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If we have so much good AI tech why can't anyone make a spell check that I can't stump?

A few times a week I must go to the dictionary (like a cavewoman!) or search the web since I've mangled some word in such a way that there are no suggestions. It's just "wrong" what's wrong with it? Who knows!

Could it be a scientific name and just not in the dictionary? Maybe! Could it be an obscure word with a pretentious UK spelling? Probably! Could it be wrong? Also probably.

Do this first AI lords.

The second thing that still can't be done is more of a general issue:

Ask Alexa to add an event to your Google calendar? Can't be done.

Ask Siri the author of the last audiobook you listened to? Can't be done!

Ask Google when your package will arrive from Amazon? Can't do it!

If you think "Well of course you can't do that, what company would aid the competition?" That's just my point.

Meanwhile the databrokers have a profile of you that includes all of these things.

Janet Vertesi

@futurebird As I see it, the competitive walls between these companies is an opportunity for ensuring my data doesn’t move between them. I am happy these apps don’t “work” across their boundaries, as I can use that Balkanization strategically.

Data brokerage has highly consolidated and shifted since it started in the early ‘teens—it’s just meta and Google now. The stuff at the seams, they know, but those biggest companies have a stranglehold on their own data.

@cyberlyra I thought about the data safety aspect— but in the end it’s not really a secure wall just an inconvenient one: Nothing is stopping some company from using the last book I listened to to serve me ads: *so why can I get at least the same benefit from my own damn data* ?

@futurebird @cyberlyra the less balkanized the data is, the easier it will be to get our hands on it for ourselves through law. And the easier it will be to poison it with incorrect information to screen ourselves.

@johnefrancis @futurebird @cyberlyra which is why I click on any golf related links I see. I spent 20 minutes randomly searching golf things in 2014 and I still see them pop up when I enable adds.

@stormcauldron @futurebird @cyberlyra I've been using AdNauseum for about a year. I don't see ads, but it's always there clicking them behind the scenes for me.

@johnefrancis @stormcauldron @futurebird Yep I know and love the people who built AdNauseum. I don’t use it or an ad blocker myself, because ads are my primary source of realtime feedback as to what various companies think they know about me. It’s then easy to guess how they think they know it, and to quickly identify and plug leaks.

FYI I block as much data as possible going 𝒐𝒖𝒕- just not ads coming 𝒊𝒏. I recognize this is anathema to a lot of people but it’s worked for me for over a decade.

@futurebird @cyberlyra Googling "where are my packages" would, at one time, return links to USPS tracking based on Gmail results. I haven't tried it in a while but I seem to recall it got disabled. So the capability is there, maybe?

@powersoffour @futurebird @cyberlyra
Thinking this could violate data privacy laws in the EU & in a number of US states. So, not surprised (& in fact conditionally pleased) that the capability is no longer there.

@futurebird @cyberlyra If we banned targeted advertising, we could have the benefits of unfirewalled data, without many of the downsides.

@fivetonsflax @futurebird Well, if you own your data and keep it locally, you don’t have to fight companies over these problems. ;)

@cyberlyra @futurebird What I personally do is not interesting. These are societal problems which demand structural solutions.

@futurebird This reminds me of the guy who tried to send the NSA a subpoena to provide an alibi by telling where his cell phone was at the crucial moment. Didn’t work.