AI developments detect Parkinson’s from your mousepad and won’t tell you

If you’ve ever gone on the internet you’ve probably encountered CAPTCHA — an intelligence system that uses tests like identifying pictures to prove users aren’t robots. You may have also noticed the CAPTCHA system has evolved; now, users only need to check a box labeled “I’m not a robot,” all thanks to Google.

But have you ever wondered how Google can distinguish bot from human with one simple click? It’s easy — Google already knows you’re human before you even click anything.

Google’s simplified CAPTCHA — ironically called “No CAPTCHA reCAPTCHA” — uses Botguard technology and employs encryption to conceal its activity. Here’s how it works: Botguard determines whether a user has a Google cookie on the machine. It then proceeds to drop its own Google cookie into your browser and extracts personally identifiable information like screen resolution, date, language, browser plug-ins, Javascript objects, IP address, CSS information and mouse movement patterns. Java itself, embedded in almost all web pages, can track a user’s keystrokes and the position of their cursor without making any kind of visual display; all of this information is being pulled in the background unknown to users.

So what is Google doing with all of this personal information? Why are they asking you to click on anything when their tech already knows you’re a human and not a robot? Google is most likely doing exactly what it’s done with its reCAPTCHA system in the past: finding a way to profit massively and discreetly.  

When Google bought CAPTCHA in 2009, we thought that in answering the security questions we were proving we weren’t a robot — in reality, we did far more than that. The blotched words and numbers we typed helped Google’s AI system transcribe a variety of documents, from books to addresses. In doing so, Google made millions off its users under false pretenses, and it’s geared to do it again.

Researchers at Stanford reported in March 2018 how digital tracks left by a computer mouse may reveal involuntary tremors or shakes, most commonly attributed to Parkinson’s disease. Eric Horvitz, one of the researchers, believes this information, along with other user web search data, could help diagnose Parkinson’s in people before they’re even aware of it. Or, Google could indirectly raise premiums by alerting that individual’s insurance company.

In reference to the newly advanced and simplified CAPTCHA system, Vinay Shet, product manager for Google’s CAPTCHA team, revealed that human users can be discerned by using subtly ingenious clues, like a user’s mouse movements in the brief moments before flagging themselves as human. With the new ability of AI to detect Parkinson’s via mouse movements, it’s within Google’s interest and capacity to move toward a disease-detecting CAPTCHA. Much like it has done in the past, Google will try and sell that information to the highest bidder: your insurance company or maybe even your employer.

Insurance companies would undoubtedly pay top dollar to predict their clients’ future health risks, proceeding to either raise premiums or drop clients entirely, and they would never have to disclose why. Our searches, mouse patterns, IP addresses are all inextricably linked with us in a personal, distinguishable way. Google already knows who you are, but now it can know details and characteristics about you which you may never know yourself.

Google may know you have a life-changing disease before you do, and it will make money off your medical data while keeping you in the dark.

When Google was planning to go public in 2004, its code of conduct included the words “don’t be evil” — they have since been removed from Google’s corporate philosophy. By its own silent admission, it’s not a question of whether Google will use this technology against us, or even when. It’s a question of how.  

Written by: Hanadi Jordan — hajordan@ucdavis.edu

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by individual columnists belong to the columnists alone and do not necessarily indicate the views and opinions held by The California Aggie.

The same tools assisting visionary animators may incite animation’s downfall

Animated cinema diverges at a rather peculiar crossroad. The genre’s potential for varied artistry permits a visual infinity, from embroiled ocean vistas that, at first glance, appear ripped straight from the depths of the Pacific, to the illusory motions of a hand-crafted Sasquatch, slave to Geppetto’s zealous descendants. Its unique propensity for invention lends itself to a form that facilitates even the most fanciful visions. Modern technology has realized this aesthetician dream to an extent exceeding the wildest fantasies of any cinematic, let alone artistic, contemporary.

Tools of the latter-day dreamer permit movies like “Kubo and the Two Strings,” “Fantastic Mr. Fox” and “Wall-E” to, in short, exist. Had CGI and motion capture not been contrived and advanced to the astounding reaches available to present animators, films noted for their charm, beauty and reverence would have remained reveries relegated to the rainy-day sketches of wishful composers.

But tools, framers’ intentions be damned, must act at the behest of the hands that wield them. A daydream, realized with a dreamer’s will, is just that — a dream, a story. But for an expedient few, stories become more — aspirant fantasy inflated beyond the screen to store shelves and lunchboxes. An artist, in charming reveries and rainy-day sketches, sees a world. A businessman sees a brand. In this diverging vision, we discover our peculiar crossroads, the fork in a genre ripe for both vibrant storytelling and lucrative empires.

The intersection of art and profit, despite critics’ oft-repeated accusations of corruption and capitalistic duplicity, kickstarts a vital conversation regarding the artist’s role in a commercially-oriented society. Animation’s very best responses straddle the line between consumerism and elegant aesthetics, with “The Lego Movie” and its franchise brethren serving as paragons of an art-business hybrid that, when done well, furthers the reach of corporate marketing while maintaining an indisputable sense of creative integrity.

When these films succeed as art and the shadow of motives remain ephemeral, the question of whether intentions bear relevance upon their artistic virtue is an entirely different debate. But in most cases, the shadow is overpowering, a stifling force at the muse’s throat.

Via the same technological godsends assisting genuine craftsmen, studios can now engage in animated production with ease. Sights that marvel casual audiences are produced with limited budgets and, all things relative, rather mediocre animators. These newfound faculties allow corporations to sponsor and produce what are in all but name feature-length commercials. Some, like the aforementioned “Lego” franchise, stand on their own as movies. But these triumphs comprise a short list. More often than not, audiences are left with the likes of “Boxtrolls,” “Angry Birds,” “Minions” and “Smurfs”; films created to expand pre-existing commercial empires or to catalyze future conquests. Reveries, dreams and fantasies are strangled and spat upon, left to shiver in the rain by focus groups, calculations and algorithms.

Hyperbole aside, audiences do continue to reward imagination at the box office, allowing the eternal brilliance of studios like Pixar and Dreamworks to shine. Notably eccentric efforts in recent years, namely “Spiderman: Into the Spiderverse,” “Isle of Dogs” and “Missing Link,” have received vast critical acclaim in tandem with marked commercial success.

Art-business hybrids that emphasize efficiency over imagination are troubling, to say the least. But the dreamers, year after year, continue to dominate mercenary interests with masterfully realized efforts that serve as odes not just to animation, or to film-making, but to art. For the time being, profit remains a mere counterpart to beauty.

I am reluctant to derive some mangled sense of optimism from this trend. At some point, corporations will achieve the same level of artistic competency as the romantic visionaries we hold so dear. The bell tolls three, for dreams, for fantasies, for revery.

Yet, despite my skepticism, doubts and hesitancy, there is something comforting in imagination’s triumph, however fleeting. There is some console in our shared fondness for dreams.

I imagine that the passing years will bring upon us a scourge of men in suits cramming tired stories down our throats. Yet, greed falters in the face of imagination. Men in suits, for all their posturing, will never have that. They will learn to produce an efficient, profitable caricature, some Lazarus of beauty long past. But the dreams will endure in spite of our failings. They will defy the spectres of corporate expediency, conjuring for us visions of ragged seas and puppet strings, idiot oracles that we are.

Written by: Eli Elster — eselster@ucdavis.edu

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by individual columnists belong to the columnists alone and do not necessarily indicate the views and opinions held by The California Aggie.