Libb

Update: I tested it, and it seems to be working as expected. Now, I just need to make sure what apps on the phone correspond to those listed since they don’t display the same name and I would not want to remove anything I should not. Thx again ;)

Thx, I’ll check that tool. Not an expert, so you know ;)

I own an Android phone, for a single app I need to have access to. It’s a Redmi something. I could not find a way to just uninstall their own ‘Gallery’ app nor the Google Photos app so I removed their access to any file. I hope this is enough but I don’t know that.

I thought Android was all about choice (against iOS, which is my default phone) but this was not very convincing. I may have missed a way to easily uninstall any app, though? I would like to replace them with f-droid alternative apps so there won’t be any risk they access the little data I’ve stored on that phone.

I would certainly not want to defend AI and AI-usage but I don’t understand this remark. I mean I understand what it says, but I don’t understand why it’s mentioned at all:

The unauthorized AI enhancements represent a concerning trend where artificial intelligence increasingly mediates reality before it reaches viewers, potentially eroding authentic connections between creators and their audiences[^1].

There is no such thing as an ‘authentic connection’ or a non-mediated ‘reality before it reaches viewers’ if by ‘authentic’ the author means ‘direct’, unfiltered or unedited.

In a least two ways, a video is always edited, aka mediated:

• A video being scripted and or scenarized, even say just by the choice of lens and lighting used, or by the props visible in the frame. Not forgetting the sound (the way the voice is recorded/enhanced) and the music used to suggest/enhance some mood. And/or when the video is edited (selection of sequences to keep and other to discard). Which makes even the most basic videos, even a live stream, not an authentic (unmediated) connection.
• It’s also not unmediated by the very way video works, like photo: the ‘reality’ mentioned and that is being recorded is just that: a record of it. And not even of it, a record of the image of it which is a recording of the photons that were hitting said reality and that were bounced back (first mediation) onto the camera’s sensor (second mediation) that were then transformed by the camera into an electrical signal (third) that was stored as binary data (fourth) to be later on converted again into something the viewer (add as many as the ones already listed) at every single conversion there was an interpretation and a decisions were made (one of the reasons there can be so large image differences between various brands is that they don’t use the same sensors and don’t use the same algorithms to convert signal into data and vice versa). It’s not just with digital, any recording, even a film one, or an old handmade painting or a sketch, is a a lot of mediation between a reality (that can sometimes be long gone and forgotten) and its viewer (us).

So, to me the issue should not be that this mediation was made using an AI-powered tool by Youtube to change the video. It should focus on the fact that YouTube violated the creator’s copyright by deciding on their own to ‘improve’ said videos without the creator’s consent.

A bit like we should not accept when anyone, no matter their reasoning and intentions, wants to edit an existing creation because they think it should be changed (say they don’t like the dude’s face, or their nose or even they disagree with what they say and want to change it). Unless they get explicit authorization to edit it, they should not have any right to do so.

Sorry for the lengthy comment, I find it odd when I read that a video is about ‘authentic connection’ between a supposed reality and us. It’s not, with or without AI involved.

Yep, the first thing I imagined: how shitty would it be to not be able to see who I’m talking to… because I value my (and other’s) privacy I would ask them to not wear their glasses and would not be wearing mine ;)

“Our goal is to make glasses that make you super intelligent the moment you put them on,”

A bit too late guys, as glasses have always made anyone look super intelligent. If that wasn’t the case, why would anyone want to wear them? Because that’s the only reason I wear mine, and certainly not because I’m as blind as a bat when I don’t.

More seriously, their plan is to kill IRL conversations by making it impossible to trust anyone we would directly talk to?

Impressive. Sad & frightening, but impressive.

Also, I wonder who they will blame the moment they realize the hell they will have made of everybody’s interactions?

edit: typos

There is no ‘good’ argument to persuade anyone (of anything) the moment they don’t want to change their mind. But, depending who your talking to, asking a question maybe? More often than not the ‘nothing to hide’ is just an excuse to not change their habits (which is their right), exactly like the ‘I don’t have time to read books’ so, so many people use today to explain why they never read.

