Ch. 1 & 2 of Big Data, Big Design
In Big Data, Big Design, Helen Armstrong breaks down machine learning (ML), predictive technology, and anticipatory design. She writes, “we can use predictive technology to care for our products, our homes, even our bodies.” Many examples include the experience of individual users, like ML making recommendations for a user searching for a new car. But what about analyzing groups?
Can ML be scaled to predict the movements, gatherings, and actions of groups of people like hate or terrorist groups? It’s possible this is already being done and only mishaps are printed in the news. The data pieces could be information spread around forums or websites – dates, times, location of potential meet-ups, inquiries into potential leaders, etc. Could predictive technologies and anticipatory designs be combined and mixed to produce preventative technologies?
Eli Pariser: Beware online “filter bubbles”
In a 2011 TedTalk, Eli Pariser discusses the growth of algorithmic gatekeepers blocking the flow of information to everyday users. Facebook, for instance, saw that Pariser clicked on the links of his liberal friends more than he clicked on the links of his conservative friends. Without Pariser’s consent, Facebook just removed the content produced by his conservative friends. The Internet gives you what it thinks you want to see, not what you need to see. Pariser’s discussion along with the other readings of this week made me contemplate the future of predictive technologies and its permanent place in our lives going forward. Humans are living longer and we change constantly. Not just day-to-day, but a decade to decade. Can prediction technologies and filter bubbles learn to adjust to humans and human nature, longer than just in the moment? Take, for instance, a former neo-Nazi or a person in recovery from drug addiction. These are individuals who may have been involved in toxic activity all across the web and for years, left this harmful trail across the internet. The algorithms don’t understand recovery, relapses, or redemption. It’s imperative to the recovery process to remove one’s self from the harmful environment that caused their downward spiral but if the Internet still thinks you are interested in Nazi rallies, how can you properly recover? Can you even “reset” your internet presence?