[add-sub-mul-div]

We can be forgiven for not having foreseen how social media would be used against us, connecting the world sounded like a cool idea on the surface. But having gone through that there's no excuse to be naive and simplistic about AI.

[qeternity]

What harm has been inflicted upon you directly as a result?

[autoexec]

That's the beauty of the system we have. Your data can be routinely used against you and you'll never be told about it.

Your health insurance company can buy up records from a data broker that show you've been spending 6% more time at fast food restaurants compared to last year and they can use that to raise your rates, but they'll never tell you that was the reason, you'll just have a higher bill than before

An employer can pass you over for a job you've applied to because you wrote something on a social media site 12 years ago that offended their political ideology, but you'll never know that was why, you'll just never get a call back.

If you get arrested, you could be denied bail because some AI decided you were a flight risk or more likely to reoffend if released, but no one will be able to tell you what made the AI decide that and you may not even be told an AI was used to make that choice.

As our lives become increasingly interconnected and recorded and analyzed it becomes extremely difficult for you to be aware of how or why your data is impacting your life, but it would be a huge mistake to assume that it isn't.

[Scoundreller]

The funny thing about insurance is that as it becomes perfect at assessing risk, it becomes worthless.

Oh, you’re about to have a $x claim this year, your premium is $x + y% admin fee.

Just self insure and save yourself the y%.

[ribosometronome]

I imagine that probably /can/ name direct harms but why does someone need to have been directly harmed for them to be concerned about it/think it's bad? I've never been murdered but that's hardly reason for me to be okay with murder.

[Terr_]

That's like asking: "What harm has been inflicted upon you, individually and directly by some parts-per-million of a cancer-promoting chemical dumped in the town's water supply over the last twenty years?"

[add-sub-mul-div]

The worst downsides of social media weren't apparent or even necessarily occurring yet until we were well into it by more than just the first few years.