Nazare

> Remember that Facebook gives you zero access to users’ data just for being an advertiser.

As an advertiser you can target users based on very specific details, and track any user that responds to your advertisement campaign.

You get all the access (AKA, you know which part of your customer base resulted from targeted ad campaigns, so anything you can target on, you can attribute to that subset).

Regarding elections and digital platforms, a Dutch policy advisory states that the government should disallow non-transparent political advertisements (all advertisements should clearly state who sponsored them and to promote which political cause, if any), and to ensure that political parties can not hide their trade-offs, they shouldn't be able to micro-target people with a different message (increase taxes vs. decrease taxes, depending on what makes the user more likely to vote for you).

The first Ad Sales pitch deck for TheFacebook.com included a slide showing how advertisers can target students based on their sexual orientation, political bend, dating interests, gender, age, education, and social graph. All of which can be used to discriminate based on protected variables, like gender, sexuality, age, mental disability, and race.

This will not be the end, and has been like this from the very beginning. If foreign companies can get access to this information, then intelligence agencies certainly can too.

> I'd like to see a proof of concept that your brain IS indeed the seat of your consciousness.

The concept of "multiple realizability" says that a brain/consciousness/mental state can arise from non-biological matter, like digital computers.

Modern proponents of this view do not view the brain as a seat of consciousness. To them, the view of a singular consciousness that houses in the brain like a theatre, is like a Descartesian illusion. Consciousness is distributed and all parts of "you" and your environment contribute.

As for "out there": I am always a bit worried when archeologists unearth some treasures with our current state of technology. Likely, in a 100 years they will have much better methods to research and preserve unearthed treasure, and so we may be spoiling their more effective methods by digging it up and putting it on display. What if, after the 8th great AI hype, another YC company claims it has found successful methods to upload your consciousness, which is 100% fatal to your preserved brain in the process? You'll be stuck in the MVP FORTRAN digital world of uploaded consciousnesses.

Or maybe they take our current infatuation with AGI to mean permission to create a huge ensemble of preserved brains, filling an entire room like did our 1960s computers, because it turned out that consciousness is only transferable to biological "organisms", and the only way to superhuman intelligence is to combine 20 human intelligences. The AI hype bubble will become a literal fulfilling prophecy.

I personally would either jail these consciousnesses (honor their will, but put them in a boring digital world with Archive.org access to the internet) or put them on display, much like we do with preserved Egyptian Pharaoh's. I'd call it Earth, and make Trump a president.

Investors are acting out of greed. They are perfectly willing victims.

Please no more regulation, or American influence/special position ("I can get my money back, because you sold me a security, and the price didn't went to the moon").

Fraudulent ICOs are written and warned about wide and far. It is easy to do due diligence. People who don't research any of their investments, need no more protection, than those who put everything on black, buy art that devaluates in value, or buy a second-hand Zune for their grand children.

Because long-term you'll end up with a situation, where your special profitable customers leave for greener pastures (those willing/able to pay higher fees) and your base customers can't or won't afford it.

Short-term they can make some money raises the prices, until supply-demand equilibrium is reached again. But then you shoot yourself in the foot for the long term.

That is basically anti-net neutrality, but for energy, instead of information.

Why should I pay more if I use my laptop for mining crypto, instead of playing the latest AAA video game on the highest settings?

Because miners would move to places where the electricity is cheap.

In theory you could always keep raising the price of electricity, because everybody needs to buy electricity to keep the lights on.

You can't have your cake and eat it too. You can't become a tax haven for international companies either, and then raise those taxes when you have some customers.

One could probably intellectually power a small third world country, if one rerouted all the mental energy that went into deriding Bitcoin's energy consumption into something useful (like getting more people to click on ads, HFT, or random gridsearch for GPU deep learning on MNIST).

English slides/presentation: http://jtemporal.com/serenata-ml-meetup/