This is what I have gotten out of the various reviews of this book that have shown up on HN lately:
We, all of us, even the most rational and hard-headed, have buttons that can be pushed. Google and Facebook have gotten, and will continue to get, better and better at pushing our buttons, so that we will do things that may not be in our best interest. Advertisers have always tried to push our buttons, but never had access to the data, and the ML algorithms, that Google and Facebook deploy today. The datasets continue to grow, and the algorithms continue to improve. And no one is stopping it, and no one really knows how far it will go.
We, all of us, even the most rational and hard-headed, have buttons that can be pushed. Google and Facebook have gotten, and will continue to get, better and better at pushing our buttons, so that we will do things that may not be in our best interest. Advertisers have always tried to push our buttons, but never had access to the data, and the ML algorithms, that Google and Facebook deploy today. The datasets continue to grow, and the algorithms continue to improve. And no one is stopping it, and no one really knows how far it will go.