I really like the idea of ‘doing it in public’ but thinking about implementation raised some privacy concerns for me. So far I tried to minimize my digital footprint out of the fear of people or companies misusing my data.
E.g. Providing a lot of data can make it easy for companies to profile you in order to influence you. This also applies to AI: Even though it comes with a enhanced functionality, I am not (yet?) comfortable sharing most of my notes with AI because it feels like giving up some control and make myself surveilled. Also the thought of new ways of misuse in the future that I couldn’t think about now makes me feel uncomfortable.
Maybe I am also exaggerating a bit but I find it important to think and talk about it now instead of regretting it later, because the internet doesn’t forget.
Do you have any experience with misuse of your published data? How do you prevent this and what do you pay attention to when publishing? Do you see limitations of the argument ‘I have nothing to hide’? @everyone
Grace:
if you can prove it belongs to you, then you own it. The only thing that can be done to prepare for data misuse by AI/other data farming/companies, is to follow the new laws, read the contracts of whatever cloud services you might use, and do what can be done to protect yourself and your data.
Nicole:
That’s definitely a valid concern, and I think it’s one you should take into account when deciding what to make public and what not to. I don’t think you have to go all the way—
I think you should be very intentional about what stuff is published.
- For example, I’m okay with posting my location when I’m at a big conference and I feel safe with the security at the event.
- When I’m travelling for personal reasons, I never reveal my location until after I’ve already left.
- I don’t talk much about partners I have or even friends who aren’t already “out” online in some way.
However, my day job is already in open source, so what I work on is public knowledge already anyway. In that case, I don’t think there’s much of a point to me trying to control the flow of information there - I feel I might as well steer in the direction of the tide, and tend to share in-progress work. After all, it's all going to end up public anyway. I think that’s a pretty compelling reason to learn in public.
I’m not so worried about AI scraping my notes or any public work I’ve put out there. If I’ve put it out there, I’ve done so freely, to help people learn if they can. I’m not too worried about attribution or kudos.
But I do think all this is such a personal decision. I accept that my risk tolerances are much higher than most when it comes to sharing things online, and I'd never encourage anyone to disregard their own risk tolerances.