I love how much humor and sarcastic he brings with him talking about these topics, though. Makes it easier to actually listen to what the issues are, makes him a great guest for shows (so gets the message out more) and I also love that he does go over ways tech also enables us to fight back.
Corey doctorow writes about this in his brilliant book "Enshittification - Why everything suddenly got worse and what to do about ut it.".
It's to take away the power for drivers to choose rides based on earnings.
The tipping is manipulated by the company both towards drivers and customers, to optimize for profit above predictable earnings for drivers and reliable service and fast deliveries for customers.
It's algorithmic manipulation and "twiddling with the knobs" to bring in marginally more profit and less payout per transaction.
Just like Uber does with it's transportation services. Drivers that take any ride that comes up, earn less pr drive, while drivers that are reluctant will get incentivised to drive more (and then gradually earn less).
Companies are using the huge amounts of data they have to manipulate both customers and service providers, it's the devil in all these "middleman" businesses. It's a rotten and hugely shitty way of doing things and its gradually becoming the norm for fucking everything.
I cannot recommend Corey's book enough, not only is it clear and concise in describing these mechanisms in several markets and technologies, it's easy to read and witty with Corey's beautiful bitter sarcastic takes all the way through.
You are probably right. I generated the image way back for fun when exploring copilot in relation to my job, and thought it could fit the channel as something a bit playful, colorful and recognizable.
I agree that ai generated content can be problematic and especially some people have very emotional reactions to it.
I do find myself in a bit of a strange position, as part of my job I do a lot of teaching on responsible AI use in the Workspace.
There the main concern is what excessive AI use does with accuracy in the collected knowledge of a organization and personal learning. (As in outsourcing the hard tasks makes you not learn things properly and is a really bad idea in the long run).
I think generative AI can be useful tools, but i also at the same time see serious problems with how its trained, sold and used in it's current incarnation. (Like some serious Intellectual property, environmental and economic issues).
I think its possible to have a bit of a nuanced view of this technology, as I find a lot of the discussion on the subject extremely polarised. (It is however important to emphasize that find the "AI evangelists" probably more obnoxious than those with serious concerns with the technology, as some seem totally incapable of accepting that there are any reason for concern.)
I'll probably try to make something that works with the channel when I find the time. The idea of a photo is perhaps the best approach. Do you think something similar to the ai image with my actual music gear in the background would work? Dramatic lighting or something more plain? Would love to hear what you would consider an image that represents the content in a visually interesting way would look like.
Wow this turned into a way to long response... Anyways, thank you for you comment. :)
Yea compression can really squash a mix. YouTube also did a stunt with that default on, made lots of music youtube channels sound horrible. Turned that shit of right away.
It's compression. (As in audio processing not data storage)
Loudness is a perception thing. Pure decibels don't tell the whole story about how your mind perceive audio.
It's the same principle as the "loudness wars" in music.
Audio equipment still has upper limits, but music is produced to sound louder.
This is also why modern standards of measuring loudness is more complex.
But in the end this is sort of just being pedantic. Yes commercials make their stuff sound really loud and will always push up against what ever limit you put on it.
Movies and TV shows care more about quality of audio and dynamic range (that's is sort of the issue made funny in the comic above, when your equipment is unable to create audio clarity at the full dynamic range something is made for)
Actually quite a few TVs, soundbars, and audio receivers have a "night mode or quiet mode" that will compress or limit the dynamic range of what you are watching to avoid this scenario
(Yes I know... I'm ruining a perfectly good funny comic :P )
Reading through the article.. the way it's set up.. could be some dev trying to be clever and earn some money on the side...
If that is the case.. how was it not discovered. If Motorola has so little control over what goes in their code, that's even more disturbing than this being just plain old corporate greed.
Eu is working on a digital wallet that would (among other things) help with this.
Afaik It has a tiered information/identity structure, where the lowest level is: "is this a human being" (as an alternative to captcha)
Then you could have age. (Just "is this person above %age") Response would be just yes/no
Then spesific age, nationality etc etc.
You get the prompt, where it says what data they are asking for and you can concent or decline.
The source of authority would be the nation you are a citizen of, the origin of data would be obscured through EU proxies, and data would only be transferred if you approve the transaction from your app.
