That which computation sets out to map and model it eventually takes over. Google set out to index all human knowledge and became the source and arbiter of that knowledge: it became what people actually think. Facebook set out to map the connections between people – the social graph – and became the platform for those connections, irrevocably reshaping societal relationships. Like an air control system mistaking a flock of birds for a fleet of bombers, software is unable to distinguish between its model of the world and reality – and, once conditioned, neither are we.
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