I was always a huge fan of Google from the late 90s onwards and was employed their from 2011 to 2013. I continue to use their services to this day. Unfortunately no matter how much you like something, when any one entity amasses this much power it's bound to make you a bit uncomfortable. I wish Google did more to anonymize and potentially distribute this kind of tech in a way that enabled anyone to run it. At the scale that Google is it's really hard to trust them with more and more personal data considering the employees could be quite literally be anyone with any personal agenda that does not serve the greater good. They have no way of vetting employees to that degree and that's the biggest issue. I'm not just handing my data over to a machine or some homogeneous blob. I'm handing it to people I don't even know.
Ultimately crowdsource leads to UBI powered by Google. It's inevitable. But one entity controlling our lives is very hard to accept even if it is Google.
I agree with many of your points, but re: employees frankly internal systems at Google are pretty heavily audited and locked down not just in regards to PII but in regards to any queries against e.g. log data that try to narrow data down to small result sets. I can't speak to these ML data sets, but I was at Google 2011-2021 and in my time I believe I applied for and got log data access twice and the restrictions were serious, and the whole thing is heavily audited.
That might be true and I believe you but that doesn't change the fact that I'm more and more deeply uncomfortable handing over more and more personal data to a single large entity who basically knows as much about my life as I do. The single rogue employee might not be able to do much but inevitable all these companies suffer leaks, hacks and whatever else. Google is not immune to this. Machine learning is also a black box as much as anyone will tell you they understand it they really don't. So the potential for mishaps there are high. Again I do believe Google is the best technology company on earth, I continue to use their products, but I'm also more and more in deep contemplation on how to build viable alternatives to a lot of the products I use. I'll never be able to build things are their scale or even at the caliber of their UX but maybe there's a better alternatives as we go into ambient computing.
People are always worried about Google or FB doing something nefarious, but in all honesty it's going to be your local dentist or something that leaks all your private info and gets your identity stolen and life ruined.
UBI is the "forever ticket" that insures the status quo when UBI is institutued will be the people in power forevermore. UBI is the means in which the 1% seal their and our fates forever, because there is zero incentive to change or improve a system where all power and decisions are performed by ignored automation for a powerless, uneducated and education-incapable 99%, while the 1% in power wallow in excess.
> How will the 1% in power get others to work for them?
Tens of millions of Americans can effortlessly live in luxury relative to our ancestors. Most of us on this forum could retire to a poorer country and live comfortably off savings alone. We don’t.
Yes, my question was intended to lead to the answer of “the 1% having to pay them”. As in UBI will give lower wage workers a better negotiating position from which to extract more wealth/power from the 1%.
No, that is not how it works. UBI removes any negotiating position; what are the UBI recipients going to do, strike their non-existing jobs? Riot, and trigger the 1% police-thugs? UBI is a terrible idea, and how a human mass execution is setup.
How do they now? Starvation, place to sleep, criminalizing homelessness. With UBI, the excuses cease and criminalization doubles down. UBI is a trick, folks, do not fall for it!
There's little or no reason for most folks to work, or soon will be.
It's no longer a market dominated by labor. Factory jobs are a nearly-extinct fraction of what they once were. Office jobs have dried up and pushed 30M people into service (flipping burgers) at a fraction of what they used to earn.
When service jobs become automated (happening at a breakneck pace?) then what? "The workers own the means of production" becomes an empty phrase when there are no workers in the plant.
Lots of hyperbole about changes caused by UBI, particularly in apocalyptic scenarios. But the alternative may be, let them starve? Because that's a conspiracy-theorists preference?
UBI creates a welfare state with a culture that does not need to work to live, so many would-be STEM professionals simply become tailgate partiers for life. A culture is created as a result of UBI that is detrimental to education and scientific advances.
What if it wasn’t enough to live on, but enough to significantly impact the ability for the poorest to survive? Say $3600/yr = $300/mo.
Don’t you think that could increase the pool of STEM candidates from poor families without creating a large new subculture like you’re describing?
That being said, I don’t think even a greater UBI would decrease STEM candidacy. UBI would have to be massive before people stop wanting to be in STEM. If anything, the problem would be that we lose the bottom rung of unskilled labor.
The idea is that you will continue to use Google's services on the condition of receiving UBI. Crowdsource would continue to exist until UBI is in effect and then be used as a gamified way to earn even more money. Remember UBI is not infinite money. You get a baseline for paying your bills. Above and beyond you'll need to earn whatever you need for pleasure.
I know this is a hot take, but Google isn't literally evil. If there's a future when the entire world becomes a work-free utopia, they're not going to stop it just to make sure they can send children to coal mines while twirling their moustaches.
The fact that Google supports major open-source projects today is a good indicator that they're perfectly capable of participating in widely beneficial projects that only benefit them indirectly.
Ultimately crowdsource leads to UBI powered by Google. It's inevitable. But one entity controlling our lives is very hard to accept even if it is Google.
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