It's a pretty big and ambitious project and could eventually lead to a lot easier transfer of sensitive data, where you are in control of who gets what and less need to store local copies of sensitive data. (An example usecase is for instance confirming a prescription to a drug for a pharmacy while traveling abroad).
Biggest risk as i see is people confirming data request without scrutiny. There needs to be mechanisms to aggressively revoke the ability to ask for data if abused. And I would assume the requirements to what org can ask for high tier data are really strict.
I've edited my response to include some of the reason some countries require the Hotels to identify their guests.
It can also be a liability/insurance requirement in case of fires or other accidents.
Many countries have several mechanisms to have a certain control of the movement of foreign nationals within their borders. Especially if they have problems with unofficial immigration.
I might not agree with all of the mentioned rationales, but at least a few I can understand why someone, somewhere considers it a "good idea"
Lastly if you are asking how you would deal with getting new credentials. There would be a mechanism similar to when you first get the electronic id where your previous device gets deauthorized and you authorize a new one.
All of these are allready solved problems at this point. We do this all the time with other credentials like online banking etc.
This varies by country, but in Norway for instance all of these things are already solved and online/phone banking is both safe and the most common way of doing things.
Loss/theft of phone is at worse a few phone calls and security questions to get it deauthorized (a properly secured phone would not be any significant hazard as mentioned in other responses) and authorizing a new device can be done with mail/SMS combo identification pr by showing up to a local office if you wanna do it that way.
Laws requiring Hotels identify their guests. This is a requirement for several reasons.
Some of which are visa requirements for foreign visitors, making it harder to use fake guests to launder money, in addition to several other uses of hotels by criminals (including prostitution) leaving a paper trail for authorities to follow up on.
I love how much humor and sarcastic he brings with him talking about these topics, though. Makes it easier to actually listen to what the issues are, makes him a great guest for shows (so gets the message out more) and I also love that he does go over ways tech also enables us to fight back.
It's really just "trow more spaghetti at the wall!" Over there isn't it.
"But this is just the same spaghetti, boss"
"Maybe it just needed a few weeks in the fridge to get sticky! Trow it up there!"
Corey doctorow writes about this in his brilliant book "Enshittification - Why everything suddenly got worse and what to do about ut it.".
It's to take away the power for drivers to choose rides based on earnings.
The tipping is manipulated by the company both towards drivers and customers, to optimize for profit above predictable earnings for drivers and reliable service and fast deliveries for customers.
It's algorithmic manipulation and "twiddling with the knobs" to bring in marginally more profit and less payout per transaction.
Just like Uber does with it's transportation services. Drivers that take any ride that comes up, earn less pr drive, while drivers that are reluctant will get incentivised to drive more (and then gradually earn less).
Companies are using the huge amounts of data they have to manipulate both customers and service providers, it's the devil in all these "middleman" businesses. It's a rotten and hugely shitty way of doing things and its gradually becoming the norm for fucking everything.
I cannot recommend Corey's book enough, not only is it clear and concise in describing these mechanisms in several markets and technologies, it's easy to read and witty with Corey's beautiful bitter sarcastic takes all the way through.
The last panel is the comic creator being self-depricating.
You are probably right. I generated the image way back for fun when exploring copilot in relation to my job, and thought it could fit the channel as something a bit playful, colorful and recognizable.
I agree that ai generated content can be problematic and especially some people have very emotional reactions to it.
I do find myself in a bit of a strange position, as part of my job I do a lot of teaching on responsible AI use in the Workspace.
There the main concern is what excessive AI use does with accuracy in the collected knowledge of a organization and personal learning. (As in outsourcing the hard tasks makes you not learn things properly and is a really bad idea in the long run).
I think generative AI can be useful tools, but i also at the same time see serious problems with how its trained, sold and used in it's current incarnation. (Like some serious Intellectual property, environmental and economic issues).
I think its possible to have a bit of a nuanced view of this technology, as I find a lot of the discussion on the subject extremely polarised. (It is however important to emphasize that find the "AI evangelists" probably more obnoxious than those with serious concerns with the technology, as some seem totally incapable of accepting that there are any reason for concern.)
I'll probably try to make something that works with the channel when I find the time. The idea of a photo is perhaps the best approach. Do you think something similar to the ai image with my actual music gear in the background would work? Dramatic lighting or something more plain? Would love to hear what you would consider an image that represents the content in a visually interesting way would look like.
