Corporate mind games

This article is saying that Recorded Future can predict the future decisions people will make. It seems to point to companies using this information to determine who they will hire and how they will evaluate their employees. I find the concept that someone could know what i was going to do before i knew i was going to do it disturbing. I don't think the actual issue is whether this method of analysis works. The real problem is what will happen when companies use this profile all of their employees to try to determine who will be reliable and successful. If companies use this predictive analytics and start making employment changes due to what they find all kinds of problems could result.

In the article it talks about "shedding personal information like skin cells". That seems to be the case with facebook and other sites. The problem is that we have a specific culture or society by that i mean that we compartmentalize our lives. We are not the same people at work and at home. We keep our professional lives and personal lives separate. With these sites and with things like predictive analytics our professional life can effectively spy on our personal lives and then that can lead to adverse effects on our professional lives.

This article is demonstrating how access to information never available to employers before will definitely change the future job world. Whether or not this new technology actually works reliably is not the problem its what will access to this information mean for you at work. Is society OK with people losing jobs because an algorithm determined that they were likely going to quit or that they were going to take more sick days than their co-workers. We have to decide what sort of information should employers and companies have access to and how that information should affect decisions made about you and me.

Where Do We Draw The Line

What you say is completly true, on so many levels. I work for a boss who, on a daily basis, questions the dedication of every employee under him. If this tech came to fruition, he would apply it incorectly, rooting out those who he thought might leave, or be unfit for the job...
While screening employees before giving them the job is great, there are limits to what can, should, and will be done.

Or I will be standing over A LOT of dead bodies pretty soon. (Kidding)




(or am I?...)

Phemonix wrote:

Or I will be standing over A LOT of dead bodies pretty soon. (Kidding)




(or am I?...)

The advent of predictive technology might make the corporate world a better place, however, it will degreade the lives of whose job applications were deined because they were predicted to leave earlier then the CEO would like. (As Scott Adams would say, 'before the company has effectively stripped every ounce of productivity from them, and their eternal soul escape the corpse')

The world is bad enough with racism and the like- now we'll have to deal with this mess. WHO SAYS WE STORM GOOGLE? *grabs pitchfork* It's oooon, Google my friend, it's on

I am so behind you on that.

The thing I would be most concerned about is more cause-and-effect. If employers start treating employees based on who some computer has accorded worthy, people will start to (seemingly) act the part.
Some one who tests well, for example, will always be given the benefit of the doubt. If a project takes longer to complete, it might be assumed that it's because the project needed more time, not because maybe the person working on it is not very efficient. They could probably call in sick as much as they liked, because their word would always be taken at face value. The computer's word would always seem to be right, because due to preconceptions, these people would be able to do no wrong.
Someone who tested badly, on the other hand, would never get a break. Every sick day would be put under intense scrutiny. If a complicated project took a long time to complete they would probably just be called lazy and inefficient. If something went missing at work, we all know where the finger would point. Employers would find faults with these people because they're looking for them. On top of that, a person who knows that no matter what they do someone will find a problem with their work is not going to try very hard.

Then of course, there's the danger of it becoming available to the public for use. If information like this about anyone were available to anyone, we could even be looking at a rise in a new form of classicism. People would want to surround themselves with people of their own scores and higher. It might become common practice to screen potential friends. It would interefer even when it comes to who you date. Now googling a potential date is standard, but imagine if you had access to information that not only told you what they were like, but how they might act in the future?

Suicidals would increase tenfold most likely, and it would be perpetually an employer's market, as they could pick and choose anyone they want. And they would know who would be good picks, which could poetntially drive salaries down because they could just as easily replace you, what with everyone desperate for a job before their future changes.

It won't work for politicians though. Everyone knows that the job description of a politician includes lying, acceptinb bribes, and generally being a tool, so we'd be putting the worst of the worst in government positions. XD

I still say we kill Google. Start with assaulting the Church of Google!

I think this whole idea points to societies obsession with the future. People can scan their unborn children for genetic disease to know the chances that that child might die of some incurable disease. Everyone wants to be able to plan for the future. But what does that mean for society. Will we forsake the present for some unsure future that may come true as predicted? Planning too much for the future is a futile exercise. There are so many factors that accounting for them all would be impossible. Just because based on a program you can predict that a person may choose to quit in ten years that information means nothing if they die of cancer five years before that. I think that trying to foresee the future and try to do anything than other than try to be prepared is ignorant and arrogant. The future is not written in stone(unless you happen to be a determinist, but then it doesn't matter because nothing can be changed anyway). Trying to nail the future down to gain some kind of advantage in terms of individual people is in my opinion a futile and meaningless proposition.

GOOGLE LET THE FUTURE STAY IN THE FUTURE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Some will argue that Google is the future, and that scares me alot.

When Google does invade our lives, we have but one option left:

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