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Marketing, which is basically applied psychology.

• mywittyname 10y ago
  You're absolutely right, and sadly, this (IMHO) is to the detriment to humanity as a whole. The ease and accuracy with which the fitness function provides feedback (did this change result in more money being spent?) means that this field will grow to be very accurate in an extraordinary time-frame. It's not just the fact that this will be used to drain the wealth from society. The same techniques used in marketing to get people to purchase a product can be applied to convince them to do anything. We've already seen how fake new can be used to convince people to bring rifles into pizza places full of young children. If these techniques can be applied in an automated and targeted fashion, the results could be absolutely devastating to society. Imagine what happens when a company develops the technology that could mine social media profiles, identify people that would likely commit mass murders, then use automated tools the subtly influence their behavior in such a way as to promote that outcome. Then they sell it to the highest bidder. I consider that to be a scary world to create. And I think it is totally plausible, if not inevitable.
  • cm2012 10y ago
    I work in marketing and personally budget out 8 figures+ a year in direct marketing spend. The truth is it's really hard to persuade people of things. Direct Marketing is 50% about finding people who already agree with you and want your product, 25% getting their attention, and 25% is testing which product messaging most jibes with people.