Wow this turned into a way to long response... Anyways, thank you for you comment. :)
Thanks!
Yea compression can really squash a mix. YouTube also did a stunt with that default on, made lots of music youtube channels sound horrible. Turned that shit of right away.
It's compression. (As in audio processing not data storage) Loudness is a perception thing. Pure decibels don't tell the whole story about how your mind perceive audio.
It's the same principle as the "loudness wars" in music.
Audio equipment still has upper limits, but music is produced to sound louder.
This is also why modern standards of measuring loudness is more complex.
But in the end this is sort of just being pedantic. Yes commercials make their stuff sound really loud and will always push up against what ever limit you put on it.
Movies and TV shows care more about quality of audio and dynamic range (that's is sort of the issue made funny in the comic above, when your equipment is unable to create audio clarity at the full dynamic range something is made for)
Actually quite a few TVs, soundbars, and audio receivers have a "night mode or quiet mode" that will compress or limit the dynamic range of what you are watching to avoid this scenario
(Yes I know... I'm ruining a perfectly good funny comic :P )
I'm guessing they want to bring the Thorn(?) in to common use?
Its usually mostly used as a phonetic symbol for the "th" sound.
If there ever was a sign that you probably need a union... This is it.
You are tempted to just go up to them and say "no keep honking, it will probably scare engine to start again"
Correction: to make sure the only bots/manipulation of views etc are the bots they control.
Reading through the article.. the way it's set up.. could be some dev trying to be clever and earn some money on the side...
If that is the case.. how was it not discovered. If Motorola has so little control over what goes in their code, that's even more disturbing than this being just plain old corporate greed.
This story is weird.
💩 No one expects the enshittification! 💩
Yes. He ordered one, expecting to be scammed and to make a video about it.
Now he has made a video about the exposed data.
To be fair, some people have less reason to trust their government with their data, then others.
There are varying degrees of trust in authorities in the world.
For nations with high confidence and trust in the authorities, this feels like a no-brainer.
Eu is working on a digital wallet that would (among other things) help with this.
Afaik It has a tiered information/identity structure, where the lowest level is: "is this a human being" (as an alternative to captcha)
Then you could have age. (Just "is this person above %age") Response would be just yes/no
Then spesific age, nationality etc etc.
You get the prompt, where it says what data they are asking for and you can concent or decline.
The source of authority would be the nation you are a citizen of, the origin of data would be obscured through EU proxies, and data would only be transferred if you approve the transaction from your app.
It's a pretty big and ambitious project and could eventually lead to a lot easier transfer of sensitive data, where you are in control of who gets what and less need to store local copies of sensitive data. (An example usecase is for instance confirming a prescription to a drug for a pharmacy while traveling abroad).
Biggest risk as i see is people confirming data request without scrutiny. There needs to be mechanisms to aggressively revoke the ability to ask for data if abused. And I would assume the requirements to what org can ask for high tier data are really strict.
Going to be interesting to see what comes of it.
I've edited my response to include some of the reason some countries require the Hotels to identify their guests.
It can also be a liability/insurance requirement in case of fires or other accidents.
Many countries have several mechanisms to have a certain control of the movement of foreign nationals within their borders. Especially if they have problems with unofficial immigration.
I might not agree with all of the mentioned rationales, but at least a few I can understand why someone, somewhere considers it a "good idea"
Lastly if you are asking how you would deal with getting new credentials. There would be a mechanism similar to when you first get the electronic id where your previous device gets deauthorized and you authorize a new one.
All of these are allready solved problems at this point. We do this all the time with other credentials like online banking etc.
This varies by country, but in Norway for instance all of these things are already solved and online/phone banking is both safe and the most common way of doing things.
Loss/theft of phone is at worse a few phone calls and security questions to get it deauthorized (a properly secured phone would not be any significant hazard as mentioned in other responses) and authorizing a new device can be done with mail/SMS combo identification pr by showing up to a local office if you wanna do it that way.
Laws requiring Hotels identify their guests. This is a requirement for several reasons.
Some of which are visa requirements for foreign visitors, making it harder to use fake guests to launder money, in addition to several other uses of hotels by criminals (including prostitution) leaving a paper trail for authorities to follow up on.