{"version":1,"type":"rich","provider_name":"Libsyn","provider_url":"https:\/\/www.libsyn.com","height":90,"width":600,"title":"How Algorithms Use Your Data to Control You","description":"Michael Shermer speaks with Oxford philosopher Carissa V\u00e9liz about the long human desire to know the future\u2014from ancient oracles and astrology to AI, surveillance capitalism, predictive policing, and \u201cdata-driven\u201d decision-making. V\u00e9liz argues that prediction is rarely neutral: the same machinery that collects personal data also tries to forecast behavior, and once institutions start treating predictions as facts, forecasts can become tools of control. The conversation gets into why privacy matters for democracy, how algorithms can turn human lives into self-fulfilling prophecies, and why extraordinary people often fall outside predictive models. Shermer and V\u00e9liz also discuss the limits of science, the replication crisis, crime statistics, effective altruism, utilitarian ethics, and free will. Carissa V\u00e9liz is an associate professor at the Institute for Ethics in AI at the University of Oxford. Her first book, Privacy Is Power (Melville House) was an Economist book of the year and has been published in seven languages. Her academic work has been published in The Harvard Business Review, Nature, AI & Society, and The American Journal of Bioethics, among others. Her new book is Prophecy: Prediction, Power, and the Fight for the Future, from Ancient Oracles to AI. ","author_name":"The Michael Shermer Show","author_url":"https:\/\/www.skeptic.com\/michael-shermer-show\/","html":"