IF THEN- HOW ONE DATA COMPANY INVENTED THE FUTURE
Εκδότης John Murray , ISBN 9781529386165
'Back in the 1960s, long before the denizens of Silicon Valley were
infiltrating every facet of our lives, the smart men and women of The
Simulmatics Corporation were creating algorithms to predict and even
influence human behaviour. Jill Lepore reveals how this forgotten company
invented the data-weapons of the future. If Then is simultaneously gripping
and absolutely terrifying' Amanda Foreman
The Simulmatics Corporation, founded in 1959, mined data, targeted voters, accelerated
news, manipulated consumers, destabilized politics, and disordered knowledge--decades
before Facebook, Google, Amazon, and Cambridge Analytica. Silicon Valley likes to
imagine it has no past but the scientists of Simulmatics are the long-dead grandfathers of
Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk. Borrowing from psychological warfare, they used
computers to predict and direct human behavior, deploying their "People Machine" from
New York, Cambridge, and Saigon for clients that included John Kennedy's presidential
campaign, the New York Times, Young & Rubicam, and, during the Vietnam War, the
Department of Defence.
Jill Lepore, distinguished Harvard historian and New Yorker staff writer, unearthed from
the archives the almost unbelievable story of this long-vanished corporation, and of the
women hidden behind it. In the 1950s and 1960s, Lepore argues, Simulmatics invented
the future by building the machine in which the world now finds itself trapped and
tormented, algorithm by algorithm.
Περίληψη
'Back in the 1960s, long before the denizens of Silicon Valley were
infiltrating every facet of our lives, the smart men and women of The
Simulmatics Corporation were creating algorithms to predict and even
influence human behaviour. Jill Lepore reveals how this forgotten company
invented the data-weapons of the future. If Then is simultaneously gripping
and absolutely terrifying' Amanda Foreman
The Simulmatics Corporation, founded in 1959, mined data, targeted voters, accelerated
news, manipulated consumers, destabilized politics, and disordered knowledge--decades
before Facebook, Google, Amazon, and Cambridge Analytica. Silicon Valley likes to
imagine it has no past but the scientists of Simulmatics are the long-dead grandfathers of
Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk. Borrowing from psychological warfare, they used
computers to predict and direct human behavior, deploying their "People Machine" from
New York, Cambridge, and Saigon for clients that included John Kennedy's presidential
campaign, the New York Times, Young & Rubicam, and, during the Vietnam War, the
Department of Defence.
Jill Lepore, distinguished Harvard historian and New Yorker staff writer, unearthed from
the archives the almost unbelievable story of this long-vanished corporation, and of the
women hidden behind it. In the 1950s and 1960s, Lepore argues, Simulmatics invented
the future by building the machine in which the world now finds itself trapped and
tormented, algorithm by algorithm.
Πληροφορίες προϊόντος
- Συγγραφέας Lepore, Jill
- Eκδότης John Murray
- ISBN 9781529386165
- Κωδικός Ευριπίδη 040100072686
- Έτος κυκλοφορίας 2020
- Σελίδες 368
- Διαστάσεις
- Βάρος 350 gr