The Rise of the Computer State

b The Rise of the Computer State

Steven Sinofsky (@stevesi)
4/28/19, 2:01 AM
https://twitter.com/stevesi/status/1122380315710803968

1/3 This new book on "Automating Inequality" puts for the thesis (according to the published excerpt) that 40 years ago computers did not help with decisions.
"The Rise of the Computer State" was published in 1980. All of the same, but without "AI", literally only "databases." pic.twitter.com/f8XIBeR66L 

[image] David Burnham, 1980. The Rise of the Computer State
[image] Virginia Eubanks, 2019. Automating Inequality

2/3 I suppose one could say it was right thought it took 40 years and was not the phone company and would happen in a completely different way that put forth.  

The jacket copy and forward from "The Rise of the Computer State" are all too familiar.
[image] Forward by Walter Chronkite 

3/3 How can this dialog get to discussing the humans and institutions and not keep transfering accountability to tools? Inequality, bias, bad/evil/awful choices, bad people, and poorly run institutions have existed before databases and before AI.

2:01 AM - 28 Apr 2019

-----------

Summer Reading 2013: “The Rise of the Computer State” by David ...
By Caroline O’donovan,   Nieman Labs, 8 Aug 2013, 10 A.M.
https://www.niemanlab.org/2013/08/summer-reading-2013-the-rise-of-the-computer-state-the-threat-to-our-freedoms-our-ethics-and-our-democratic-process-by-david-burnham-1983/

  David Burnham's The Rise of the Computer State came out in 1983, a time when, for the most obvious of reasons, making comparisons between George Orwell's 1984 and real life was coming into vogue. ... And yet Orwell, with his vivid imagination, was unable to foresee the actual shape of the threat that would exist in 1984.
 
  ------------
 
The rise of the computer state : Burnham, David, 1933- : Free ...
https://archive.org/details/riseofcomputerst00burn
Oct 7, 2010
This book can be borrowed for 14 days.Log In and Borrow

The Rise of the Computer State is a comprehensive examination of the ways that computers and massive databases are enabling the nation’s corporations and law enforcement agencies to steadily erode our privacy and manipulate and control the American people. This book was written in 1983 as a warning. Today it is a history. Most of its grim scenarios are now part of everyday life. The remedy proposed here, greater public oversight of industry and government, has not occurred, but a better one has not yet been found. While many individuals have willingly surrendered much of their privacy and all of us have lost some of it, the right to keep what remains is still worth protecting.