Editor’s note: On 16 May, ChatGPT boss Sam Altman faced questions in a US senate committee hearing about the impacts of artificial intelligence (AI). He warned that government regulation of AI is ‘crucial’ if we are to avert risks. This article was originally published on 29 March and has been repromoted following these comments.
What if the internet saw you as an individual? The business model we call “surveillance capitalism” watches as you use the internet, recording what you pay attention to and what you buy, then calculates what other information you might find compelling, what other products you might want. For all the hype about its power, it’s a passive and fairly general system: you are sorted into a bucket by what can be known about you, and there are lots of other people in that bucket, and you all see the same stuff.
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