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Thread: TikTok and AI

  1. #1
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    TikTok and AI

    I'm putting this up here for more exposure. If you have not read Mike's thread on AI in Bits, Bytes & Curses you might want to read that prior to reading this piece from today's NYT. This is taken from "Morning" which I believe is open to non-subscribers. I thought this was important to share.

    You’re reading The Morning newsletter. Make sense of the day’s news and ideas. David Leonhardt and Times journalists guide you through what’s happening — and why it matters.
    The platforms are so powerful, their names are verbs: Google, Uber, Instagram, Netflix.

    For years, the dominance of American tech companies has brought economic benefits to the United States. It has also offered an advantage in a less obvious area — national security.

    Tech companies gather incredible amounts of data about their users. They know where we travel, who our friends are and what we watch. Governments want to use this data for surveillance, law enforcement and espionage. So they hack, hoard, steal and buy it. For years, the U.S. has had an edge over other countries. With court approval, the government can demand that social media giants, based in the U.S. and subject to U.S. law, hand over data about users.

    “We had this advantage that we thought would just go on forever,” Bruce Schneier, a security expert and Harvard fellow, said.

    Then TikTok came along. The social media app, owned by the Chinese company ByteDance, has more than a billion users. TikTok says that includes about 150 million Americans. Under China’s authoritarian state, the government has sweeping control over tech companies and their data. U.S. officials are worried that China will use TikTok to promote its interests and gather Americans’ personal information. One Republican called it a “spy balloon in your phone.”

    TikTok is the latest flashpoint in the two countries’ struggle for supremacy. Last week, TikTok said U.S. officials had given its Chinese ownership two options: Sell the app or risk a nationwide ban. This morning, lawmakers will question TikTok’s chief executive, Shou Chew, about the app’s ties to China.

    Today, I will explain the fight over TikTok and how the U.S. is trying to use the app to its advantage.

    The concerns
    This fight is ostensibly about data: who controls it and determines how it appears on TikTok. The U.S. has two main reasons for concern.

    First is the threat of Chinese espionage. BuzzFeed found that ByteDance engineers in China had accessed American users’ private data. ByteDance also admitted that employees, including two based in China, spied on journalists and obtained their IP addresses, but said that company leaders had not signed off and that the employees were fired. Despite ByteDance’s close ties to China, TikTok has denied that it has given data to the government.

    Second, ByteDance could use TikTok’s algorithms to influence Americans. TikTok has been accused of censoring videos about politically sensitive subjects for China, like Tibetan independence and the Tiananmen Square massacre.

    “A Chinese company owns what has become America’s number one culture maker right now,” Sapna Maheshwari, a Times reporter who covers TikTok, said. In the future, lawmakers say, it’s easy to imagine how China could use TikTok to shape American attitudes about Taiwan — or an American presidential campaign.

    The U.S. is escalating efforts to limit TikTok’s power. The federal government and more than half of the states have banned TikTok from government devices and networks. Britain, Canada and Belgium have done the same. India banned the app entirely. Now the U.S. is threatening a nationwide ban, too.

    How likely is a ban?
    Donald Trump tried to ban TikTok in 2020, but judges rejected his attempt. The government is trying again, though it’s unclear exactly how a ban would be implemented. There is no precedent for U.S. restrictions on an app this big.

    One approach that some lawmakers prefer would remove TikTok from Apple’s and Google’s app stores and make the app nonfunctional on U.S. cellphone networks. But the government couldn’t reach into users’ phones to delete the app. TikTok would still be accessible to those who already have it, though users couldn’t download updates to the app, which would probably render it unusable eventually.

    Any ban faces legal and political hurdles, including questions about First Amendment protections and the possibility of angering millions of TikTok users heading into a presidential election year.

    The U.S. may be threatening a ban to force another outcome in its favor — the sale of TikTok to an American company. TikTok and the U.S. have previously negotiated about one. Still, the path is murky. China is unlikely to approve a sale. And if it did, it’s unclear who would buy the app, which could cost $50 billion, according to some analysts. A sale could also trigger antitrust concerns for probable suitors like Microsoft.

    The power of a threat
    Even if a ban never happens, the threat of one still matters. The Biden administration is using the specter of further restrictions to communicate a hard line on China. Lawmakers in both parties will likely make that point clear in the hearing today.

    The episode is the latest in the larger fight between two world powers competing for dominance. In this contest, data is a valuable source of economic and political clout.

    “If you can control data, you can have influence,” Joseph Nye, a political scientist, said.

    China has known this for years. The country has banned apps like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter and operated a tightly controlled internet, isolating its citizens from the rest of the world. The U.S. is now threatening to use China’s playbook against it, effectively leveraging private companies as a national asset and limiting information access as a form of sanctioning.

