Weaponized Classical Music
Five Things You Need to Read Today
1. I'm Sorry, Dave, I'm Afraid I Can't Let You Do That
A while back, I warned that big Silicon Valley companies like Google depend on an implicit social contract in which we agree to let them have access to a bunch of our data, but with the expectation that they will do nothing worse with it than annoy us with creepy customized banner ads. If we start to suspect that they want to manipulate us for a political agenda, they face the risk that a large number of their users are going to rebel.
Well, file this under "worst fears realized." Somebody leaked an internal Google proposal for a system that would track user's behavior, not for the purpose or helping them pursue their own preferences, but for the purpose of altering their behavior to meet some larger social goal.
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