Some time around 2016 when we awoke in a “post-truth world” many people started asking:
Who defines reality?
The evidence suggests that this question does not go far enough.
AN ANSWER FROM… DATA ANALYTICS
Imagine a powerful entity that is integrated into a system.
It is able to analyze the system: it knows the current state, it can explain the past evolution from one state to the next, it makes accurate predictions about what the next state will be, and it can take actions to alter the expected next state.
In the boring biz of data we call this the Four Stages of Data Analysis:
Each stage is more complex than the last and builds on knowledge of the previous stage.
After all, how can you predict anything if you don’t know anything?!
The last stage — prescriptive data analytics— is interesting (I promise!): using our knowledge of the system and our predictions, we can make choices that will affect the expected future.
Essentially, we can input information into the system now to bring about specific changes in the future.
PLATE SPINNING
Let’s think about this in terms of plate spinning.
The basic premise is that whilst the plates spin, they stay up. When the plates slow down too far, they fall and break.
For us, a broken plate = bad.
It turns out:
time until plate falls = speed of plate + math
If we have some plates and we measure the speed of each, we can now find how long until each plate breaks.
Can we stop our plates breaking?
Sure. Let’s take some plates and measure the speed of each (descriptive analysis), use our math to detect when each plate starts to slow too much (predictive analysis), and give it a spin to prevent it falling (prescriptive analysis).
Great, we can now keep our favorite plates for another time.
SELLING THINGS
Okay, so we can change how plates spin for our own interests, but why is this important?
Imagine now that instead of wanting to spin plates, we want to influence people.
Read: sell people things.
Let’s take a shop that sells running shoes.
Their four stages of data analysis could be summarized as
- How many of each shoe did we sell?
- What was the reason behind different shoe sales, and who bought them?
- How many of each shoe will we sell next week?
- How can we MAKE this specific group of people buy more of these specific shoes?
LET’S RUN AN EXPERIMENT [PUN MOST CERTAINLY INTENDED]
Okay. So let’s assume now that we know all about what we are selling, who is buying, and have accurate predictions about future sales.
Let’s be prescriptive: we can run an experiment to see if we can influence people to buy beyond our initial predictions.
Let’s take a specific set of 100 people that have searched for our shoes online, and another random set of 100 people who have not. Next, let’s spam both groups with ads and see if they buy our product.
SELLING… IDEAS?
Plates and shoes. Right. Gotcha.
But what if instead of selling shoes to 100 people, we are selling information and ideas to EVERYONE.
Well now it’s a little trickier:
- First of all there are like 8 billion of us.
- We each are a unique combination of preferences from a long list of attributes.
- We interact with each other in hugely complicated ways.
Who on Earth would have the knowledge to even attempt to understand this?
Someone would need:
- the state of the characteristics of each person now.
- a long history of how each person has behaved in the past to validate predictions.
- an understanding of how this person is connected to other people.
- the ability to alter each person’s current state by feeding them information.
The prime candidate for this is the so-called “tech giants”.
BIG TECH
Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Apple, Amazon.
These guys have data. Obviously! Their product literally is gathering data to understand people and how they fit together.
Some of the numbers are staggering.
Facebook has billions of active users on its messenger platforms and 4 out of 5 of the most downloaded apps ever. Ever.
Social media is not just used for messaging: most people use it for news too.
Meanwhile, over 83% of web sessions begin with a Google search.
That means that nearly 2 billion users trust Google to be their first source of truth.
If humanity has a question about their reality, they expect these companies to have the answer.
PRESCRIPTIVE BIG TECH
If I were a tech giant, would it be possible to PRESCRIBE the future of the world?
In other words, could I actively influence the future of humanity to suit my aims?
How might I do it?
Well certainly I have already worked out that I can use data without fear of repercussions:
- like selling private messages.
- or recording and analyzing private conversations of my users.
- and knowingly influencing democratic process.
Maybe I would control the information that my users see:
- by modifying my algorithms and introducing bias.
- introducing problematic news standards.
- “manufacturing consensus” on important issues.
- or simply removing the people I don’t like from my platform.
I would definitely want to increase my grip on the physical world by:
- tracking and controlling who people associate with on behalf of governments.
- having a bird’s eye view of humanity.
- profiting from and influencing elite intergovernmental organisations.
- controlling and owning next generation of internet infrastructure.
For what ends I would be influencing the future of humanity is anyone’s guess. Many people seek to bring about positive change in the world, others lust for power, money and control.
One thing’s for sure: without transparency and democracy why would you trust me?
THE QUESTION THAT DRIVES US
It’s the question that brought you here.
You know the question, just as I did.
“Who defines reality?”
The answer is out there.
Maybe it is those that control the information that define reality.
But maybe it’s time we ask:
“Who prescribes reality?”