> There was one demo where you could talk to Siri about your mom and it would understand the context because of stuff that she (your mom) had written in one of her emails to you... that's the kind of stuff that I think we all imagined an AI world would look like.
We're really just describing an on-device search tool with a much better interface. It's only creepy if you treat it like a person, which Apple is pretty careful not to do too much.
If anything Recall is MORE privacy respectful than this since everything is stored and processed on your device and you can access (and easily alter) the database, exclude specific applications, websites (for Edge for now), etc.
I'm not saying it's not an awful feature, I will disable it as soon as it is installed.
The fact that it's not encrypted at rest really is the least of my concerns (though it does show the lack of care and planning). For this to be a problem, an attacker already has all the necessary accesses to your computer to either get your encryption key or do devastating damage anyway.
> At the risk of sounding like an Apple apologist, Apple has a pretty good (though not perfect) track record for privacy and security.
"Not perfect" is enough to be concerned. I would also not be surprised that their good reputation is more due to their better ability at hiding their data collection and related scandals rather than due to any care for the user.
I thought that the problem with Recall is that it takes screenshots (potentially of sensitive things like passwords, or private browsing sessions) and stores new data that you never intended to store in the first place.
This Apple AI is not storing anything new, it’s just processing the data that you already stored. As long as they pay close attention to invalidation on the index when things get deleted.
The cloud processing is a little concerning but presumably you will be able to turn it off, and it doesn’t seem much different to using iCloud anyway.
The screenshots are not storing anything new, it's just a visual trail of an already existing activity.
It literally just makes it easier to browse the history, that's it.
Someone motivated could just recompose activity from logs/histories of the various softwares.
The distinction is made by people who seem hell bent on trashing Microsoft for everything and glorifying everything Apple does.
I strongly disagree. My expectation of what’s on my screen is that it’s ephemeral unless I take a screen shot.
Here’s an example. I always use a random password when creating accounts for (eg) databases, but not every UI supports this, so I have a little shell script that generates one. I then copy and paste it from the terminal. Once I close the terminal window and copy something else, that password is stored only once.
With recall, it’s now stored permanently. Someone who gets access to my screen history is a step closer to getting into my stuff.
Of course there are workarounds. But the expectation I have around how my screen work informs the actions I take on it.
Here’s another example. I recently clicked on a link from HN and ended up on a page containing explicit images. At work. As soon as I realised what I was looking at, I clicked away.
How long until my visual history is to be interrogated, characterised, and used to find me guilty of looking at inappropriate material in the workplace? Such a system is not going to care about my intentions. Even if I’m not disciplined, I’d certainly be embarrassed.
I don't think the above poster was really referring to who does it, but that it's creepy that you're having a conversation about your mom with your phone to begin with
Assistants are generally limited to people who can afford to have one. I think that's a fair assumption. Out of all those people not everyone in that group is going to have one. Which leaves a very very few people that do have one.
Why would this translate to everybody wanting to have one?
I can't but feel all of this super creepy.