I found this great podcast on the bus home on Monday and wrote a few notes whilst listening:
Algorithms make modern day oracles - how bad the traffic will be?How the weather will be? - these are the ones we are aware of...
Algorithms that predict diseases, they’re shaping and distorting the future, deciding it
The past - oedipus - nothing would’ve happened if no one believed the prophecy
Oracle of Delphi - lots of ambiguity in her high offerings - riddles
Why did people believe them? The message - “know thyself”
She gave them dialogue
We have turned them into our servants now, we are reliant on "oracles"
We don’t want to think for ourselves we want our questions answered immediately - transport, forecasts, betting
We use them but they use usand store our data
Ancient times you would offer a goat or a lamb to an oracle
Public authorities use algorithms for predicting what public will do
Amazon's AI recruiting algorithm was found to be biased against women
An algorithm in American hospitals required black patients to be sicker to receive the same treatment
Historical inertia - when the past repeats in the future - this is applied to people with the assumption of no free will - Ako Seronatas
Predictive algorithms are not really predicting, they are projecting the past
Our brain is no different to our body - the soul and mind aren't independent, controlling the body - there is no ghost in the machine, just the machine
