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What if People Were Paid For Their Data? (economist.com)
Advocates of "data as labour" think users should be paid for using online services. An anonymous reader shares a report: Labour, like data, is a resource that is hard to pin down. Workers were not properly compensated for labour for most of human history. Even once people were free to sell their labour, it took decades for wages to reach liveable levels on average. History won't repeat itself, but chances are that it will rhyme, Glen Weyl, an economist at Yale University, predicts in "Radical Markets," a provocative new book he has co-written with Eric Posner of the University of Chicago. He argues that in the age of artificial intelligence, it makes sense to treat data as a form of labour. To understand why, it helps to keep in mind that "artificial intelligence" is something of a misnomer. Messrs Weyl and Posner call it "collective intelligence": most AI algorithms need to be trained using reams of human-generated examples, in a process called machine learning. Unless they know what the right answers (provided by humans) are meant to be, algorithms cannot translate languages, understand speech or recognise objects in images. Data provided by humans can thus be seen as a form of labour which powers AI.
As the data economy grows up, such data work will take many forms. Much of it will be passive, as people engage in all kinds of activities -- liking social-media posts, listening to music, recommending restaurants -- that generate the data needed to power new services. But some people's data work will be more active, as they make decisions (such as labelling images or steering a car through a busy city) that can be used as the basis for training AI systems. Yet whether such data are generated actively or passively, few people will have the time or inclination to keep track of all the information they generate, or estimate its value. Even those who do will lack the bargaining power to get a good deal from AI firms. But the history of labour offers a hint about how things could evolve: because historically, if wages rose to acceptable levels, it was mostly due to unions. Similarly, Mr Weyl expects to see the rise of what he calls "data-labour unions," organisations that serve as gatekeepers of people's data. Like their predecessors, they will negotiate rates, monitor members' data work and ensure the quality of their digital output, for instance by keeping reputation scores. Unions could funnel specialist data work to their members and even organise strikes, for instance by blocking access to exert influence on a company employing its members' data. Similarly, data unions could be conduits channelling members' data contributions, all while tracking them and billing AI firms that benefit from them.
As the data economy grows up, such data work will take many forms. Much of it will be passive, as people engage in all kinds of activities -- liking social-media posts, listening to music, recommending restaurants -- that generate the data needed to power new services. But some people's data work will be more active, as they make decisions (such as labelling images or steering a car through a busy city) that can be used as the basis for training AI systems. Yet whether such data are generated actively or passively, few people will have the time or inclination to keep track of all the information they generate, or estimate its value. Even those who do will lack the bargaining power to get a good deal from AI firms. But the history of labour offers a hint about how things could evolve: because historically, if wages rose to acceptable levels, it was mostly due to unions. Similarly, Mr Weyl expects to see the rise of what he calls "data-labour unions," organisations that serve as gatekeepers of people's data. Like their predecessors, they will negotiate rates, monitor members' data work and ensure the quality of their digital output, for instance by keeping reputation scores. Unions could funnel specialist data work to their members and even organise strikes, for instance by blocking access to exert influence on a company employing its members' data. Similarly, data unions could be conduits channelling members' data contributions, all while tracking them and billing AI firms that benefit from them.
If no one can sell any of your data then companies will just raise their prices to cover the full costs of their products and services. Like no more free Strava on the iphone or apple watch. If you want a run/biking tracker you'll have to pay per device. Just like the old days.
read the EULA facebook is your pipm and free facebook is your payout.
before facebook there was classmates that charged money for contact info and messaging. and some other service that sold something like a yearbook but with recent contact info.
facebook was free and why people chose it
But it's already in place. Many of these services are free just because of the fact they can sell your data.
its just indirect. The fact that most are / were unaware of it is the problem
Rather than taking it for granted that privacy violations are required to have a viable economy, I'd rather see privacy as the baseline assumption and find new funding/payment models from there. In the short term this would certainly be disruptive for businesses like Facebook, but it's far worse to continue allowing private profits on the social damage of a surveillance economy.
