Fiona Enright

Meditation on Contemporary and Historical Information Systems; Lessons from the Atomic Age.

"The forfeit of one’s privacy is part of the digital episteme’s social contract – the individual is given access to an unprecedented level of information, products, and connectivity in exchange for one’s data. However, the information, products and connectivity offered by these magic helpers is tainted. Their interest in profit guides their hierarchy of information, compelling them to promote what is most useful to them, not necessarily what the user wants or needs. Google’s advertising regime introduces a covert bias into their IS that is meant to inform user’s opinions and actions, without the user feeling that they are being influenced. As a result, centralization, the most prominent component of surveillance capitalist-controlled IS, has become the ideal for machine-learning developers." Fiona Enright 'Section IV, Part c' The Human Element: Information, Knowledge and Art in the Digital Episteme, 2021