{"id":53674,"date":"2023-10-20T16:24:31","date_gmt":"2023-10-20T16:24:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/startupsmart.test\/2023\/10\/20\/the-web-has-become-a-hall-of-mirrors-filled-only-with-reflections-of-our-data-startupsmart\/"},"modified":"2023-10-20T16:24:31","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T16:24:31","slug":"the-web-has-become-a-hall-of-mirrors-filled-only-with-reflections-of-our-data-startupsmart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/uncategorized\/the-web-has-become-a-hall-of-mirrors-filled-only-with-reflections-of-our-data-startupsmart\/","title":{"rendered":"The web has become a hall of mirrors, filled only with reflections of our data – StartupSmart"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/em><\/span>The \u201cdigital assistant\u201d is proliferating, able to combine intelligent natural language processing, voice-operated control over a smartphone\u2019s functions and access to web services. It can set calendar appointments, launch apps, and run requests. But if that sounds very clever \u2013 a computerised talking assistant, like HAL9000 from the film 2001: A Space Odyssey<\/a> \u2013 it\u2019s mostly just running search engine queries and processing the results.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Facebook has now joined Apple, Microsoft, Google and Amazon with the launch of its digital assistant M, part of its Messaging smartphone app. It\u2019s special sauce is that M is powered not just by algorithms but by data serfs<\/a>: human Facebook employees who are there to ensure that every request that it cannot parse is still fulfilled, and in doing so training M by example. That training works because every interaction with M is recorded<\/a> \u2013 that\u2019s the point, according to David Marcus, Facebook\u2019s vice-president of messaging:<\/p>\n We start capturing all of your intent for the things you want to do. Intent often leads to buying something, or to a transaction, and that\u2019s an opportunity for us to [make money] over time.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Facebook, through M, will capture and facilitate that \u201cintent to buy\u201d\u009d and take its cut directly from the subsequent purchase rather than as an ad middleman. It does this by leveraging messaging, which was turned into a separate app of its own<\/a> so that Facebook could integrate PayPal-style peer-to-peer payments between users<\/a>. This means Facebook has a log not only of your conversations but also your financial dealings. In an interview with Fortune magazine at the time, Facebook product manager, Steve Davies, said<\/a>:<\/p>\n People talk about money all the time in Messenger but end up going somewhere else to do the transaction. With this, people can finish the conversation the same place started it.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n In a somewhat creepy way, by reading your chats and knowing that you\u2019re \u201ctalking about money all the time\u201d \u2013 what you\u2019re talking about buying \u2013 Facebook can build up a pretty compelling profile of interests and potential purchases. If M can capture our intent it will not be by tracking what sites we visit and targeting relevant ads<\/a>, as per advert brokers such as Google and Doubleclick. Nor by targeting ads based on the links we share<\/a>, as Twitter does. Instead it simply reads our messages.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n\n
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