Shared Links (weekly) Jan. 11, 2026

Imagine, if you will, your smart TV or home assistant listening in on conversations you’ve been having about layoffs in your industry, and that data is shared with a financial institution that then decides that you’re not a good credit risk. The AI took that conversation and combined it with a ton of financial information from other people who work in your industry and made that call. Is it accurate? Probably not, but when you start grabbing data from all over the place and building these huge algorithmic models, things can get a little messy. You become less of an individual and more of a conglomeration of all the people who do things like you, and when you add in a little spying, that can lead to all sorts of disastrous consequences. 

Do we want governments and corporations to have that much power? No, but as Bruce rightly points out, we haven’t done much of anything to stop them from taking it so far.