One of the biggest hits we’ve taken in the AI era is in terms of privacy. It makes gluttonous Ads data collection look angelic in comparison. Now with AI agents integrating with the desktop environment, it will take time to stomach the impact it has on data selling and surveillance.
It has become far easier to debug your PC, not only code. To answer such a query as why my PC is slow, previously we would read an article and copy paste commands to run. When using an LLM, we would describe the problem, send command feedbacks and iterate. Now with agents, we chat with LLM services using native apps and grant them the golden permission of running commands.
What’s interesting in this case is that the LLM will provide the plan of what data to gather to solve the problem at hand. You enable it to gather what it needs and LLM providers then get to know what environment you use, what files you have, your PC specs and so on. It can ask for additional info to solve the problem at hand.
AI agents vacuum data out of your life compared to traditional data collection. The situation was already bad, now it’s catastrophic. It does not stop at the PC, LLM providers require you to hand in as much data as you need to solve your problem. The next stop is normalizing gathering data from the body. It’s already concerning what smart wristbands are gathering. With AI LLM providers demand the brain. Constantly upload your brain signals or thoughts so that your personal assistant can be more useful they say.
We have reached the beginning of the golden age of perfect massive surveillance and it won’t change anytime soon. The enshrined, much trumpeted and revered rule of consent is a hollow sham when it comes to privacy.