The Silicon Valley’s belief that it can optimize society goes back a long way – and is in the 1960 have already failed.

US President John F. Kennedy, here speaking at Rice University, Houston, 1962. The Democrats wanted to predict his election campaign using data analysis.

(Image: Unsplash, History in HD)

If you work for Bank of America or the US Army, you may have already used Humanyze software. The company emerged from the MIT Media Lab and describes its products as “science-based analytics to promote adaptability”. If that sounds vague, it might be on purpose. Humanyze sells devices for spying on employees, for example NFC sensors, ID cards with RFID tags or microphones that record the sound and volume (but not the actual words) of conversations.

Or do you work in healthcare, retail or finance? Companies there use Receptiviti’s software. The Toronto-based company aims to “help machines understand people” by searching emails and slack messages for linguistic indications of dissatisfaction. “We are concerned about our perception as Big Brother,” the CEO of Receptiviti recently told the Wall Street Journal. He prefers to refer to employee monitoring as “company mindfulness”. (Orwell would certainly have had something to say about this euphemism.)

Such “people analytics” are usually justified with the improvement of efficiency or customer experience. Some governments and health experts also hope that tracking applications will prevent the spread of Covid – 19 to stop. However, companies and governments often avoid crucial questions: Who should know what? Is the information correct? What to do with it And will there ever be a reliable formula for human behavior?

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