I hope that at some point American society as a whole will collectively reflect on the fact that it appears that swaying public opinion is not hard. What are the implications of this in terms of having a republican form of government? If collectively we can be swayed, or nudged in such a way that we will back certain policies then in what way are we free? Each of us tends to think we have free will and that we make our own decisions but it's clear that, statistically speaking, this isn't true when speaking about the population as a whole.
Of course attempts to say public opinion have been going on for thousands of years but what is new is the scale and ease at which this can be done. It was much harder back when there were hundreds of independent newspapers and when information exchange was much more costly both in terms of time and in expense. Now that vast amounts of information about hundreds of millions of people have been collected it's much easier to influence opinion.
What implications does this have for free speech? For instance, should algorithmically generated text garner the same free speech protections as I do? Should a couple of companies be in charge of the vast amount of data collected about us?
I'm reminded of an Isaac Asimov story about the future where only one person votes for President. The person has been chosen by a computer as being representative of the general population and he/she has the sole vote.
Of course attempts to say public opinion have been going on for thousands of years but what is new is the scale and ease at which this can be done. It was much harder back when there were hundreds of independent newspapers and when information exchange was much more costly both in terms of time and in expense. Now that vast amounts of information about hundreds of millions of people have been collected it's much easier to influence opinion.
What implications does this have for free speech? For instance, should algorithmically generated text garner the same free speech protections as I do? Should a couple of companies be in charge of the vast amount of data collected about us?
I'm reminded of an Isaac Asimov story about the future where only one person votes for President. The person has been chosen by a computer as being representative of the general population and he/she has the sole vote.