Our Preferences are Predictable. Are We Still Free?
Big Tech knows us better than we know ourselves. At least in the sense that it has greater statistical understanding of what we’ll click and what we’ll ignore, what we’ll buy and what we’ll search for. It can’t guess right every time, but, on the whole, the more data we feed it, the more accurate it gets. What feels intuitive and spontaneous, Big Tech already knows analytically.
Big Tech isn’t simply an inductive Aristotelian observer, exploring human nature out of a sense of curiosity. Often, it’s Baconian, seeking to exploit its knowledge and to gain greater knowledge by taking us out of natural habitat and placing us “on the wrack.” It doesn’t just know our preferences, it also changes them. Iago knows Othello’s propensity for jealousy, and exploits it, changing Othello into a worse version of himself.
I’m not here to say Big Tech is bad or be moralistic—the results, like most things in life, are double-edged.
But we should ask, from time to time—to the extent that we seek to be free—what can I do in this moment that isn’t statistically probable or algorithmically predictable? What novelty and singularity is there in this moment that never was and never will be?
If scientific success is defined, in part, by the ability to replicate an experiment with the same results over and over, what can we do, think, feel, experience, build, and share that are irreplicable?
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