Data Ecosystems Expert at MyData Global;
Doctor of Human-centric Data Relations;
Senior R&D Engineer
New to mastodon. Moving from @alexbfree on Twitter.
All views expressed are my own and not that of my employer.
In this week's "Who's holding the remote control?" post with @iainh1 we explore how personalised AI could ruin our social lives and how we need to choose personal, ethical AI agents for a healthier future.
https://medium.com/@alexbfree/whos-holding-the-remote-control-3-9-3a00c7e7b681
Read the latest post in my and @iainh1's series about the critical turning point we face with AI. In this post we explore AI's potential impacts on our home life if left unchecked:
"Who's holding the remote control?"
Part 2: Home Life
https://medium.com/@alexbfree/whos-holding-the-remote-control-b4611b162d95
Myself and @iainh1 believe that AI is at a critical turning point:
We face a choice between AI agents that serve our needs in ethical ways that benefit our lives and those that primarily serve platform interests and a slide even deeper into using our life data to fuel the surveillance economy.
Read the first part of of our blog series, "Who's holding the remote control?" here:
https://medium.com/@alexbfree/whos-holding-the-remote-control-8b7fd3528c97
#mydata #ai #empowermenttech #surveillanceeconomy #digitalrights
And if you want to understand Google's power in more depth, make sure to read the Digipower Technical Reports...
Understanding Influence and Power in the Data Economy
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6554155
and
Auditing the Data Economy through Personal Data Access
https://zenodo.org/records/6554178
You can be sure that if Google doesn't like it, it's a very good thing. Breaking up Google's monopoly can can only be a good thing for consumers https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cy4g193qezno
"Meta must face trial in a U.S. Federal Trade Commission lawsuit seeking its break-up over claims that it bought Instagram and WhatsApp to crush emerging competition in social media"
Tech & standards people, visit https://www.mykey.me, join the discussion about a new means for individuals to own & control how they're represented online. It's "Federated ID Connect", like a more open OpenID.
More at https://fedid.me/ and https://hendersoni.substack.com/p/an-important-evolution-for-the-human #mydata
Found this Guardian article via their new Bluesky social feed.
Good to see that the Guardian has left Twitter for Bluesky.
I'm wondering why they don't mention Mastodon or have a presence there tho (looks like they used to).
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2024/nov/17/bluesky-musk-trump-x-twitter-authoritarian-world
"Apple accused of trapping and ripping off 40m iCloud customers"
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c20g50ny53eo
Great to see some legal action being launched against Apple for the way it forces people to use their own backup services on iPhones and very difficult / impossible to use any others for anything other than photos.
"When we point fingers at Google and Amazon, most fingers are pointing at ourselves" - nice article about how the big platforms use our data, facilitated by us - by Henrik Biering #mydata
(google translate link of original article in Danish.)
Platforms like X don’t just enable and cultivate misleading and toxic content, they actively fund it now ☹️
Don't forget - If you care about viewing your past location history in Google Timeline, you need to download your data from Google Takeout before the end of November as it'll be deleted. Google are switching to on device location history for max 36 months.
https://www.theverge.com/2024/6/5/24172204/google-maps-delete-location-history-timeline
It shouldn’t be allowed for companies to lock away so many features that we need in our daily lives behind subscriptions such that we never own basic digital capabilities like having a functioning smart watch or being able to export transaction data or sync parts of our digital lives properly.
This is very much a good step, surprising to see it coming out of US not EU. I really do think we are going to need a LOT more regulation around subscriptions globally in the coming months/years. It's become an utterly toxic, non-human-centric and unsustainable business model. There's no way that the markets (or people's mental health or bank balance) can support the insane number of entities that are all trying to get a permanent cut of our monthly salaries.
Love this - about the problems that Data creates for society.
"What if data is a bad idea?"
https://schmud.de/posts/2024-08-18-data-is-a-bad-idea.html
Aligns very well with my own research on the better Human Data Relations we need. ( http://scholar.alexbowyer.com )
New report published! 📊🌐
"Data Collectives: A practical guide to experimentation"
Data collectives empower people to pool their data for shared goals like transparency, rights, and social good. Unlock the power of data for positive change!💡✨
#DataCollectives #DigitalRights #SocialImpact #MyData @HestiaLabs @SitraFund
Full report at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.13769788
As more and more of the internet becomes AI generated , this will pollute the gene pool for AI models of the future, meaning they will generate garbage… #ai
"Google and Meta struck secret ads deal to target teenagers" https://archive.ph/AVRL9
Great observation about digital identity/authentication online today:
Providers have quietly, slowly, been outsourcing the customer relationship to data-rich 3rd parties.
"The web’s huge mistake: handing over the digital customer relationship"
https://www.customerfutures.com/p/the-webs-huge-mistake-handing-over
Exciting to think that the UK only has to live under a Tory government for two more days 💪