Off The Shelf

“In the absence of clearly-defined goals, we become strangely loyal to performing daily trivia until ultimately we become enslaved by it.” — Robert A. Heinlein Privacy intrusion, the surveillance state. Call it The Creepy Internet . A few months ago, I attended a day-long seminar at a well-known global technology company. They are partnering tirelessly with companies applying machine learning, big data and artificial intelligence to know you better than you know yourself. We’ve all experienced ‘stalker’ ads that follow you around online - even after you've bought the product - but this goes way beyond that level of creepiness. It’s not simply that disconcerting feeling of seeing a product before you consciously knew you wanted it. We piece together ‘reality’ from a remarkably small amount of information, and increasingly that reality is manipulated through your connection to the digital world. This can be positive: it can help us make healthy choices, avoid traffic jams, keep in to...