Via Quantum of Sollazo, we enjoyed this essay by James Ball that challenges the conventional wisdom on Big Data, put into over-drive by AI, and how the relentless onslaught of serviced, targeted advertisements, which are at best repetitive and worst suspect and irrelevant. 
If AI, ravenous and insatiable, was producing better insight from triangulated demographics, it stands to reason that commercials, banners and pop-ups would be more focused, engaging and effective, rather than less so and an annoyance to be batted away. Spam proliferated due its virtually no-cost duplication and personalisation and now the process is even more effortless, automated as intrusive slop—going in the opposite direction of what’s hyped and heralded by this unholy twinning. The myth of supremacy in Big Data—started by loyalty programmes for brick and mortar retail chains—likewise crumbles when one looks at other aspects it supposedly influenced, like electioneering through micro-targeted ads which on subsequent analysis, reframing the narrative, from the touted architecture of choice to marketing for sponsors on the network. Much more at the links above.
this week’s popular posts
-
First reported by Norwegian news outlet Dagen Nรฆringsliv—and possibly the rather sad and pathetic intimation was even thought fit to print ... -
Returning to the Stรถrmthaler See campgrounds for Easter weekend with a view of the floating, phantom steeple, the Vineta created to evoke... -
As PfRC turns seventeen years old we wanted to once again extend our gratitude to our readership and to the members of the wider blogosphere... -
Taking advantage of the forest’s shade for a hot, muggy day, we explored more of the trails along the shores of the Mรผritz—second only... -
For the first leg of our return camping trip after many, many years to the Mecklinbergischer Seeplatte, we took another campsite on the Lei... -
tariff tango : Canada’s claymation response to Trump’s thirty-five percent levy on exports and other affronts modulator-demodulator : a tri... -
The island settlement central to Slavic paganism up until the twelfth century and the forced conversions of the Wendish and Polabian crusa... -
Although unclear how the US president could interfere with the multi-billion dollar development project already allocated by the Washington... -
H found a habour renting out sports boats for the day in Eldenberg, being on of themain tributaries and outflows for the system of glacial... -
Arriving in the town—not so ancient as its first documented mention suggests by geographer Ptolemy as Virunium, Slavic for the place of...