Lack of privacy gives a persuader unseen leverage to destroy personhood.

It was1968 when Arthur C. Clark and Stanley Kubrick collaborated on the film 2001: A Space Odyssey. In the film, the computer HAL (that's "IBM" shifted) is an Artificial Intelligence interacting with humanity in the same way Alexa might. Today, a single AI doesn't run the planets infrastructure. Were not there yet. We have Siri and that's another movie anyhow.

HAL operates THE critical mission. Unlike the follow-ons the film inspired... humans are not driving the ship. HAL decides to go off-road. I start with 2001 because the pivotal scene brings home the effects of small - but cumulative - violations of privacy. The possible destruction of our species because privacy was not proactively designed into the system. In the end, despite MacGyver-like measures to preserve it, privacy is breached, the machine knows all... and everybody dies. That's a lie. But if you haven't seen it, I'm not clarifying. Knowledge is power.

Knowledge vs Information

Let's bring it down to earth. After enlightenment... the dishes. What I'll write about is the information that people give away - billions of dollars of it - everyday. Where does it go? And what is done that, well... makes it worth billions of dollars?

Despite the fact we know HAL and Siri are big clusters of supercomputers and use words like "artificial" and 'things" to describe technology - we name the AIs with human names. Call them "he," or "she." Pretend these heavy hot wired boxes are floating in a pretty blue sky. As we perceive programs becoming more "human" - humans are becoming more programmed. The best ideas about what it means to be human - autonomy, freedom, privacy (the right to be let alone) are returning to be... just ideas. This is not science fiction, it is happening now and the front line in the deflation of these gifts is the invasion of privacy.

A fully autonomous car now needs twenty-nine cameras. Drive a Tesla? Ten cameras, and one reads your facial expressions. 4,000 Gigabytes of them up to the cloud. Who owns that data? It is the subject of... disagreement. Perhaps the responsibilities and opportunities are not clear enough at this time.

Our Age looks interesting through the hidden peephole of information privacy.

PRIVACY

In a western movie, there's always a hostile scout doing recon just over a rocky overlook. He's gathering information with a spy glass. You can't do anything about him... Maybe build a fence. Down in the saloon, there's a magic show, complete with a fortune telling psychic. His accomplice is outside the door taking names and addresses on a petition, maybe for a church or charity. Names go straight to the well paid town gossip and new information goes not-so-straight to the psychic who rewards all with astonishment. (Sorry if that ruins psychic shows). But who is the psychic today? What is the act? Who gets paid?

Today, we buy our tickets online... With credit cards and phone numbers. These numbers allow the big gossip (who's been collecting dirt on us for years) to lookup your Mini-Me in the sky. Your Mini-Me knows (and tells the highest bidder) more about you then you will ever know. The following pages detail where the Mini-You data comes from and where it goes. Even the programmers, social psychologist, economists, and mathematicians who create AIs, don't know exactly what happens to all the data.

PERSUASION

There are important relationships between privacy, persuasion, and personhood. This writing unrolls that idea and might convince you to looking at those relationships closely. The act of "convincing" has a long history and many words describe how it actually happens; educate, argue, influence, persuade, manipulate, and coerce. Words allow us to talk things over with others. With no words, people are isolated. With too many words, people are isolated. Isolated people are easier to manipulate. Ask any cult leader or narcissist.

The threads of our very personal information run to interesting places, and are held by people or machines you'll never meet. But they've met you and you are at a very unfair disadvantage. Your buttons will be pressed - you will be persuaded.

PERSONHOOD

Today's show gives anger and love. And it's free! No, it's not. When we are given something - we become indebted to the giver, [Chialdi] We owe them and pay for the shows free lunch with unconscious allegiance... something like love. The anger serves to distract, to wrap the psychic in a fog and hide the common ground, our personhood. Psychics are not interested in having their profitable illusions exposed so they help people with distraction so tricks will be overlooked, friendships sawn in half.

When people make up their own minds, they come to their own conclusions. They are free to act on their own conclusions and retain personhood. When people do not make up their own minds, they do not come to their own conclusions. They are not free to act on their own conclusions and give up personhood. But everyone wants a free mind... attached to a free body.

Lack of privacy gives a persuader unseen leverage to destroy personhood.