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Comment · 3 years ago
I agree with your first comment, but disagree on the second one. It is weird to say that the robot wanted to eliminate a threat, most likely it was simply not programmed to avoid obstacles given the environemnt it was in. He ascribes an intention that was not there. To be fair, it is a quote from a book and not the words chosen directly by the author, but he could have clarified.

The second one seems fair: he is describing the result of what the Tesla Autopilot is doing. I do not think that he means to say that the Autopilot is understanding that there is a red light but then it makes a consciuous decision to itgnore it. He is just saying that the robot is malfunctioning, as it should be clear from context:

  "Today’s AI-related robot deaths are no different from the robot accidents of the past. Those industrial robots malfunctioned, and human operators trying to assist were killed in unexpected ways. [..] Malfunctioning Teslas on Autopilot have deviated from their advertised capabilities by misreading road markings, suddenly veering into other cars or trees, crashing into well-marked service vehicles, or ignoring red lights, stop signs, and crosswalks".
I do not think there is a more neutral way of describing the events.
Comment · 6 years ago
That's true, but it does not automatically make them popular on the platform
Comment · 6 years ago
I am the original author. I don't disagree with anything you said here, but it does not seem it contradicts what I am trying to say. Probably my article was a bit unclear on this point.

The connection between freedom of speech and privacy was just an example of how privacy affect other rights, too. I used it because I did not want to be too abstract. I used just one example, because I did not want to write too much on this. I wanted to write something that could be shared and read by a few people, rather than just hardcore privacy enthusiast.

Actually I really like your observations. Frankly this is another way (maybe a better one) to say what I was thinking:

>Privacy is about denying other people the information that they may use to obtain power over you in some way.

Comment · 6 years ago
I might have been unclear on this aspect. My point was that privacy can affect other rights in complex ways, including, as a way of example, freedom of speech.

In the example I was talking about in the article, I was trying to say that nowadays people have different norms and opinions on what is fair. That is great, however this means that without privacy I can hurt you simply by sharing something about you with a a certain community. For instance, I can take something you said in private, or one fact about you (i.e., you are a member of party X, or have a certain sexuality, or belong to a certain religion) and share with a community that will misinterpret or attack you for that.

In the past we allowed the press to violate privacy of important people for something nefarious (i.e., they hunt people for sport). Now everybody has the power to violate privacy of anybody for any reason they see fit.

So, now maybe we should forbid everyone to violate the privacy of anyone, otherwise we will lose freedom of speech, because will be afraid to say anything for fear of being taken out of context. Maybe we should all agree that if you disagree with somebody you cannot call a mob to defend your opinion, but you should call them with your speech. That is not an obvious choice to make. As others have commented, what about actually powerful people? Just disagreeing with them will not change their opinion, because they are more powerful than you. So, I am not saying that is easy to understand what to do, but that privacy can actually change how we use other rights.

Comment · 6 years ago
> I don't get the conception that the top problem our world have is people being judged about what they said.

It is not just what we say, they also judge who we are in their own terms.

> It's the news cycle, the constant barrage of irrelevant information. The murder of effective discussion and thought.

I agree that it is a big problem. In some ways we are the most educated civilizations in the history of mankind and yet public discourse is the stupidest it has ever been. I think this happens also [1] because everything we said is taken out of context, therefore only the simplest ideas can travel among the public. Imagine that you are a politician that want to disagree with their own party, what do you think people will hear more probably: 1) they are a traitor 2) they fully support our cause, however they disagree with this particular course of action because X

Without spaces and community in which we can discuss freely and with trust, complex opinions are difficult to form and defend. Since most discussions are either moved online or are easily shareable online by even one party we need strong privacy norms to allow such discussions to happen.

[1] it is not the only reason, of course

Comment · 6 years ago
Thanks for sharing them.
Comment · 6 years ago
My argument is that without privacy we cannot build and defend other rights. Privacy allows to define private, social and public spaces with different rules. Without privacy your private stuff can be shared with the public. You could lose your jobs because you said something that your community does not approve. Privay in the modern world is like borders. Without borders we cannot really decide which laws to apply, because anybody could come in and go, so it would become impossible to enforce any kind of law.
Comment · 6 years ago
It is not really a big part of the thesis, rather an observation.

What you say about private communities is also true. However, I was referring more to the fact that everybody seem to nonchalantly use violent words and dangerous statements to express their disagreement, i.e., people are not just wrong, they are evil bastards that must be removed from public life and the nation itself.

Comment · 6 years ago
Well, as I said the article is my opinion. So, let's agree to disagree.

In my experience real anarchy, in the way you describe, has never been achieved. So, when I hear that it reminds me when people say that real comunism is great, it is just that the URSS was bad, fake communism (it happens here in Italy, not sure if that happens where you are). The only historical anarchy that I know is the one where there is no control. Maybe we can do a better version in the future, but for now that it is what happened.

To be fair, I am Italian, so maybe I am overreacting on the whole barbarians thing.

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