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| ▲ | mjr00 a day ago | parent | next [-] | | > Does announcing a spying operation mean that it is no longer spying? Well, kind of, yeah; the dictionary definition of spying requires secrecy and lack of consent. > to secretly collect and report information about the activities of another country or organization[0] The only real debate is whether or not having a clause tucked away in a EULA that few people read makes it a secret. If Anthropic had a big flashing red banner that said "FYI we automatically flag and review any conversations about illegal things!!" on the front page nobody would call it spying. [0] https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/spying | | |
| ▲ | schoen a day ago | parent | next [-] | | I would call it spying in this sense at a minimum if individual people don't know whether their conversations were stored or disclosed in a way they don't want. For example, suppose someone said "we will monitor the activities of 10% of people". You don't know if you're in that 10% or not, but I would still want to call that spying. A less central case would be when you clearly do know about the activity but you can't quite see the details, like with behavioral ad targeting or something. It feels pretty normal to me to call that spying even if it's disclosed to everyone and certainly happens to everyone, but it's also a less central example of the concept. | | |
| ▲ | Aurornis a day ago | parent [-] | | Anthropic could put a big flashing warning text at the top of every chat that says “We are spying on you and will report anything scary to the police!” and it would not make any difference in this case. You can call it anything you like, but only the legal definitions matter for the legal case. | | |
| ▲ | schoen a day ago | parent [-] | | After working on several court cases about surveillance activities, I'm definitely aware that whether I call something spying or not has little relationship to whether courts will think it's legal. |
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| ▲ | simoncion 14 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > spying requires secrecy... Eh. Both Superpowers knew that they were spying on each other all the time, and that was still considered to be spying. But feel free to replace the word "spying" with the phrase "clandestine largely-automated mass surveillance" if it makes you more comfortable. > ...and lack of consent. Given * the fact that the contracts one is required to "agree" to in order to use most services are often novella-length or longer, and frequently include by reference other contracts of similar length * that nearly all contracts like this have a clause where not only does the powerful party reserve the -very frequently-exercised- right to change the terms of the contract without any prior notice, but said party presumes that you automatically accept the rewritten contract and gives you no option to negotiate I'd argue that the real situation on the ground -in the US, at least- is that "consumers" have consented to approximately zero of the contracts that -despite that lack of consent- legally bind them. | |
| ▲ | Forgeties79 a day ago | parent | prev [-] | | > If Anthropic had a big flashing red banner that said "FYI we automatically flag and review any conversations about illegal things!!" on the front page nobody would call it spying. If you change the situation then yes you can in fact change our responses. The problem is you then are no longer talking about the original situation. It also bears mentioning that providing a dictionary link to “spying” is pretty patronizing/passive aggressive. On par with sending a basic Wikipedia page. You didn’t even bother to post the definition you want to apply. | | |
| ▲ | fwn a day ago | parent [-] | | No one claimed any case would be "thrown out for spying." The legal definition of spying is also not particularly relevant to the argument in the initial comment. The initial comment instead questioned how someone could be accused of making a threat if they did not realize anyone would read their private content. You probably also can not insult someone with a statement you never expected anyone but you will ever read. | | |
| ▲ | Forgeties79 a day ago | parent [-] | | I didn’t say they did | | |
| ▲ | fwn 16 hours ago | parent [-] | | Yes, you are right. My reply was written for a different comment on the same level. Sorry for the confusion! | | |
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| ▲ | Aurornis a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > Presumably, Anthropic did the spying and the reporting. You don’t need to presume. Anthropic reported it. “Spying” as a legal concept has a definition that does not apply here. You could say they were “spying” in the sense that they read someone’s input, but that’s literally what they said they were going to do in the agreement when the person signed up. So I responded to the question about the case being thrown out for “spying” by trying to show that the word doesn’t apply in the legal sense. If you sign up for a service that says “Hey we’re going to monitor your chats and might report things to the authorities” and then they monitor your chats and report things to the authorities, you should not expect the case to be thrown out for “spying”. | |
| ▲ | hatsix a day ago | parent | prev [-] | | There is no spying by any definition. It's a chatbot, not a diary. Anthropic is expected to read the message and respond to it in some way. If you sent an email to a colleague threatening violence, you would not be surprised to find out it was reported. | | |
| ▲ | Dylan16807 20 hours ago | parent [-] | | > Anthropic is expected to read the message "Anthropic" does not read messages, it's an abstract entity involving many humans and computers, so let's be specific wherever possible. > and respond to it in some way. The computer is supposed to respond in a specific way that doesn't involve humans. Any reading/actions by humans is entirely separate and not expected. > If you sent an email to a colleague threatening violence, you would not be surprised to find out it was reported. And if I didn't send it, I would be surprised. | | |
| ▲ | Forgeties79 7 hours ago | parent [-] | | Yeah it’s like someone going through your email drafts. I keep seeing people using examples that are clearly not analogous. If I send something to a person or say it out loud knowingly to a person it changes the situation entirely. I am aware of others, I am aware I sent it to be received and read. That is clearly not what happened here. |
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