The poor will get snooped on while the rich don't.
Table-ized A.I.
If I could get a free house in exchange for my data I would consider it. I'd also accept free self driving taxis for doing analytics on my rides.
I'm too lazy to scroll through back xkcd to find it, though.
I fail to see the problem.
This just let's us get back to actually owning the products we paid for one way or the other.
Bonus points if it gets us back to "still works offline."
One of the reasons that labor unions were so successful was that is that it was less labor for a small number of individuals to organize and manage the union than for an individual to do so.
Yes, there is also the fact that the labor union would 'speak' as a single voice to the company, representing a large number of individual voices. US unions also shot themselves in the foot (blew it off at the knee, really) in the 70's and 80's, by being overly demanding with regards to work-rules, wages, etc. that turned society against them. Management didn't help their cause either (e.g. pension raiding).
The advent of software, systems, and social contracts have worked (very hard) to disintermediate the middle-man (a.k.a. union organizer) in these situations. With the rise of the likes of Uber, Google, Facebook, Adobe Analytics, etc. it is much harder for folks to organize as a collective voice to counter the other side of the table.
Back of napkin WAG (wild arse guess), you would have to have >99% of said users to be a party to such an organization to properly stranglehold the data. Think about it - ~200M adults in the US. 90% is still 20M data points! There is still enough statistical inference in those 20M points to make some rather excellent assumptions. 99% is down to 2M data points. Now things are getting tougher.
I'm not saying that the author's point is not a valid one - it is! The question becomes: how to you implement it in a manner that is fair to consumers without some other big-brother type organization (who now has an intermediary lock on the data) from using it however they wish - including 'tweaking it' to suit their particular bias?
Oh, and you have no seed money to start paying customers to join.
Fred in IT
You can fuck off about the free bullshit.
It's you property and it has a lot of value which you are not being compensated for, pure and simple. If they want your data bad enough they should be prepared to pay for it.
>> data unions and strikes
Yes, before my money makes it to me, I'd want someone ELSE siphoning off a cut and then aggregating the cash to be steered toward their interests. Maybe even cutting off the Internet from me for a while to make this or that point.
>> if wages rose to acceptable levels, it was mostly due to unions
I'll be sure to bake my Software Architects Guild Local 1043 another batch of cookies to thank them this year. Thanks for the reminder!
most AI algorithms need to be trained using reams of human-generated examples, in a process called machine learning. Unless they know what the right answers (provided by humans) are meant to be, algorithms cannot translate languages, understand speech or recognise objects in images.
most humans need to be trained using reams of human-generated examples, in a process called learning. Unless they know what the right answers (provided by humans) are mean to be, humans cannot translate languages, understand speech, or recognise objects in images.
Just like AI, we are at some level trained the same way. We just get MUCH MUCH more sensory information for MUCH MUCH longer.
they've had driving apps with offline access on the iphone for many years. I've used Navigon. It was $20 for the US map collection and different prices for different regions all over the world. worked great in a national park with no cellular service on an old iphone 4.
As for what they "like" or purport to like, that is equally dubious. Apart from the gap between what people say and what they will actually do, once you start paying people for all the "likes" they give you will find they start liking everything. The data becomes worthless.
The point about placing a value on data, as with labour, misses another basic point. Labour adds value - and that is what people are paid for. Not for the act of working X hours a day, but that the product of their labour increases the value of the goods sold: turning raw material into products, turning services into benefits. Unless data from 7 or 8 billion people can be applied to produce something of value, then it is worthless.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
The Google opinions rewards app on android gives you Google play credit for answering questions. You can accept or decline the questions. I think that is a much better model than just taking data.
Duh
You can't buy my data, but you can rent it via a subscription model.
The fact that A.I. requires human labor doesn't really justify or explain why they'd start paying everyone who contributed to the data that was gathered.
The only people really making a given A.I. project useful are the people already employed and presumably getting well paid for writing the data collection processes, ensuring they're running successfully and making the decisions on which information will be prioritized vs. discarded, as they guide the A.I. to make the decisions they're wanting of it.
