IF THEN. How the future was invented in the 60s

Just finished this book titled “IF THEN , How Simulmatics Corporation Invented the future”. The book traces the origins, rise, and the subsequent quiet demise of an organization called the Simulmatics( combination of simulation and automatic).

The company claimed credit for having gotten JFK elected president in 1960 ( Sounds like Cambridge Analytica of the modern world , right ? ).The promise by its founder to investors was “ The company proposes to engage in estimating probable human behavior by the use of computer technology ,amongst others. Simulmatics, in the 1960s , proposed “ mass culture model”, to collect consumer data from companies across all media-publishing houses, record labels etc. to devise a model that could be used to direct advertising and sales by way of meta- media. Sounds very familiar today but to think that this idea was conceived over 60 years ago was a fascinating discovery .

Simulmatics is the link that connects the 1960s to the the modern day technologies that predict , and to a great extent influence and direct human behavior. Before I came across this book, I had never heard any mention of Simulmatics across considerable  literature on Predictive analytics or AI that I have gone through in the past few years

Overall, a very interesting book that provides a great window to a time , long ago, where the foundation of the present was laid down by a now unknown organization.

Ironically, the demise of the corporation came at nearly the same time when the internet was demoed to the world .

https://www.amazon.com/If-Then-Simulmatics-Corporation-Invented/dp/1631496107