Submitted 5 months ago by lemmyreader@lemmy.ml to technology@lemmy.world
https://mastodon.sdf.org/@NewtonMark@eigenmagic.net/112455579046815183
cross-posted from: lemmy.ml/post/15741608
They offer a thing they’re calling an “opt-out.”
The opt-out (a) is only available to companies who are slack customers, not end users, and (b) doesn’t actually opt-out.
When a company account holder tries to opt-out, Slack says their data will still be used to train LLMs, but the results won’t be shared with other companies.
LOL no. That’s not an opt-out. The way to opt-out is to stop using Slack.
Instead of working on their platform to get discord users to jump ship they decide to go in the same direction.
Also pretty sure training LLMs after someone opts out is illegal?
Wait, discord is also doing this?
Not currently and publically at least. They’re feeding your messages into an LLM, x.com/DiscordPreviews/status/1790065494432608432 but that’s not as bad as training one with your messages
Also pretty sure training LLMs after someone opts out is illegal?
Why? There have been a couple of lawsuits launched in various jurisdictions claiming LLM training is copyright violation but IMO they're pretty weak and none of them have reached a conclusion. The "opting" status of the writer doesn't seem relevant if copyright doesn't apply in the first place.
but IMO they’re pretty weak
Well, thankfully, it’s not up to you.
Customers own their own Customer Data.
Okay, that’s good.
Immediately after that:
Slack […] will never identify any of our customers or individuals as the source of any of these improvements to any third party, other than to Slack’s affiliates or sub-processors.
You’d hope the owner would get a say in that.
So you sign up to confirm that your IP is yours, while simultaneously agreeing to sell it off , but the source will be anonymous other than to who it’s sold to or anyone else Slack decides they want to know. These tech contracts and TOS should just say “we will (try) not do bad, but you agree to let us do bad, and if bad happens its your fault”.
Hijacking top comment to say this post is misinformation: lemm.ee/comment/12015917
Well, that’s just great. Another reason to force everyone into the miserable, counterproductive dumpster fire that is MS Teams.
Is MS Teams the only viable alternative ?
No, but it’s the only one that big corporations know/care about… primarily because of MS’s aggressive “look, it’s basically free and TOTALLY the same thing, we promise” marketing strategy.
Also
At my old job we primarily used RocketChat, I miss it
Teams is doing the same thing. I can’t go anywhere close to anything Microsoft without some Copilot I didn’t ask for getting jammed in.
Is there a self hosted slack-like that has a mobile app
Matrix?
Does IRC still exist? I remember laughing when I first saw Slack and its early competitors because people were excited about it and when I finally used it I realized it was basically just IRC with a nicer interface. I’m assuming these offer improvements like encryption?
Is there a decent client? Desktop and mobile?
Maybe Matrix
Rocket chat I think checks those boxes
Subscription to self host? lol. Am I missing something?
I’m sorry, can everyone not read the actual link? They specifically say they are not training generative AIs, i.e. LLMs. They are using the data to train non-generative AIs for stuff like emoji and channel suggestions. I.e. you use this emoji a lot so it’s displayed first.
This is class A misinformation being spread here, good job.
It also explicitly states in the posted screengrab that the opting-out user’s workspace won’t contribute to the underlying models. How would that be separate from using info on their workspace as training data for any kind of model? My interpretation of that is the data would be used to inference on the models, not train them.
The customer is never just a customer… even if you are paying. You are always the product now. Always.
what a shitshow. when is this gonna be made illegal?
fuck sake
The headline is patently false.
FTA
We do not develop LLMs or other generative models using customer data.
If you want to act like you’re better than Reddit you’re going to have to start actually being better.
mattermost anyone?
Its used by NASA and the US Air Force so security wise it probably is pretty solid.
An issue with mattermost is that some useful features are behind a paywall, like group calls.
I’d go with nextcloud since all their features are included regardless of if you pay or not
Wait, which calls do you mean? We’re hosting or own free mattermost and I’ve never had that problem. We’re pretty happy with mattermost overall, but it’s also a small tech-savvy team.
Ain’t everything [open-souce]](github.com/mattermost)?
I use Slack at work everyday. I suppose this does feel off in some way but I'm not sure I'm the right amount of upset about this? I don't really mind if they use my data if it improves my user experience, as long as the platform doesn't reveal anything sensitive or personal in a way that can be traced back to me.
Slack already does allow your admin to view all of your conversations, which is more alarming to me
The problem is where you said “as long as” because we already know companies AND the AI itself can’t be trusted to not expose sensitive info. At absolute best, it’s another vector to be breached.
It's obvious when you say it like that. I don't like the idea of some prompt hacker looking at memes I sent to my coworker
Slack already does allow your admin to view all of your conversations, which is more alarming to me
I’m a slack admin for my company, and I can tell you that no: admins can’t read DMs or private channels they’re not a part of
Some model is going to be trained on my Slaude smut lol.
Ultraviolet@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Remember when they renamed PMs to DMs and everyone who pointed out that they’re trying to remove the expectation of privacy was “paranoid”?
CH3DD4R_G0BL1N@sh.itjust.works 5 months ago
I don’t, but it sounds exactly like every other time this exact thing happens.