Tag: privacy

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Artificial Intelligence Education Reading

Latest Read: Data for All

Data for All by John K. Thompson. Today John is Global Head of AI at Ernst & Young. He was an executive partner at Gartner, and he was responsible for the advanced analytics business unit of the Dell Software Group. He holds an MBA from DePaul University.

Data for All by John K. Thompson

In fact, John has very extensive data advisory experience including: Curriculum Advisory Board Member, AI Bootcamp Host with The Mark Cuban Foundation, Advisory Board Member Masters & Undergraduate Programs in Business Analytics at The University of Texas at Austin, Advisory Board Member Masters in Data Science Program Oklahoma State University, Executive Advisory Board: AI, Data Science & Computer Science at Oakland University, Nittany AI Challenge: AI for Good at Penn State University, and Advisory Board Member Dearborn AI Research (DAIR) Center at The University of Michigan.

So, data brokers are firms who buy and sell your data. In fact, you do not receive a single penny for all of your online activity. Data Brokers somehow are the owners of your online activity and certainly profit from your web browsing, e-commerce transactions and app activity including notifications. Remember Facebook posted $116 Billion in revenue for 2023.

John is outlining how your data is harvested and ultimately how you are exploited. He is providing a valuable resource to empower users to learn how their parties monetize your data. Many readers may simply be unaware that all your online actions create permanent records of your activity.

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Artificial Intelligence Education Reading

Latest Read: How to Stay Smart in a Smart World

How to Stay Smart in a Smart World: Why Human Intelligence Still Beats Algorithms by Gerd Gigerenzer.

How to Stay Smart in a Smart World: Why Human Intelligence Still Beats Algorithms by Gerd Gigerenzer

Gerd holds a master of arts and a doctor of philosophy in psychology from the University of Munich. He received the postdoctoral degree of habilitation in 1982. Today Gerd is Director at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development and Director of the Harding Center for Risk Literacy in Berlin.

He is former Professor of Psychology at the University of Chicago and a Distinguished Visiting Professor at the University of Virginia. Gerd is a Fellow of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and the German Academy of Sciences.

So, Gerd is providing a very compelling case for humans to stay in charge of our current world of algorithms. He is addressing with deep insights the fallacy of current state AI. He does certainly acknowledge the impactful use of AI yet provides an honest view that markets are shaped by companies promising AI as the holy savior of their organization’s marketplace.

In fact, the first part of his book “The Human Affair with AI” really provides a wake up call to all the hype driven by those companies and markets who stand to gain the most.

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Artificial Intelligence Blockchain Education Innovation Reading Technology

Latest Read: Customer Data and Privacy

Customer Data and Privacy: The Insights You Need from Harvard Business Review. HBR is providing a good series of article addressing how your data is collected and the impact upon your privacy.

Customer Data and Privacy: The Insights You Need from Harvard Business Review by Harvard Business Review, Timothy Morey, Andrew Burt, Christine Moorman, Thomas C. Redman

For some, this may be rather jarring. Nevertheless, how did Facebook generate $116 Billion in revenue in 2022? Accordingly the sale of ads on Facebook is…. you. Yes, in fact you are what Facebook is selling.

It would also be fair to understand the role of Machine Learning coupled with Data Science that created this revenue stream. Facebook is collecting every ‘Like’ you make, every photo uploaded is scanned with facial recognition and every article posted is data mined.

Add this all up and Facebook is literally sitting on overwhelmingly vast amounts of user data. To their credit, Facebook has become the champion of mining profits from all the data they have about you.

Yet are these companies also building trust with you? They know everything about you, and when combined with ‘free’ apps, the tracking continues. We are aware of Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA). Yet for everyone not living in California, there is a real lack of regulation. This allows companies to remain in control of you.

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Education Innovation Reading Technology

Latest Read: Crypto

Crypto: How the Code Rebels Beat the Government—Saving Privacy in the Digital Age by Steven Levy. He is the former chief technology correspondent for Newsweek. Today he is an editor at Wired, and author of eight books. Crypto, won the Frankfurt E-book Award for the best non-fiction book of 2001.

Crypto: How the Code Rebels Beat the Government - Saving Privacy in the Digital Age by Steven Levy

If you’ve ever made an e-commerce purchase with your credit card, then you have used cryptography.

Steven guides the reader into learning about the history of cryptography. This book begins with Whitfield Diffie. He authored initial developments of cryptographic keys. He was then joined by Martin Hellman in 1976.

From this point, Steven reveals how Ron Rivest, Adi Shamir, and Leonard Adleman, teaching at MIT also furthered cryptography research. Their development led to the formation of their company, RSA.

The National Security Agency (NSA) certainly interpreted these cryptography developments as a threat and began working to thwart their developments.

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Education Globalization Reading Technology

Latest Read: An Ugly Truth

An Ugly Truth: Inside Facebook’s Battle for Domination by Sheera Frenkel and Cecilia Kang. Sheera is a prize-winning technology reporter based in San Francisco. Cecilia covers technology and regulation.

An Ugly Truth: Inside Facebook’s Battle for Domination by Sheera Frenkel and Cecilia Kang

This story of Facebook’s corruption and lack of a moral compass cannot not be any more clearer than this book. In addition, this is a story of greed, control, egos of company leaders. At first glance you may think this is simply not possible.

In contrast, the authors are tapping into current and former employees. All paint a rather horrific picture of Facebooks’ single focus: profits.

Above all, documents and interviews reveal how company wide lack of action weakened American democracy. Furthermore, ignoring the genocide of Rohingya peoples across Myanmar paints a rather shocking picture of Facebook as a company.

A key point certainly overlooked is how Facebook ‘arrived’ at the beginning of the internet’s gilded age. Therefore, no rules applied, just profits whatever the cost. Profit is certainly the only focus for Mark Zuckerberg. On the other hand, attempting to derail his profit focus results with aggressive and sometimes illegal tactics.

Chapter 7: Company over Country

An acknowledgment by Facebook’s security team that Russian spies hacked user accounts of GOP politicians certainly was not a surprise. Yet, the Russians hacked accounts of children from those GOP candidates. This also was certainly very shocking. Accordingly, all this activity was culminating in an internal report to company leadership:

Hence, Facebook did nothing. No notice to American intelligence services. Ultimately Facebook engineers held a rather unique eye on all user interactions.

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