It might be nice to think that, "Hey.... someone might pay me just for collecting data on my driving habits as I drive around." But it's not gonna happen when the info of where YOU personally drove and how you drove on a subset of the total number of roads is such a small part of the whole of the data they're trying to gather for self-driving vehicles or what-not.
At best, a push for this would result in higher prices for everything while you'd have to manage some sort of micro-transaction fund for all the thousands of one cent payments you'd get as your share for talking in public, walking around, making purchasing decisions in stores, or whatever else they might collect about you.
Found the person who needs his hand held for every little thing.
Are you forgetting about MySpace?
Take facebook for example, how much money does it make? Few billion dollars a year? How many users are there in there? 1-2 billion? Do the math...
Congratulations, everyone just made on average few dollars a year (and now have to pay for the previously free service)
This reminds me of stories I've read in many Slashdot comments. You know, the ones that talk about tech people training their (much lower salaried) replacements. This time the 'replacement' is AI, and it's not just tech workers being replaced, it's just about everyone.
Besides, people are already being 'paid' for much of their data, in the form of services that they don't have to open their wallets for. I'm sure Google, Facebook, and the like, consider those services to be fair and sufficient payment. Judging by the vast number of users who keep using the services and don't kick up a fuss, I'd say the majority of people using those services are in agreement. Or they just don't care, which amounts to the same thing.
'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
Maybe, simply because I've moved on from tinkering with every little thing in my life.
Priorities...
...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
this strikes me as a desperate attempt to solve a problem with market solutions that probably needs to be solved with regulation.
A buddy of mine who idolizes his right wing dad used to do this. He's got a medical condition that requires constant treatment for life. I suggested we ought to have socialized medicine (aka Medicare for All). He was opposed to this. I asked him for his solution for guys like him and he proceeded to lay out this complex scheme where insurance companies would be forced to sell at a price he could afford. When I pointed out that the end result was identical to expanding Medicare except for an extra middle man adding 20-30% to the price he reluctantly agreed with me.
The moral of the story? There are just some things in this world that don't have free market solutions.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
don't pay for offline maps. Openstreetmap is free.
The top problem with your analysis and the main reason it doesn't deserve "insightful" moderation is that the transaction is crooked. We have no idea what the REAL value of our personal information is. The way it works is that the corporate cancers that harvest our private information can make enormous profits in exchange for bangles and trifles.
I think email is a better example than the ones you [4151743] mentioned. We know that the google is making substantial profits, probably even gigantic profits, from the personal information that they have harvested from our Gmail accounts. Do ANY of us know the real costs of Gmail? On an honest cost-recovery basis, perhaps a Gmail account would actually cost a few dollars per year. (I still think that a CSB-based approach could implement that model, but...)
Anyway, it's too phucking late now. "Possession is nine points of the law", and they already possess all of our personal data, and some more besides. (That's a joke about the derived personal data that we aren't even aware of, even though it's the most insidious kind of data.) Plus they got all the lawyers. We lowly peasants are SOOOO screwed. We might as well just shut up and enjoy our "free" email accounts.
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
The implied contract with you and Facebook/Apple/whoever is that for the use of their services, they get to and will collect data related to your use. That could include metadata, content, usage metrics, etc. The more you use, the more you effectively pay. You don't have to use those services, and regardless of some people's option, you can still function in society without those services.
Ninjas don't carry tic tacs
Did not enforce users using real names and often had no contact info so it is not very comparable.
there is no spoon.
don't pay for offline maps. Openstreetmap is free.
And usually more accurate.
The key to freedom is to stop using American multinational tech products. Trump has declared a trade war on the free world. We are free not to use their products. In fact, we really shouldn't be.
me goes to lookup Navigon, that sounds cool.
RIP "Navigon Bids Farewell"
That's pretty much how loyalty cards and chance-to-win surveys work.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
Likewise, you should be prepared to pay for your maps, for your e-mail account, for your photo sharing site, for your file storage, for your group chat, etc... Or you can exchange the data you CHOOSE to share (meaning - what you want to put into the free apps) and get access to those tools for free.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
I always felt the data generated by my existence that becomes my credit report should be owned by me.
