<story><title>Most Americans don’t realize what companies can predict from their data</title><url>https://theconversation.com/most-americans-dont-realize-what-companies-can-predict-from-their-data-110760</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>rixrax</author><text>I’m increasingly thinking that targeted ads are eerily similar to Isaac Asimov psychohistory[0].
E.g. you cannot reliably predict individual behavior, but with right|enough data you can reliably predict how a large enough population will act.&lt;p&gt;This is why individually we often feel that they’re off the mark, or we’re thrifty enough to ignore the ads or political or other targeting. But like others have pointed out, data is out there, and ‘they’ have infinite tries to get it right. And more importantly, it works already today. And it’s impacting everyone, so as an individuals, we also get impacted in indirect and subtle ways when e.g. friend of ours raves about new toy she bought without even realizing that she chose this product over the other because of all the ads that she never clicked.&lt;p&gt;[0] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Psychohistory_(fictional)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Psychohistory_(fictional)&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>Most Americans don’t realize what companies can predict from their data</title><url>https://theconversation.com/most-americans-dont-realize-what-companies-can-predict-from-their-data-110760</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>crispyambulance</author><text>The thing that makes me increasingly concerned is the possibility of an entity using this data-surveillance NOT so they can sell us more crap, but for ulterior malicious purposes.&lt;p&gt;We already got a taste of what this can mean with cambridge analytica.&lt;p&gt;But what if some hate group (or other extremist org) with deep pockets decided to buy up and use such data in more sinister ways, targeting individuals or organizations at large scale, developing &amp;quot;Stasi style&amp;quot; dossiers to use as leverage for future actions?&lt;p&gt;The information would not need to be &amp;quot;perfect&amp;quot; but it could get increasingly more accurate over time depending on how much attention they focus on their targets.</text></comment>