[Air-L] Relevant fiction on all things data protection / technological progress / big-data marketing

Alex Leavitt alexleavitt at gmail.com
Tue Sep 2 22:30:04 PDT 2014


Not a book, but definitely fiction: highly, highly, highly recommend the
Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex 52-episode Japanese animation TV
series, which explores a team of government military hackers in a
post-cyborg age. From 2006, it explored big issues like Anonymous and the
NSA before those things blew up. Also, I think it has THE BEST exploration
of contemporary -- and future -- internet issues of any recent media, like
digital city infrastructure hacking and spontaneously-developing robot AI.

---

Alexander Leavitt
PhD Candidate
USC Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism
http://alexleavitt.com
Twitter: @alexleavitt
On Sep 2, 2014 10:21 PM, "Robert Ackland" <robert.ackland at anu.edu.au> wrote:

> My favourite example of data mining in marketing is in "Permutation City"
> by Greg Egan, Orion/Millennium: London, 1994.
>
> The protagonist receives spam video calls from avatars representing family
> members and friends, who try to sell her products.  One day her spam
> detector lets a spam call through (the avatar is of her mother, I think)
> and it is so accurate that she gets tricked and keeps watching until it
> starts making the sales pitch.  She curses herself, because she realises
> that the marketing company will use her response to improve its algorithms,
> thus making it harder for her own spam detection system to block future
> spam calls.
>
> Rob Ackland
>
>
> On 03/09/14 05:46, max gindt wrote:
>
>> Good evening,
>> since some of you asked for my reading list, here it is.
>>
>> - Jaron Lanier, Who owns the future?
>> - Thomas Pynchon, Bleeding edge
>> - Evgeny Morozov, To save everything, click here
>> - Dave Eggers, The Circle
>> - Luke Dormehl, The Formula
>> - Big Data - Das neue Versprechen der Allwissenheit (collected essays)
>> - Mercedes Bunz, Die stille Revolution
>> - Daniel Miller, Das wilde Netzwerk: Ein ethnologischer Blick auf Facebook
>> - Alain Desrosières, Prouver et gouverner
>> - Shintaro Miyazaki, Algorythimisiert - Eine Medienarchäologie digitaler
>> Signale und unerhörter Zeiteffekte
>>
>> As you can see, there are some books which are very accessible and written
>> in a journalistic manner, especially Dormehl.  Eggers' book which is only
>> now getting popular in western europe is, I think, the near perfect
>> depiction of the very-near future, although with little literary merit.
>> Pynchons' has almost no place on the list but is still inspired by
>> 2000-style internet... Desrosières writes about the use of statistics in
>> government so not directly internet-related but still an interesting
>> subject for those interested in probabilistic governing, which as a
>> subject
>> of course extends to data-based profiling and grouping. Finally, Miyazaki,
>> with a historical approach details various technological developments and
>> social uses all tending toward the all-day use of algorithms in our
>> machines.
>>
>> So, again, what are your suggestions (and thanks for those already given)?
>>
>> Max
>>
>>
>> On Tue, Sep 2, 2014 at 7:56 AM, Stine Gotved<gotved at itu.dk>  wrote:
>>
>>  Yes, I agree on Morgan - also his "Black Man" is fantastic.
>>> Please, share the reading list!
>>> :)
>>> Stine
>>>
>>> On 01/09/14 22.43, "Alejandro Tortolini"<alemtor at gmail.com>  wrote:
>>>
>>>  I think "Altered carbon", by Richard K. Morgan.
>>>> Best,
>>>>
>>>> Alejandro Tortolini
>>>> Buenos Aires, Argentina
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> 2014-09-01 17:37 GMT-03:00 max gindt<gindtmax at gmail.com>:
>>>>
>>>>  Dear Air-L-isti,
>>>>>
>>>>> some time ago I reviewed a few fiction- and non-fiction-books
>>>>> portraying
>>>>> technological change, data protection questions, big data-based
>>>>> marketing
>>>>> etc. Morozov, the latest Pynchon, Jaron Lanier, Mercedes Bunz, Dave
>>>>> Eggers'
>>>>> The Circle among other books, the aim being popular books illustrating
>>>>> the
>>>>> many near-future tech-related questions of our time.
>>>>>
>>>>> My question to the distinguished readers of this list being this: With
>>>>> which book would you personally continue the series? No matter what
>>>>> format
>>>>> or perspective (or degree of complexity).
>>>>>
>>>>> Thank you very much for any pointers and advice,
>>>>> Max Gindt
>>>>> Brussels
>>>>> _______________________________________________
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>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> Alejandro Tortolini
>>>> http://dooid.me/aletor
>>>> _______________________________________________
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>>>
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>
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