‘We live in an increasingly automated, data-driven world where choices and decisions are made for us, and sometimes, against us, and in which we are being subconsciously manipulated, based on the data trail we leave behind us. As a consequence, increasingly humanity is losing agency in favour of globally operating technology and media companies, who are building empires based on big data, data mining, and artificial intelligence. Their wealth and power stems from targeted advertising, but increasingly rests on the wealth of data and profiles of individuals which can be packaged and re-packaged to be sold to the highest bidder. The data collected is not just used for advertising, but also for surveillance, differential pricing, influencing elections, targeted misinformation, predicting sentiments in investment markets, and selling the data for managing corporate risk to the detriment of the consumer, particularly in respect of credit and insurance. Likewise, cybercrime uses techniques of profiling and exploitation of the vulnerable. The global data-driven economy is wide-ranging, has many benefits, but equally, high risks.’
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OUP Blog, 24th March 2021
Source: blog.oup.com
