[burningion]

I think this is really something even more nefarious than background listening.

Facebook and Google are using machine learning and massive data sets about the mental worlds we inhabit when we think nobody is looking.

And these algorithms are optimizing for clicks in so many vectors of psychological need and vulnerability that it’s already become incomprehensible for how they can know the things we haven’t yet understood we will think about.

They know about our conversations because they know the searches of the people we talk to, and what they’re thinking about. What will be on the top of their mind.

There’s nothing to go looking for or debunk. It’s just the next step in the data collection experiment.

I’m guessing they’ll need to tone down the effectiveness of ad targeting, if they haven’t already.

[cryoshon]

for those of us who are digital natives, even if we spend great effort in covering our tracks, they likely know more about us than we know about ourselves.

they use this information to employ a system of psychological levers which results in us willingly handing their proxies our money.

is it a good business practice. certainly. is it simple theft? my instinct is to say no, and instead ask:

is this new mastery of knowledge about peoples behaviors and the ability to affect other behaviors on a mass scale the most terrifying form of feudalism that mankind has known?