Thusly if you want to sell my credit report, fine but I have to allow the credit report agency permission to sell my data.
Like news, if you want to collect it, fine. But if you want to sell it for a profit, you need my permission.
Not for the sake of denying access, but I find it insulting that I have to pay or otherwise jump through hoops to get my credit report to check for accuracy.
There are lots of ways to value data. How much does it cost to collect the data? How much can you earn by using it? How much harm can you cause to other people by using it? These values can be very different from each other.
Consider a criminal gang hacking computers to steal information. For each person whose data they steal they have to spend $1, but they can earn $10 using it, and then someone has to spend hours dealing with the consequences of having their data stolen, so figuring a reasonable hourly rate let's say it costs them $100. What is the value of that data?
Consider Facebook. It's really cheap for them to get people to voluntarily turn over their data, and then they use that data to sell advertizing. The maximum value of an ad is whatever that ad convinces someone to spend. Some people object to ads and don't want their data used for that purpose (and would gladly spend money to prevent it from being used that way, if they had the choice). Other people don't mind it, and appreciate getting ads that are relevant to them. What is the value of that data?
Consider the Large Hadron Collider. That data is incredibly expensive to collect, and no one is making any money from it. But it just might revolutionize our understanding of the universe. What is the value of that data?
"I'm too busy to research this and form an educated opinion, but I do have time to tell everyone my uninformed opinion."
My data is worth something, this is established.
Technical details aside, worth translates to dollars.
A fancy laptop is 1300-1600$. A nice tablet is a grand.
I would take my free money from getting paid dollars for my value able data, and buy an even nicer phone.
People don't need smart phones, smart phones don't need to be free, and frankly my data only ever became for sale through crafty fine print on page over 9000.
Please stop selling my data.
Jaron Lanier proposed this a good while ago in his book, Who Owns the Future?
If businesses could charge the government for the work they have to do to comply with goverment regulations, none of them would have to pay any taxes.
What's wrong with the "civility model"? Companies offer a service for which they charge and/or show ads. They don't collect data because it's rude and sleazy. Common sense. That strategy worked fine for Google to become a multi-billion-dollar company. Remember when they just had contextual, text-based ads along the side of search results? They changed due to greed, not because the method didn't work. I have zero sympathy for companies saying they can't make enough money without spying. In that case they're in the wrong business.
Poor capitalists still trying to figure out a way to deal with stagnation,
now that the 40year long lending bubble is in its death throes.
(hard to solve without the textbook solution: reset aka destruction aka war)
And poor slashdoters not having a clue what they are reading.
A brave new world is coming to an app near you...
You mock the value of user data, but if it was so worthless then why do these companies all try so desperately to collect it? Also, not all services and products which collect user data are free. Windows 10, for example, is a paid for product. So are Google's smartphones and business services.
You're an idiot if you think paying for something stops companies from harvesting your data.
In my experience almost all these 'take control of your data' initiatives fail to differentiate between 'raw data' and 'derived data. It's not your raw data that is valuable, but the 'derived data' that they distill from it. By comparing your data to that of other people they claim to be able to deduce your interests, sexuality, political leaning, gullability, neuroticism, etc. That's what Cambridge Analytica did: creating a psychological profile by looking at patterns in your data.
In the EU this derived data is recognised as personal data, and thus protected a bit. But in the US the databrokers say this derived data is an 'opinion' they formed about you, and is thus protected as a form of corporate free speech.
We need the wider public to understand this important distinction, but I see very little sign of the experts themselves understanding it.
We need to invent a way of paying a few cents at a time for stuff. Until then advertising is the only way to "charge" people small amounts.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Would you pay Google for every ad not displayed?
Is author suggesting that factual information about a person as well as any of their random utterances should be copyrighted? Would you like to talk to me for a tenner?
Before Classmates became spammy money grubbers it was free...
Rick B.