> about Netflix doing it, but they did and the world just moved on

I think the main challenge here is that Netflix works around one of many ways to access entertainment. So if one service starts to show recommendations in that limited context of user data they collect - it's still has negative potentials but it's easier to regulate and there are alternatives.

In the case of LLMs, we have service that are aiming to replace both the browser and the search engine. This means ending up in a situation where your entire access to knowledge and the world takes place via "AI". And the result is: ad-infused, tweaked to align with investor priorities, censored by the current politics of wherever the company is based service machinery that's constantly extracting personal information so it can learn better ways to refocus its priorities. I've read and seen a lot of sci-fi and dystopian history novels (actually read, not LLM-summarized for me) to know this is a very end-game kind of situation.

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resfirestar 3 hours ago | parent [-]

>In the case of LLMs, we have service that are aiming to replace both the browser and the search engine

Most people already experience the internet as an integrated browser+search engine (and often, OS) experience from a single advertising company, Google, and it has been this way for over a decade.

>And the result is: ad-infused, tweaked to align with investor priorities, censored by the current politics of wherever the company is based service machinery that's constantly extracting personal information so it can learn better ways to refocus its priorities.

Exactly.

This is not to say I like this outcome, but how is it not massive hyperbole to invoke apocalyptic sci-fi? I expect we'll plod along much as before: some people fiercely guarding their personal info, some people taking a "privacy is dead anyway" approach, most people seeing personal computers as a means to some particular ends (scrolling social feeds and watching Netflix) that are incompatible with thinking too hard about the privacy and information environment implications.

	▲	anonymouskimmer 19 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Apocalyptic scifi isn't the same as dystopian scifi. Some of the billionaires backing AI literally have dystopian scifi as a goal, they just intend to do it better so that it doesn't seem so bad. I only connect my smartphone to data about three or four times a year, and then only to update some apps or check on an internet outage. It is becoming more difficult to do this as the alternatives to a connected smartphone disappear. The same will become true with the rest of personal info (such as biometrics). More and more the only alternatives will be your latter two.