Comment by dwg | Hacker News Reader

Comment by dwg | Hacker News Reader

Growing pains on the way to a true digital personal assistant.

The industry has to figure out how to deal with privacy concerns, because a digital assistant which is continuously aware of your location and what you're doing will be tremendously useful. It's a little friend in your pocket that we won't be able to imagine living without.

Traffic jam ahead? Got you covered.

Can't remember someones name? I've got it here.

Need to remember the name of that great you discovered last time you were in this area? Got it here.

Looks like you need an ambulance.. it's on the way.

Privacy issues abound, but possibilities are endless and people _want_ these features. At present many of the benefits from a smart phone that we have become accustomed to are only possible because of data harvesting. Perhaps as hardware continues to evolve, and these features commoditized we can convince organizations that we will actually pay for the services if we can have greater control over our data.

Thanks for sharing your views on what is "creepy". Not everyone agrees (as can be seen from the comments) and I have a feeling that what feels creepy today will seem normal tomorrow, but your concerns are valid.

>It's a little friend in your pocket

No, it's not. Google is entirely incentivised to extract the maximum amount of value from those reliant on their services, and the level of dependence is proportional to how much much they can potentially make off you. This is how a company works, and this is fine, but it is very dangerous to imagine that Google has anyone's best-interest at heart except their own.

But it is symbiotic in some ways.

Ugh your response reminds me so much of Google PR speak at TGIFs and such that it's hard for me to believe you don't work for Google. This is exactly the picture Google PR has been trying to create for years - years, by now! - and all evidence suggests that

a) No, it's not what people want. It seems convenient in concept and even in practice, until the moment they encounter something that makes clear to them just how much a third-party companies knows (and can divulge) about their life, and they immediately start trying to turn this stuff off.

b) It's not what people need. The fact is most of these services are problems looking for solutions, and offer an overabundance of data for a user who simply does not need it and can't use it. Traffic jam ahead? Thanks for the heads up but not like I could modify my plans or route, so that's useless. Can't remember someone's name? What, am I going to take a picture of them and then whisper 'hey google who is that person' discretely into my phone? Need to remember the name of that great (elided) last time you were in the area? Chances are you could just look it up and in the process discover other interesting things - and I'm not even sure what you mean here, like, is Google going to show me a list of everyplace I went when I was there?

Why do you think so many so-called personal assistants just keep getting used for the same thing? How many things need to tell me the weather today, or traffic conditions?

c) These things don't work and what you're essentialy are advocating for is that we give up our privacy and personal data in exchange for broken systems (sorry, "growing pains" - nevermind Google's been pitching these things for years and they're still mostly used to set timers and answer silly trivia questions - poorly) that may someday offer something we don't need (see a and b). That's a garbage deal if ever I heard one.

I think you want people to want these features because they comport with your idea of the future. But the fact is reality is not playing out like that.

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