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He predicted the dark side of the Internet 30 years ago. Why did no one listen?

Philip Agre earned his PhD in 1989 in computer science, but his greatest impact came when he left the technical side of the field and helped create the field of social informatics, or the study of how technology and humanity interact. Then he disappeared, leaving behind a legacy of work that was eerily prescient in predicting how technology would impact society.

Phil Agre saw the dark side of the Internet 30 years ago. Why did n...

Phil Agre saw the dark side of the Internet 30 years ago. Why did no one listen? (https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/08/12/philip-agre-ai-disappeared/) In 1994 — before most Americans had an email address or Internet access or even a personal computer — Philip Agre foresaw that computers would one day facilitate the mass collection of data on everything in society. That process would change and simplify human behavior, wrote the then UCLA humanities professor. And because that data would be collected not by a single, powerful “big brother” government but by lots of entities for lots of different purposes, he predicted that people would willingly part with massive amounts of information about their most personal fears and desires. ... https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/08/12/philip-agre-ai-disappeared/ HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28159708 Phil Agre's homepage at UCLA is still alive and has numerous of his writings: https://pages.gseis...