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Comment by kordlessagain

20 hours ago

Covered California, the state’s health insurance marketplace, leaked deeply sensitive health information and pregnancy status, domestic abuse disclosures, and prescription drug use to LinkedIn via embedded ad trackers.

It’s a pattern we’ve seen across government and private sectors: infrastructure designed for care is being exploited for behavioral targeting through advertising motions. The public doesn’t expect their health decisions to be fed into social ad networks, but the platforms already assume ownership of that data trail.

And of course, it’s all connected. The same companies monetizing behavioral profiling at scale are now running the most powerful generative AI systems. Microsoft, which owns LinkedIn, is also the key infrastructure partner of OpenAI. Meta's ad tools were present on these health sites too. Google’s trackers are everywhere else.

When you strip away the techno-mystique, what’s driving the AI and data arms race isn’t wisdom. It’s ego, power consolidation, and a pathological fear of being second.

And Sam Altman? He’s not stupid. But brilliance without wisdom is just charisma in a predator suit. Why do you think all these services tie directly into AI?

64 comments

kordlessagain

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quantified  19 hours ago

Would we be surprised to learn of 10x this level of leakage to Facebook? Based on the social tracking I've casually observed via browser tools when signing up to a variety of services, I'd be surprised if it's not. The weird thing here is that it's LinkedIn getting the data, not that it's being sent.

jajko  20 hours ago

Sociopaths being sociopaths, there is nothing more to it. One should never assume those who rose to massive power and wealth on their own are anything else but that. There are few exceptions, or rather well-meaning sociopaths, but they are really an exception.

The idea that they only got there by doing a bit of hard honest work is brutally naive. Its a sad fact of life, but fact it is. Looking at world with such optics, there are hardly any surprises (and no its not all doom and gloom, rather just factual reality with very few disappointments down the line).

  • lo_zamoyski  16 hours ago

    What we call "power" is not a property of a person, but a function of networks of relationships. A king is only "powerful" insofar as his authority is recognized. The moment his perceived authority is lost, the moment no one or few recognize it, is the moment he no longer has "power".

    In other words, it only works if there is enough social support for it. It requires our complicity.

    Most people with ASPD (what you call sociopathy) are not able to build these sorts of networks. They're impulsive. They are over-represented among the homeless. They are poor at planning or foreseeing the consequences of their actions. These are not exactly conducive to building these social networks. A sociopath is more the street thug or the gangbanger and less the CEO of a corporation.

  • FredPret  19 hours ago

    It's the idea that class warfare will get us anywhere good that's brutally naive at this point.

shaky-carrousel  19 hours ago

[flagged]

  • perihelions  18 hours ago

    I think publicly leveling accusations against other commenters downgrades the quality of the conversation—and it's against the forum rules too.

    You can email the mods if it's something that can be moderated, but please keep it private! It makes things worse if this kind of accusation happens to be wrong. (Also makes things worse if it's right). Often it's singling out an actual, real person for unpleasant scrutiny they didn't expect or want.

    "Remember the human."

  • jeron  19 hours ago

    >And Sam Altman? He’s not stupid. But brilliance without wisdom is just charisma in a predator suit. Why do you think all these services tie directly into AI?

    I don't think AI would come up with this line