Libb

Thx! I will do that :)

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 ;)

i believe that “far-right” sentiments are a natural defense mechanism against a perceived threat.

if your tribe is in danger, you start kicking the foreigners out, you start going back culturally to what you perceive as “safe”,

Correct. In a less obvious way we can even see it at play here, in this (interesting) discussion.

So far, in the comments trying to design a culprit, I have yet to read one that doesn’t blame some ‘other’ group, be it the far-tight, the rich, the boomers, the US, Russia, and so on. Forget the names and the personal preference: each one is that ‘foreigner’, someone that is not us on which we put teh blame. The issue is among us, with all our differences and contradictions (even sometimes our hatred of one another). It’s not ‘them’ causing the issue ‘we’ are the victims of.

As long as we keep looking for someone else than us to blame, well I don’t see things getting much better anytime soon. Which is sad because if they don’t start getting better soon they will get real worse, real a fast.

Posting that from France, a country that once valued freedom so much as to make it one of its three core principle. But that was back then.

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

Anyone have any advice?

• Ask them for their number, and see how it goes? Worst case, they will say ‘no’, end of the story. Maybe the will ask why you don’t have IG and that will be the start of an interesting conversation.
• Try to meet different kind of people? I mean it seriously. I know a lot of people around me who have IG/Facebook/X and so on but at the same time none of them make it a requirement to use it.
• Use a second phone/number for that crap content only? I barely use my ‘real’ phone (I have nothing installed on it beside what I’m required to use) still I do own a second phone just so I can easily share a number with all the services and various craps that ask for one. It’s a phone I never answer to, despite it being constantly harassed by callers. And that peace of mind (my real number is almost spam free) only costs me the 2€/month (plus the phone, I purchased used). You should be able to do something similar for social networks: have a second phone without anything personal on it, just with IG.
• Accept that you’re doomed to use IG because it’s with those ‘IG people’ and no others you want to spend your time with? I like to spend time with people reading books, it’s kinda expected we indeed read books. Would I not like to read, I would not spend as much time with them.

Neither Tuta or Proton will neatly integrate with Apple Mail if you want to send/receive encrypted messages. At least the last I checked it required for Proton a separate client that was not bug free (can’t remember for tuta).

If you don’t care about encryption, you may want to consider the Swiss Infomaniak.

They have a cloud offer which includes cloud storage (1to base), calendar and email, plus the online version of MSOffice, all being hosted on their Swiss servers.