What questions? Well, first, I would not do that. to be clear. But if I really wanted to force them to realize they have things to hide, like we all have, I would go for the most intimate/unsettling… depending who I am discussing with:

Did you poop today? And was it easy? (this one should be both easy to answer while being considered so intimate, at least to most people, that they should have a hard time answering it without feeling disturbed).
How much do you earn?
How much do you pay in taxes? (or how do you manage to not pay taxes?)
How often do you have sex? What is your favorite position? or How reacted your spouse when you told them about that little affair you had with someone else? (here again, it all depends the person you’re talking to)

And so on.

I insist, it is not something I would do but I also have little doubts most people would instantly feel like they too can value some privacy and intimacy ;)

It’s different in my own situation (I don’t have a boss) but would I be employed I would not mix work and personal. Ever. Phone, friendship, or whatever else as there is a too high probability some shit will happen.

I would have my own phone and next to it the job would provide me another one with whatever shitty apps they require me to use, if they rely want me to use it. And I would turn that bastard off the moment my work day is finished (aka the moment they stop giving me money in exchange of my time).

Exactly like I would not use my own computer for work. It’s mine.

As a non-lawyer I’d say this is a breach of the GDPR and other laws. This doctor hands over highly confidential data to third parties.

I would agree with you, but it is also very representative of how many doctors/specialists are working in the country and since we’re already short on doctors, I certainly don’t want to get her ‘removed’ ;)

They can just ignore it and if they get caught those fines are just a “cost of doing business”.

I think we won’t have to wait that long to see if they keep on ignoring it or if, like I think they will do, they will coerce the EU into curbing its (probably too) many regulations.

The only way is not to use any of them.

Not that simple when more and more services are not just ‘nice to have’ or for fun but required.

I can not use streaming services (and I don’t), I can not play online. I can not use YT, and so on. But I cannot not use my doctors, right?

Here in France, our medical appointments (and more and more of our medical data) are hosted by the ‘Doctolib’ platform which uses… MSFT servers (note that it would not be much better it they were using AWS or Google). Add to that that almost all doctors are using Doctolib which makes it so you can hardly get an appointment without using that service even when you take said appointment by phone since on their side of the call they will then record said appointment on Doctolib, because it’s what they’ve been taught to use and associate it with the email address you probably have already given them if they need to contact you (email that most of the time will be either Gmail or Msft).

On the same line, for years I used to receive most of my medical analysis and exams (of which I have… quite a few every single year) through snail mail or directly after the examination, as a print out. I stopped to, they’re now all stored on Doctolib and even if I did not have an account, it’s stored on all my doctors accounts…

Last year, the last of the many doctors not using it did not even inform us they had started using Doctolib. One morning, after calling them for my next appointment, I simply received confirmation through Doctolib by email and on their app.

Worse (?), another doctor of mine is using Gmail for all her email with her patients, email that is used to send and receive test results, share intimate informations,… I explained the issue to her, even suggesting a couple EU-based alternatives. She plolitely listened to me and then shrugged telling me Gmail worked fine and was free. She is a good doctor, mind you, but like too many she simply can’t be bothered with changing her habits.

Imho, in the case of services like those and email, thd solution is not to stop using them: even if I don’t use them myself, that doesn’t change much the moment my correspondents keep using them, or even if said email is at one time or another hoisted on US-owned server.

A better solution would be to make it much more obvious that we should use EU-based solutions, because it’s in our best interest, and make it much more rewarding too, maybe, and make it simpler. And then, sometimes make it mandatory as in required by some law to use EU-based solutions but how would that be a thing when most of our elected are just… well, they are what they are, and that’s not a compliment.

A longer term solution should also be to give younger people (it’s too late for the vast majority of the older generations, even more so for mine), to give them a minimal but real (not the usual bullshit) computer education and to also give them some notions on the value of privacy in a democratic society, be it digital privacy or not. But how would that be a thing in the same as education as almost entirely given up on teaching kids even fundamentals skills like doing math, reading and writing?

