would I want to get a theory of what is 174bpm and other random crap.

It is insane, and I hate modernity and every single modern product that just shoves random LLM crap at you and pretend they are not AI-enabled.

Spotify is a toxic shit company overall that is a general detriment to all musicians everywhere.

If you care about music just a little bit you should stop using it today and directly buy music from the artists you care about.

Honestly, this is true for all streaming, not just Spotify. Stream if you want, but also buy albums from them if they offer it. Merch is even better.

Hell, even if you... acquire the music files unofficially and go buy a t-shirt or poster, the artist is still probably getting way more than they ever would have from you streaming all their albums on a loop.

It’s true but Spotify has consolidated the market in a way that I think no other provider has managed - maybe Tidal or YouTube Music. Some musicians that I know personally don’t like Spotify but they feel they have to be on there or be invisible.

Bandcamp is great. Albums are usually ~$10 for high-fidelity digital downloads, and ~$25 gets you a vinyl record + the digital download.

Bandcamp is my preferred solution as well - apart from visiting concerts and buying merch etc directly from the artist, where possible.

Even the more open source apps are shoving ads for simple and obvious features, I went as far as to build my own entertainment system and it serves all my needs and I dont have to worry about the next time I click next I hear a FUCKING AD.

It’s been infuriating to see it shoved everywhere in the corporate stack - Teams, Outslook, Jira, GitHub, etc. and since tools are all company-mandated, the best I can do is continuously ignore or say “not now”, but one day Teams will rollover on a forced software update and I’ll have no choice but to “let” CoPilot schedule meetings in an app that already consistently warns that I’m in a different time zone despite all of us being east coast (I’ve checked so many settings, and even with another single coworker who has checked his we see the warning).

My company is also heavily pushing AI, which is worrisome but no surprising - part of my goal for the coming year is to showcase using AI in a productive and innovative way, can’t wait.

Eventually my Google Nest Minis will stop asking me to try Gemini and force me to, and they’ll all get binned unless I can find a firmware replacement which I doubt is out there, and then I’ll get deep into HomeKit and local voice recognition for turning the lights on and off and setting timers because that’s literally 99% of my use-case, and I’m sure Gemini would fuck it up.