Also on today’s menu:
Artificially Sentient
Still Strategically Ambiguous
The number of people who nonchalantly use Facebook’s Messenger app, rather than texting, is astonishing, considering how much personal data the app collects. Some friends recently justified using Messenger by saying they did not want to share their phone numbers with people they know. Instead, they are sharing their phone numbers and a lot of other personal information with strangers, and all of that information is a target for hackers.
Here’s some of the information that Messenger collects from its users: purchase history, other financial info, precise location, course location, physical address, email address, name, phone number, other user contact info, contacts, photos and videos, audio data, gameplay content, other user content, customer support, search history, browsing history, user ID, device ID, product interaction, advertising data, crash data, performance data, other diagnostic data, other data types, health and fitness information, and other sensitive information.
Massive Facebook Messenger phishing operations are generating millions of dollars for hackers, catching the attention of chief information security officers who work with company officers, business managers, cyber security teams, and IT managers in an attempt to maintain the security of their organization’s applications, databases, computers, and websites.
Messenger is not alone. The popular TikTok app shares data more than any other social media app — and it’s unclear where it goes. WhatsApp is another poacher of personal information. Yet people blissfully continue opting for apps when simple email or texting applications work fine without exposing personal information. They’re just not as sexy.
Artificially Sentient
If, as Joni Mitchell has, you have come to see clouds from both sides now, you’ll recognize that rows and flows of angel hair and ice cream castles in the air and feather canyons everywhere were simply the result of pareidolia — the tendency to interpret nebulous images as having a pattern or forming an object when, in reality, they are formless.
Pareidolia has become relevant in the discussion of artificial intelligence, with AI now creating “art” and “poetry” which is very difficult to discern from human-created works. Google engineer Blake Lemoine has argued that the AI application known as LaMDA is sentient because it was able to engage an attorney to file paperwork on its behalf.
Google issued a cease-and-desist order, saying Lemoine is going too far in claiming consciousness for LaMDA, but when a conversational AI can respond to questions and appears to know what it is doing, it is difficult to argue that it has no consciousness — that it is merely responding to prompts it receives and inspiring pareidolia in those who witness such exchanges.
Erik Hoel argues that, without a better scientific understanding of consciousness, it is difficult to make moral decisions about artificial intelligence. “Highly intelligent anti-human actors, or at least, those not aligned with human goals, are not something we’re equipped to deal with,” he says in The Intrinsic Perspective.
Still Strategically Ambiguous
As Vladimir Putin continues his assault on the eastern districts of Ukraine, claiming that residents there are clamoring for independence from the rest of the country and that they feel more closely aligned with Russia, China is signaling a tougher stance against independence in Taiwan, where those who lost in China’s civil war fled when the Communist Party took over the mainland in 1949.
China has never recognized Taiwan as a legitimate country and, in 1971, persuaded Henry Kissinger that the United States and the United Nations should not recognize the government in Taipei, either. At the urging of U.S. President Richard Nixon, Kissinger was attempting to establish a relationship with Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai, but the condition that Zhou imposed was that the U.S. must treat only the Beijing government as being legitimate. Nixon agreed.
The result has been decades of “strategic ambiguity” — subtle support for Taiwan while avoiding angering China with overt support. The U.S. has sold arms to the Taiwan government, warning Beijing not to invade the country, but has never said how the west might respond if China did so.
Today, some U.S. officials are questioning whether strategic ambiguity can continue in today’s climate. Xi Jinping has exhibited signs of aggression, saying that reunification with Taiwan “must be fulfilled.”
Café Chatter
On ‘Fitted Sheets’: From another independent, thank you for the analogies today! Politics is an excellent comparison to fitted sheets which brings to mind many experiences wrestling with them — the politics, positions and people, and the beds.
— Susan Duncan
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