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[[Systems theory]], folks: the same way [[algorithm]]s can extract profound insight from [[data]] they can inject ineffable absurdity into it. | [[Systems theory]], folks: the same way [[algorithm]]s can extract profound insight from [[data]] they can inject ineffable absurdity into it. | ||
Commerce is a | Commerce is a ''profoundly human endeavour''. To ''want''; to ''need'' — to ''demand'' — is to be “intelligent” in a way that a machine cannot be. A “demand curve” is a [[second-order derivative]] of a uniquely mortal motivation. A clever algorithm can extract it from us — or for that matter ''create'' it ''in'' us — by manipulating our most secret communiqués. ''But only if they really are ours''. The massed [[algorithm]]ic armies feast upon a fey proxy. Just as they can hack our motivations, so can we hack theirs. An army of anonymous Redditors showed this quite nicely. | ||
It has only become one-sided through a conjuring trick; a sleight-of-hand foisted upon us, wherein a few corporations have harnessed the network effect to generate apparent monopolies. They have the technology, they have the scale; we are but ants. | It has only become one-sided through a conjuring trick; a sleight-of-hand foisted upon us, wherein a few corporations have harnessed the network effect to generate apparent monopolies. They have the technology, they have the scale; we are but ants. | ||