Algorithmic Feudalism
Stiegler insists, however, that authentic thinking and calculative thinking are not mutually exclusive; indeed, mathematical rationality is one of our major prosthetic extensions. But the catastrophe of the digital age is that the global economy, powered by computational “reason” and driven by profit, is foreclosing the horizon of independent reflection for the majority of our species, in so far as we remain unaware that our thinking is so often being constricted by lines of code intended to anticipate, and actively shape, consciousness itself.
– Via TruthDig: Fighting the Unprecedented ‘Proletarianization’ of the Human Mind
As the share price of Google parent company Alphabet soared to new highs in the U.S. equity market last week, several articles were published detailing just how out of control and dangerous this tech behemoth has become.
First, we learned Google is in the process of secretly sucking up the personalized healthcare data of up to 50 million Americans without the permission of patients or doctors. This was followed by a detailed report in the Wall Street Journal outlining how the search giant is meddling with its algorithms far more aggressively than executives lead people to believe. Despite these revelations, or more likely because of them, the stock price jumped to record levels. This is the world we live in.
You, a peasant, steals a sandwich->Jail
Google, a tech giant, steals the medical histories of 50 million Americans-> We are raising our earning estimates for the current quarter.
Google’s secret cache of medical data includes names and full details of millions – whistleblowerWhistleblower tells Guardian of growing alarm over secret transfer of medical history data, which can be accessed by Google staff
theguardian.com
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