68
4 Google as God?
build on mass surveillance and mass manipulation using personalized information.
Of course, these approaches could also be combined.
It turns out that both approaches are already on their way. Predictive policing is
now trying to anticipate the hotspots of criminal activities, but it also puts people in
jail who are assumed to potentially commit a crime in future.
10 We must be aware
that, in an over-regulated society, almost everyone violates some laws or regulations
within the course of a year.
11 One day, we may have to pay for all these little mistakes,
because it’s easy to record them now. With new, section-based speed controls, such
technologies are already being tested. The principle of “assumed innocence” which
has been the basis of democratic legal systems for ages, is now called into question.
With the use of mass surveillance, the assumption that most people are good citizens
has effectively been replaced by the assumption that everyone is violating rules
or may become an obstacle to the plans of the “wise king”, “big government”, or
“benevolent dictator”. In many countries, specialized police forces have increasingly
been equipped like soldiers, and it seems that new, coercive strategies are being
tested during demonstrations, also when people didn’t behave in a criminal, violent
or improper way. So far, however, this tended to cause a public outcry or even
countrywide protests.
12 But what about the “Big Manipulator” approach? Wouldn’t
it be just perfect to reach good societal outcomes in a way that doesn’t hurt? While
we still don’t have sufficient data to understand the way humans decide, there are
now enough metadata about everyone to manipulate people’s choices.
4.5 Nudging: When the State Takes Care of Our Decisions
In times of mass collection of personal data, everyone is not only a potential suspect,
but also susceptible to manipulation attempts. While Big Data analytics is far from
being able to understand the complexity of human behavior, it is advanced enough to
manipulate our decisions based on a few thousand metadata that have been collected
about every one of us. Some companies earn many billions each year for influencing
us with personalized ads. Google, for example, one of the most valuable companies
10 See, for example, http://www.nzz.ch/zuerich/stadt-zuerich/die-akte-babini-1.18506892, but there
are increasingly more cases in various countries due to new “disturbing the peace” laws, which make
dissent a legal offence.
11 Schmieder [4].
12 Frankfurt, Germany: http://www.fr-online.de/blockupy-frankfurt/blockupy-demo-entsetzenueber-polizei-kessel,15402798,23144620.html; Zurich, Switzerland: http://www.tagesanzeiger.
ch/zuerich/stadt/Jetzt-reden-die-Eingekesselten/story/21545861,
http://www.nzz.ch/zuerich/sta
dtrat-wolff-und-polizeikommandant-blumer-drohen-strafverfahren-1.18574181; Ferguson and
Baltimore, USA: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-30193354, https://en.wikipedia.org/
wiki/2015_Baltimore_protests.
4 Google as God?
build on mass surveillance and mass manipulation using personalized information.
Of course, these approaches could also be combined.
It turns out that both approaches are already on their way. Predictive policing is
now trying to anticipate the hotspots of criminal activities, but it also puts people in
jail who are assumed to potentially commit a crime in future.
10 We must be aware
that, in an over-regulated society, almost everyone violates some laws or regulations
within the course of a year.
11 One day, we may have to pay for all these little mistakes,
because it’s easy to record them now. With new, section-based speed controls, such
technologies are already being tested. The principle of “assumed innocence” which
has been the basis of democratic legal systems for ages, is now called into question.
With the use of mass surveillance, the assumption that most people are good citizens
has effectively been replaced by the assumption that everyone is violating rules
or may become an obstacle to the plans of the “wise king”, “big government”, or
“benevolent dictator”. In many countries, specialized police forces have increasingly
been equipped like soldiers, and it seems that new, coercive strategies are being
tested during demonstrations, also when people didn’t behave in a criminal, violent
or improper way. So far, however, this tended to cause a public outcry or even
countrywide protests.
12 But what about the “Big Manipulator” approach? Wouldn’t
it be just perfect to reach good societal outcomes in a way that doesn’t hurt? While
we still don’t have sufficient data to understand the way humans decide, there are
now enough metadata about everyone to manipulate people’s choices.
4.5 Nudging: When the State Takes Care of Our Decisions
In times of mass collection of personal data, everyone is not only a potential suspect,
but also susceptible to manipulation attempts. While Big Data analytics is far from
being able to understand the complexity of human behavior, it is advanced enough to
manipulate our decisions based on a few thousand metadata that have been collected
about every one of us. Some companies earn many billions each year for influencing
us with personalized ads. Google, for example, one of the most valuable companies
10 See, for example, http://www.nzz.ch/zuerich/stadt-zuerich/die-akte-babini-1.18506892, but there
are increasingly more cases in various countries due to new “disturbing the peace” laws, which make
dissent a legal offence.
11 Schmieder [4].
12 Frankfurt, Germany: http://www.fr-online.de/blockupy-frankfurt/blockupy-demo-entsetzenueber-polizei-kessel,15402798,23144620.html; Zurich, Switzerland: http://www.tagesanzeiger.
ch/zuerich/stadt/Jetzt-reden-die-Eingekesselten/story/21545861,
http://www.nzz.ch/zuerich/sta
dtrat-wolff-und-polizeikommandant-blumer-drohen-strafverfahren-1.18574181; Ferguson and
Baltimore, USA: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-30193354, https://en.wikipedia.org/
wiki/2015_Baltimore_protests.