Will Data about you, become you?
Would you ever let Facebook or Instagram automatically swipe right? How about letting Linkedin automatically manage your career and engage in salary negotiations? Or Google make the final decision on your choice of leader for your country?
It seems far fetched, but some would argue we are already halfway there. Netflix’s documentary last year showed how these platforms already know us better than we know ourselves sometimes, and most definitely better than our acquaintances.
They are able to hook us in for hours of social networking activity by showing the right content based on learnings from our interactions over time. But if they know us this well already, it’s only time before they know us better than we know ourselves. Then is it time to let Social networks and their AI powerhouses just make the decisions for us? Removing our human nature for emotional decisions.
I already let Sleep App wake me up based on my data. The decision was mine, but I handed over the power. Is handing over the power of other aspects of my life such a leap? I think it’s just a matter of time.
Tinder has already shown that people are becoming busier than ever and need a quick way to find their partner. It’s not alone. There are hundreds of dating sources promising to find that special someone without too much trial by error. But, again, today, you are still making the decision. What if one day such data holders know you, and your future spouse, much better than you know yourself. What a curious world of perfection that could bring. Doesn’t a little heartbreak make us though?
Instagram, Facebook and Google already monitor what I interact with and the things that are my core values. They know which political messages I like, those I hide and the people I follow. They understand my economic, educational and health conditions. Why not let them automatically vote for me? In every and any political question. We all look at life through our own beliefs and fail to see a lot of positive/negatives that our chosen/not chosen political party does. Data would make things a little more - honest perhaps.
If that’s possible, and LIFE is too busy for negotiating and navigating it, then perhaps it’s also within the helms of reality that we let LinkedIn manage our careers. It would know what we do, who we connect with, our reach and be able to do the matchmaking. It would know our salary expectations, what is the going rate and negotiate on our behalf. Perhaps find the best deals for everyone, employee and company without emotions involved. It could also function as a continuous career manager, pitching it’s human for roles and managing our professional life so we only need to wake up, put on our shoes and hit the office - or new office.
Of course, this is all a little tong-in-cheek, but fun to think about. What do you think?
Image credits:
Photo by Alexander Sinn on Unsplash
Photo by h heyerlein on Unsplash
Photo by Hello I'm Nik ?? on Unsplash