    Chew, TikTok’s chief executive, is expected to tell Congress today that the app is a vehicle for promoting soft power — a “lens through which the rest of the world can experience American culture.” But the U.S. has made clear it cares more about the hard power of data.

    “TikTok is the first platform to truly compete with these huge American tech companies,” Sapna said. “The signal the government is sending is: Don’t bother.”

    For more
    “TikTok sober”: Lawmakers are expected to describe TikTok as too addictive for children. Teens say they struggle to limit their time on the app.

    The app has deployed its famous creators to influence lawmakers before today’s hearing.
    "A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity, an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty” ---Sir Winston Churchill
    "Political extremism involves two prime ingredients: an excessively simple diagnosis of the world's ills, and a conviction that there are identifiable villains back of it all." ---John W. Gardner
    “You can’t go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending.” ---C. S. Lewis

  2. #2
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    Banning the app is not a solution. Any slightly tech savvy high school user already knows ways around that. The simplest way is to just use a browser - no app required. They can't stop the updates on existing apps, far too many ways around that. They can't even stop newer versions of the app from being downloaded and manually installed on phones. It becomes more complicated, but easy enough. I could go on and on but why? If they ban it our kids will already know how to beat the ban.

    The only possible way I can think of that they could actually completely ban TikTok would be to cut all electronic ties between the US and the rest of the world. Even that would be hard, if not impossible.

    I spend more time than I should on TikTok, and from what I've seen, the content creators are not particularly concerned about a ban. Besides, if you spend much time on the internet, do business on the internet, or do anything else on the internet that requires a login, your personal data is almost assuredly already in the hands of anyone who really wants it.

    So, the stuffed shirt know-it-alls in Washington can snort and paw the ground until they think they have impressed someone, but in the end, TikTok will in some form, survive.
    The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible - Arthur C. Clarke

  3. #3
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    One interesting vignette - on the NBC news this evening, a person is bemoaning the possibility of TikTok being banned. He says that he has devoted his life to developing content, editing content, marketing content, etc., on TikTok and it would be devastating to him for it to be banned.

    He looked about 25 years old. Sorry, but buddy, you haven't had a life yet to devote to anything. See me in 40 years.

    Drama, always with the drama.

    If China wants to hoover up all the stupid synchronized dance videos in America, knock yourselves out. I see TikTok as nothing more than another example of the unceasing American quest for mindless diversion, which I think plays a part in our drug crisis in this country as well. Lots of blank slates out there, I suppose, because from what I see, there isn't a lot of critical thinking going on in society these days.

  4. #4
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    Quote Originally Posted by Kevin View Post
    If China wants to hoover up all the stupid synchronized dance videos in America, knock yourselves out. I see TikTok as nothing more than another example of the unceasing American quest for mindless diversion, which I think plays a part in our drug crisis in this country as well. Lots of blank slates out there, I suppose, because from what I see, there isn't a lot of critical thinking going on in society these days.
    I couldn't have said it better, Kevin......Ben
    The future is forged on the anvil of history...The interpreter of history wields the hammer... - Unknown author...

  5. #5
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    So many comments I see and hear about TikTok are like Kevin's post and Ben's response. The fact is, TikTok is far more than 15 second dances. It started out that way, but has morphed into something like YouTube lite. Lot's of the kids have left the platform and more adults have joined. I can spend hours watching instructional and informational videos. There are a lot of historical videos, like the antique tractor page I shared here previously.

    A couple of examples:

    How to maintain a tankless water heater

    Antique Tractors and More
    The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible - Arthur C. Clarke

  6. #6
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    Mike I will admit I've never been on the Tik Tok channel other than from links posted here, and really have no idea what's there...I waste all the time I have to spare on YouTube already......Ben
    The future is forged on the anvil of history...The interpreter of history wields the hammer... - Unknown author...

  7. #7
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    Arr - I too get sucked into YouTube easily - which is why I can understand other people "into" Tik Tok. Yeah, people may indeed be influencing us online - and we have the freedom to look away or choose to follow (as we do with News channels, e.g., Fox, etc.).

    It's an excellent topic for discussion, Dave. Myself, I'll be considering it too. For, I'm not really sure about this one. There are good arguments both pro and con and I may just punt and let experts and legislators deal with it.

    Hunter
    I don't care if it hurts. I want to have control. I want a perfect body. I want a perfect soul. - Creep by Radiohead

  8. #8
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    Never been on TikTack, as one legislator called it. I don't spend much time on YouTube except to listen to music from my youth. Just not into the whole scene.

    Show me that there is a bona fide danger besides hyperventilation about China. To me, this all looks like a stampede for votes.

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