I understand and completely agree republishing content (even altered) isn't cool, and I also agree government use of technology for mass surveillance is incompatible with our idea of democratic/open societies. However, in the case of LinkedIn posts you have already given the ideas behind your content to the world (and in this case specifically and explicitly LinkedIn) for free.
I've said this before, but it's sad how quickly this community swapped from being champions of the free exchange and use of information for the betterment of humanity to gleefully stomping on an incredible and beautiful new technology because someone else might make money off it. Reminds me of the Judgement of Solomon [1] (people would rather kill the whole technology and all the incredible things that may come with it then miss out on "my cut!", "my cut!" even if it's a single LinkedIn post in a corpus of billions)
> government use of technology for mass surveillance
Well, for context, when the US wanted to create a mass surveillance apparatus in the 1990s, they funded the tech sector. Now the tech sector both does the surveillance and fuels the economy. The surveillance info is fed back to the government in various ways and is increasingly used for things like military targeting.
Generally speaking, any information you give to a private company you should assume will be used by your government. Either directly via subpoena/tapped data lines/etc, or indirectly via AI services provided by these companies to the government.
Has this community done a complete 180 randomly out of the blue, or is it a reflection of how the new technology is being used? And if this previously ultra friendly community did a 180, imagine the feelings in the general public that never had the friendly attitude.
> A reflection of how the new technology is being used
This statement can be interpreted as:
1. Some AI is bad (e.g. "some AI take jobs"), therefore LinkedIn's AI is bad. This is illogical, so we can ignore this.
2. LinkedIn's AI is bad by itself. Why? What is LinkedIn using it for? Is it just a chatbot? There's no risk of obsolete careers from that. Is it a privacy issue? It is public data. Is it because it makes money? What's wrong with that? Is it simply a fear of the new? I think so, but that's just my uncharitable opinion.
>I also agree government use of technology for mass surveillance is incompatible with our idea of democratic/open societies.
well, corporate use of technology for mass surveillance is equally incompatible with the idea of a democratic society, which is why the EU imposes limits on what LInkedIn can do with your data, and thank God for it.
Free exchange of information is being able to access a textbook at the library, not a corporate behemoth vacuuming people's personal information so they can sell them to the highest bidder to put you under surveillance the next time you attempt to switch a job or send you more ads. Betterment of humanity? Blink twice if a LinkedIn PR person is holding you at gunpoint
> Free exchange of information is being able to access a textbook at the library, not a corporate behemoth vacuuming people's personal information so they can sell them to the highest bidder to put you under surveillance the next time you attempt to switch a job or send you more ads. Betterment of humanity? Blink twice if a LinkedIn PR person is holding you at gunpoint
This sort of language is unproductive and causes further division. It's just buzzwords hoping to evoke a certain emotion in the reader. I'm being genuine when I say the following:
> corporate behemoth
Why is this bad?
> vacuuming
Evokes a certain image, but is not true. It is copied.
> personal information
True, but note that it is public in this case. Why is this bad?
> sell them to the highest bidder
Why is this bad?
> under surveillance the next time you attempt to switch a job
Is this true?
> send you more ads
Why is this bad?
> Betterment of humanity? Blink twice if a LinkedIn PR person is holding you at gunpoint
> Betterment of humanity? Blink twice if a LinkedIn PR person is holding you at gunpoint
I was referring to Generative AI in general, this use-case is quite boring.
> a corporate behemoth vacuuming people's personal information so they can sell them to the highest bidder
Do people not use LinkedIn to explicitly signal to the world that they're looking for a job? Why does it matter how that information is being delivered? If you don't want the world to know you're looking for a job simply don't update LinkedIn?
> corporate use of technology for mass surveillance is equally incompatible with the idea of a democratic society
The argument against government power/surveillance is that they have a monopoly on it and may use their power to hurt people. It is good to legally protect sensitive information like health data from advertisers, but in this case you can, again, simply not use LinkedIn. What difference does it make if the info is collected by a company looking for new hires, a third party analytics company working on behalf of them, or LinkedIn itself working on behalf of them? It's not private data.
"just dont use LinkedIn" is such a narrow minded thing to say. How do you feasibly expect people to exist in society without interacting with any of these systems and corporations? if its not LinkedIn its Indeed or w/e else. They all collect data and most of them are pumping it into some kind of LLM or behavioral analysis algo. That is not functionally different than the argument for the Government doing it, except for that the Gov has a monopoly on violence.
This applies for pretty much everything in our daily life like banking, shopping etc... "just don't interact" is such a useless nothing-burger that side-steps the problem entirely. You can "solve" all societal problems by becoming a hermit, moving to the woods and living off the land... but that is not a functional or reasonable thing to do for 99.99% of people. Its baffling especially when the reasonable solution is simply having a bare minimum standards of protection across the board, which many countries already implement to great effect.
I’ve never gotten a job via LinkedIn, and neither has my wife. We both got our entire job history due to connections already formed through college. In fact I can’t name a single genuine offer that came from LinkedIn/Indeed, let alone that depended on me having an account. People have been getting great paying jobs for almost the entirety of industrialized society without LinkedIn. Saying “don’t interact” with LinkedIn, especially if you disagree with their “you are the product” mentality, is a fairly realistic stance.
> not a corporate behemoth vacuuming people's personal information so they can sell them to the highest bidder to put you under surveillance the next time you attempt to switch a job or send you more ads
I genuinely don't see what the problem is.
I rarely post updates on LinkedIn. When I do, they're updates that are intended to be broadcast to the public. If some execs at LinkedIn are smart enough to find a way to profit off the back of that, why should I be upset about that? Why are you upset about it?
I've said this before, but it's sad how quickly this community swapped from being champions of the free exchange and use of information for the betterment of humanity to gleefully stomping on an incredible and beautiful new technology because someone else might make money off it. Reminds me of the Judgement of Solomon [1] (people would rather kill the whole technology and all the incredible things that may come with it then miss out on "my cut!", "my cut!" even if it's a single LinkedIn post in a corpus of billions)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judgement_of_Solomon