Hello World: Being Human in the Age of Algorithms by Hannah Fry, Today Hannah is a senior lecturer at University College London’s Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis.
Generally speaking, Hannah has written a wonderful book addressing algorithms and artificial intelligence. Society has certainly fallen behind the moral implications of algorithms and Hannah speaks truth to power.
Above all, do not let the idea of learning about algorithms, artificial intelligence, or machine learning intimate you. Hannah explains all of these terms with easy to understand examples. This is why her book is popular and well regarded.
I really appreciate how Hannah is addressing algorithm technology across the following chapters: Power, Data, Justice, Medicine, Cars, and Crime. However, I will save her best lesson for last.
Machines that see
So, Hannah reveals artificial intelligence allows a computer to identify dogs. Once a computer has identify over one million dog photos, artificial intelligence can identify dogs like an expert.
Yet, when applying this to breast cancer diagnosis the magic of machine learning can truly shine. Feed a computer millions images of breast cancer tissue images and a local doctor at a small community hospital in remote Iowa can tap into machine learning to help diagnose with a better degree of accuracy once only for a doctor with 20 years of breast cancer diagnosis at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City.
Moreover, Hannah poses throughout her book, the implications regarding important decisions in your life now determined by algorithms. Yes, sometimes “algorithms” are not equal:
In the 1920s, Robert Moses, a powerful New York urban planner, was keen to keep his newly finished, award-winning state park at Jones Beach the preserve of white and wealthy Americans. Knowing that his preferred clientele would travel to the beach in their private cars, while people from poor black neighbourhoods would get there by bus, he deliberately tried to limit access by building hundreds of low-lying bridges along the highway. Too low for the 12-foot buses to pass under.
Racist bridges aren’t the only inanimate objects that have had a quiet, clandestine control over people. History is littered with examples of objects and inventions with a power beyond their professed purpose.
p. 10
Hannah reveals how algorithms misrepresent data. There are parallels to Weapons of Math Destruction by Cathy O’Neil, who addressed elementary testing algorithm flaws that fired a respected, gifted teacher. A secret agreement with the school district denied a review the algorithm.
Data Brokers
Accordingly, Hello World provides a very powerful series of stories regarding data brokers. In fact, this is one of the most misunderstood elements of the internet and data privacy today:
Palantir is just one example of a new breed of companies known as data brokers, who buy and collect people’s personal information and then resell it or share it for profit. There are plenty of others: Acxiom, Corelogic, Datalogix, eBureau – a swathe of huge companies you’ve probably never directly interacted with, that are none the less continually monitoring and analysing your behaviour.
p. 48
Digital Stalking
The explosion in data brokers within the last five to eight years is staggering. Data brokers are certainly stalking you online. This should be a concern for everyone. Hannah
Every time you shop online, every time you sign up for a newsletter, or register on a website, or enquire about a new car, or fill out a warranty card, or buy a new home, or register to vote – every time you hand over any data at all – your information is being collected and sold to a data broker. Remember when you told an estate agent what kind of property you were looking for? Sold to a data broker. Or those details you once typed into an insurance comparison website? Sold to a data broker. In some cases, even your entire browser history can be bundled up and sold on.
p.49
Big Brother circa 2021
Above all, Hannah reveals how data brokers have almost every piece of data about you and your online activities:
In the most literal sense, within some of these brokers’ databases, you could open up a digital file with your ID number on it (an ID you’ll never be told) that contains traces of everything you’ve ever done. Your name, your date of birth, your religious affiliation, your vacation habits, your credit-card usage, your net worth, your weight, your height, your political affiliation, your gambling habits, your disabilities, the medication you use, whether you’ve had an abortion, whether your parents are divorced, whether you’re easily addictable, whether you are a rape victim, your opinions on gun control, your projected sexual orientation, your real sexual orientation, and your gullibility.
pp.49-50
Hannah unquestionably provides more insights to Data Brokers. Therefore, this subject is worth the price of Hello World alone. In conclusion Hannah has written a gem of a book. It is certainly enjoyable to see Hannah’s blunt truth alongside her witty humor. We are living in the gig economy. For the most part, this should be mandatory reading for everyone
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Hidden Forces | Hello World: Being Human in the Age of Algorithms