The Man Who Trapped Us in Databases
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/22/magazine/hank-asher-data.html
McKenzie Funk notes:
A world in which computers accurately collect and remember and increasingly make decisions based on every little thing you have ever done is a world in which your past is ever more determinant of your future. It’s a world tailored to who you have been and not who you plan to be, one that could perpetuate the lopsided structures we have, not promote those we want. It’s a world in which lenders and insurers charge you more if you’re poor or Black and less if you’re rich or white, and one in which advertisers and political campaigners know exactly how to press your buttons by serving ads meant just for you. It’s a more perfect feedback loop, a lifelong echo chamber, a life-size version of the Facebook News Feed. And insofar as it cripples social mobility because you’re stuck in your own pattern, it could further hasten the end of the American dream. What may be scariest is not when the machines are wrong about you — but when they’re right.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/22/magazine/hank-asher-data.html
McKenzie Funk notes:
A world in which computers accurately collect and remember and increasingly make decisions based on every little thing you have ever done is a world in which your past is ever more determinant of your future. It’s a world tailored to who you have been and not who you plan to be, one that could perpetuate the lopsided structures we have, not promote those we want. It’s a world in which lenders and insurers charge you more if you’re poor or Black and less if you’re rich or white, and one in which advertisers and political campaigners know exactly how to press your buttons by serving ads meant just for you. It’s a more perfect feedback loop, a lifelong echo chamber, a life-size version of the Facebook News Feed. And insofar as it cripples social mobility because you’re stuck in your own pattern, it could further hasten the end of the American dream. What may be scariest is not when the machines are wrong about you — but when they’re right.