There’s a deeper connection between concerns about OpenAI and the “Facebook is spying on us via microphones” meme: While there are perfectly rational, non-hot

There’s a deeper connection between concerns about OpenAI and the “Facebook is spying on us via microphones” meme: While there are perfectly rational, non-hot-mike explanations for the phenomenon of talking to a friend about something and then having it show up in an ad, the experience itself is damn spooky, no matter how it’s occurring. And hypertargeted ads are just the earliest ripples of the wave of AI-driven applications for predicting human behavior. Those predictions—about where we’ll decide to go on vacation, when we’ll quit our jobs, what we’d like to buy, who we’ll marry and divorce—will be more right than wrong to an incredibly spooky degree. I have no idea how society will react to that.