Technilogical causes are much more likely than accidental causes for such effects to appear, in today's world.
Occam's Razor and the answer to the question, "What kinds of companies are at work in the environment?" push that probability in a specific way, because the motives and means are definitely there. Do you think they are the kinds of companies that would waste such an opportunity?
Their Chief Councel's recommendation depends on how slimy they are, right?
What would happen if they got caught? Slap on the wrist would be all, if that, no?
>Technilogical causes are much more likely than accidental causes for such effects to appear, in today's world.
This is absurd. The chances of rolling snake eyes twice in a row is 0.07%. However, that doesn't mean if I do get snake eyes back to back, I should think it's caused by "Technilogical causes" (aliens? CIA remotely controlling the dice?). At best, it's an incomplete argument. The power of the birthday paradox, along with the factors I explained in my previous comment means such occurrences are virtually guaranteed to occur if you're on the look out for them. This can't be dismissed with an off-hand with "Technilogical causes are much more likely than accidental causes for such effects to appear, in today's world".
>Occam's Razor and the answer to the question, "What kinds of companies are at work in the environment?" push that probability in a specific way, because the motives and means are definitely there. Do you think they are the kinds of companies that would waste such an opportunity?
Apple got sued for accidentally recording siri queries, and that cost them class action lawsuit, along with the requisite discovery. Some company intentionally doing this, all the while actively engaging in a conspiracy is far harder, and much easier to fall apart due.
If you read my article I quote that exact paragraph, and then call out the Ars Technica reporter for the way they misleadingly rephrased this similar paragraph from the Reuters report that Ars Technica cite as their source:
> One Siri user said his private discussions with his doctor about a “brand name surgical treatment” caused him to receive targeted ads for that treatment, while two others said their discussions about Air Jordan sneakers, Pit Viper sunglasses and “Olive Garden” caused them to receive ads for those products.
The whole point of my article is that these random claims that were part of the original lawsuit in 2021 are being mindlessly quoted as if they are proven facts, when they are not. Here's my link again: https://simonwillison.net/2025/Jan/2/they-spy-on-you-but-not...
Im not the guy, but you never bother trying to prove anything; you just ramble about vibes most people will implicitly agree with. “Oh boy rich people sure do suck and companies sure do suck.” “Aww geez my wife got a targeted ad.” I loosely figure that they spy too, but I expected a better showing from HN in rebuttal to the article. If it’s so damn obvious then show some actual proof.
>No, more like Siri, bruh. To sell some too-expensive slippers. You used the word "absurd", didn't ya?
The dice analogy is clearly a separate scenario than your guci slippers story, I'm not sure why you're trying to bring siri into that analogy. The point is that you can't just invoke "Technilogical causes are much more likely than accidental causes for such effects to appear, in today's world" without justification. If there's spooky stuff happening at a rate far higher than to be expected by pure chance, and there was proper documentation of this, I might be amenable to the above argument, but you haven't done that. In previous comments I listed multiple reasons issues with relying on random anecdotes, but you failed to rebut them.
>Sure. Apple does things by accident. Gotcha.
Is it really so unbelievable that automatic speech recognition would have false positives? There's plenty of things to criticize about Apple's behavior in that case (eg. not taking steps to ensure audio from accidental triggers are deleted), but the implication that they're intentionally doing it is totally unsupported.
>Motive, means, opportunity. Which is missing?
Proof that a crime has actually been committed. With that logic we should be arresting people for murder every time their ex/spouse goes missing, even if there's no evidence that foul play occurred. If it's been actually proven (ie. more rigorous evidence than random anecdotes) that people are getting targeted advertisements based on their conversations, maybe we can start assigning blame, but we haven't even established that's happening yet.
Why can't you both be right? If you talk about 100 products in a week, chances are you're conducting searches about some of them or your demographic data suggests that you might be in market for it.
We don't talk about products. We live very, very simply. We watch very little fiction. We mostly listen to music and watch a handful of soccer highlights. No Microsoft, no ads on the `puters, no kids on phones or the net except for chess.
We did watch three Tom Papa stand-up shows on NYE, though. They were glorious; we were crying laughing. "Outrageous!" I love that guy, so brilliant, silly, and hilarious!
Occam's Razor and the answer to the question, "What kinds of companies are at work in the environment?" push that probability in a specific way, because the motives and means are definitely there. Do you think they are the kinds of companies that would waste such an opportunity?
Their Chief Councel's recommendation depends on how slimy they are, right?
What would happen if they got caught? Slap on the wrist would be all, if that, no?