A Time For Empowerment Stanley Greenstein Doctoral Student, IRI
The digital trail Past Future
The linguistic footprint ● Premise: each human being uses language differently ● Collection of identifiers that stamps the writer as unique ● Reconstructed from a persons daily interactions ● Can be connected to a variety of personality characteristics, situation variables, and physiological (psychological) markers
The issue? ● Information collection ● Information is stored, aggregated, data-mined, analysed ● The algorithm ● A consequence of category The crux of the matter: 1)The algorithm determines the category 2)The category determines the consequence
”Social sorting” Category 1: Category 2: Category 4: Category 3: Consequence:
Social sorting cont. Consequence: Higher priced ticket Lower priced ticket Not allowed to fly Special treatment Airline company
The digital profile Bank Social media Supermarket Law enforcement Insurance co. Digital persona
Context: price discrimination ● “to charge different prices to various customers for the same goods or services” ● Some assumptions: – Profit, not control – Similar goods or services can attain varying price tags depending on the conditions under which they were purchased – Arbitrage disliked – Less information about a purchaser limits price discrimination possibilities – Negative connotation even illegal – Modern technology facilitates price discrimination
History repeats itself Context: price discrimination
Interstate Commerce Act 1887 ● Rates to be just and reasonable ● Personal discrimination forbidden ● “Undue or unreasonable preference” forbidden ● charging more for a short haul than a long haul forbidden ● pooling forbidden ● rates were to be published ● impediments to continuous travel of freight forbidden
Interstate Commerce Commission Railroad companies forced to provide the Commission with details of tariffs and fairs on a continual basis and provide notification in the change of these fares The Commission was tasked with oversight of the railroad industry and had the power to call upon various forms of information from the railroad companies as well as call witnesses
The price 100 SEK Maximal willingness to pay! Assumption: More information about customers, means less privacy, which allows for increased price discrimination
Difference? Technology! – Railroads did not have the ability to determine “willingness to pay”
Example 1: The Netflix recommendation
Netflix algorithm
Example 2: …in relation to the state…
“Issue”? Institutions know more about us than we know about ourselves! …and many, many more Insurance co.Social media Supermarket Law enforcement Bank
EMPOWERMENT
Definition em·pow·er transitive verb \im-ˈpau̇(- ə )r\ : to give power to (someone) : to give official authority or legal power to (someone)
Power of attorney
EMPOWERMENT ● Knowledge (incl. rights) ● Transparency ● Non-arbitrarness ● Criteria (relevance) ● Fairness ● Accountability ● Enforcement ● Challenge forum ● Technology
The End!