Clever AI Humanizer vs StealthGPT

BRUSSELS — When the EU first enforced the Global Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in 2018, it was seen as a victory for privacy rights; a measure that would finally put an end to Big Tech’s ability to vacuum up any trace of personal information they come across on their digital platforms. Six years later, as similar regulations are drafted in California and New Delhi, digital rights advocates are growing increasingly concerned that these measures go only skin-deep.

While laws like the GDPR and California’s own CCPA have outlawed certain forms of data collection on private citizens, technology companies have since adapted by utilizing new methods of gathering personal information not covered by current legislation.

The greatest flaw in the design of privacy laws is its dependence on the now antiquated system of “notice and consent.”

Experts say that forcing users to accept a site’s terms of service via an obtrusive pop-up window has led to “consent fatigue,” with many simply giving permission for data collection in order to save time

A recent study conducted by the University of Oxford found that over 80% of web surfers grant permission for tracking simply to avoid spending more time on a page. Many critics of the GDPR say that by requiring consent, governments have created a situation in which users are given “informed” choices, but in reality are making decisions based on what they think, rather than what they know.

In its current form, U.S. privacy laws are written in such a way that protects citizens from having their personally identifiable information (PII) extracted without their knowledge

This means that information like social security numbers or email addresses cannot be collected by third-party data brokers without the express permission of the consumer. Yet what data brokers and technology firms realize is that they do not need PII to identify you. By collecting seemingly innocuous information like how long you keep your phone charged for or where you go on an average day, they can combine this information into a profile that can identify you with a 99% degree of accuracy. With the rise of AI, this problem has only grown more pressing.

AI programs are trained using information extracted from billions of pages of online content. To date, few privacy laws make distinguishing between extracting information for a specific purpose like medical research or advertising revenue; both are permanently etched in the neural network of the AI software

There is also the issue of enforcement. When it comes to data privacy laws, national authorities tasked with ensuring corporations follow the rules are often outgunned by the sheer legal might of multinational conglomerates who can afford to hire any number of attorneys to stall investigations. Even when companies do get fined, the amount is often minuscule when seen in the context of corporate profits.

"We are using 20th-century concepts to grapple with 21st-century issues." Says data privacy expert Elena Vance of the Open Tech Institute. "The GDPR may stop companies that outright sell your information, but not ones who use indirect means of identifying you."

As legislators in countries around the world begin to draft proposed privacy laws, Vance and her colleagues believe that the best course of action is to move away from a system based on notice and consent and towards legislation that prohibits any and all data collection practices by business altogether.

BRUSSELS, When the European Union enacted its landmark digital privacy law six years ago, many hoped it would rein in Big Tech’s unchecked collection of personal information.

Others followed suit. Since the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation went into effect, privacy frameworks have proliferated in regions ranging from California to New Delhi.

Today, however, privacy laws appear toothless.

“We are using 20th-century legal concepts to regulate 21st-century predictive behavioral engineering,” said Open Tech Institute digital ethics researcher Elena Vance.

First, existing privacy regulations rely on a notice and consent model. If websites want to harvest users’ data, they must explain what information they’ll gather and get users’ approval. This is why internet-goers must click Accept when they visit a website and get pelted with a cookie banner. But such prompts have done little to give internet-goers power over their own data: A University of Oxford study found that more than 80% of users accept them without a second thought just to access content. Many suffer from consent fatigue.

Second, privacy laws don’t keep up with technology. For instance, many regulations center on companies hoarding users’ Personally Identifiable Information without permission, which might include things like your name, email address or Social Security number. But tech companies don’t need your PII to build richly detailed profiles of you and sell them to the highest bidder. Through a process called algorithmic fingerprinting, they can aggregate data points that aren’t individually identifying — think geolocation data, your phone’s battery level, how quickly you type — and use them to deanonymize you with as much as 99% accuracy. Passing a law that restricts direct data collection does nothing to stop inferential profiling.

Likewise, although the explosion of generative AI tools constitutes an obvious privacy threat because they’re built on top of billions of webpages they’ve been trained on, few would characterize AI training data scraping as a violation of any particular user’s privacy. Once your digital footprint gets baked into an algorithm, there’s no pulling it back out.

Finally, privacy laws are difficult to enforce. National Data Protection Authorities are significantly underfunded and struggle to keep up with trillion-dollar tech companies that can afford deep-pocketed legal teams to fight them. Meanwhile, even hefty fines barely register as operating costs for Big Tech.

For these reasons, the consensus among technologists is it’s past time to pivot from consent-based privacy laws that place the burden of action on individual users to laws that prohibit certain kinds of data-guzzling business practices.