Not talking about what we have (I’m French, thx I know GDPR) but what I think will be the next target of the US. And, to me, it will be those regulations making it so hard for US businesses to do whatever they want with our data.

100% agree. This should be as easy as creating a new account.

Alas, this :

Maybe the EU will pass some legislation that will carry over to the US . . .

Is highly unlikely.

The EU just knelt once more to the USA (and to Trump) and that won’t end here. I have little doubt USA next target in the EU will be most if not all regulations regarding data handling/protection. US businesses need data more than ever (at the very least because of AI), including EU citizens data.

CDs + locally saved files. Like with movies, we have quit using all streaming services and we own the media we watch… or we don’t watch them.

Indeed, it’s a mess. And that mess is one of the reasons we have been witnessing a shift against the very notion of public space.

I’ve noticed a few people trying to argue with me specifically. I have no idea why (like I think I said, I just mentioned what I know and I don’t even do photograph anymore) but that’s fine with me. And while they seem to be so vocally willing to defend their undisputed (by me, at the very least) right to privacy I can only wonder how many of those privacy warriors are carrying their own spyware riddled smartphone absolutely everywhere they go, including to the most private place I can think of: the bathroom. And I feel 100% reassured knowing they will pick the right fights ;)

What gives you the right to take my picture?

Check the definition of the word public in ‘public space’.

But I think you should first need to work on yourself, that would help a lot being able to have a discussion instead of what looks a little bit too much like an argument we certainly should not have you and I as I don’t know you and have as much desire to photograph you as I wish to eat poop.

Have a nice day.

Like I mentioned elsewhere, anyone is more than welcome to do what they want. I simply noticed how frequently justice decisions started to punish the photographer, whether the photo was destined at some personal use or not, whether it was sold or not.

I’m no lawyer. I simply don’t want to waste anymore of my time, and money, dealing with that kind of shit. It’s not worth it… to me at least but, once again, I won’t prevent anyone else to keep doing photography like if nothing had changed if that’s what they want… I may even sketch them if I see them taking their chance doing that ;)

I said not allowed to take picture never told it was to publish or share them. Really, if you have access to you should read recent justice decisions and see how, here in France and in Germany at the very least, they will almost be in favor of… not the photographer, whether the photo was meant to be published or not, whether the photo earned them a cent or not.

For the rest, we live in a free society and I will happily let anyone practice photography as they see fit (provided they do it politely) but don’t expect me to pretend trends have not changed in regards to justice and the right to image, because those trends they have indeed changed and not in favor of photographers.

I mean, your freedom to record in public ends where my freedom to not be recorded in public starts.

Prior to our wonderful times, and even more so in the UK, public space meant that were no right to privacy to be expected at all while using said public space because, you know, it was public. But the moronic age we live in have managed to change that. So be it.

So, worry not my dear friend: as a law abiding citizen myself, I dutifully respect your so-called freedom to use what is supposed to a public space as your very own private space, and I 100% gave up on photography the second time I was confronted to the consequences of people considering their freedom implied they were to decide what ‘public’ meant.

Instead, I switched to sketching the very same people in the very same public space.

They may be as annoyed by me doing that but good luck forbidding me to sketch in a public space or even proving it was them I specifically I sketched… as, even though I do enjoy it, I suck at sketching ;)

Using a camera on public property in the EU is broadly very legal.

Less and less so; at least here in France and in Germany and also in the UK, which was quite surprising to me. In the EU, the GDRP being another nail in the coffin of the right of photographing on public space and photographing random people in that public space. Most of the cases I’ve heard of in the last few years ended up with the plaintiff winning against the photographer, even if the picture was not exploited professionally.

Smart glasses will raise a new flag and push all rules to the next level of paranoia (rightfully so, I’m afraid) and will then be used as an excuse to remove even more of our liberty to use public space (which is supposed to be ours).

Edit: clarifications.

I suppose you’re asking if I’m French? Yes. And, yes, it’s a French operator (Bouygues Mobile)