Phil Agre saw the dark side of the Internet 30 years ago. Why did no one listen?
In 1994 — before most Americans had an email address or Internet access or even a personal computer — Philip Agre foresaw that computers would one day facilitate the mass collection of data on everything in society.
That process would change and simplify human behavior, wrote the then UCLA humanities professor. And because that data would be collected not by a single, powerful “big brother” government but by lots of entities for lots of different purposes, he predicted that people would willingly part with massive amounts of information about their most personal fears and desires. ...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/08/12/philip-agre-ai-disappeared/
HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28159708
Phil Agre's homepage at UCLA is still alive and has numerous of his writings: https://pages.gseis.ucla.edu/faculty/agre/
Previous HN posts on Agre:
- Phil Agre Missing (Nov 26, 2009) http://chronicle.com/article/FriendsColleagues-Search/49222/ https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=962065
- Missing Internet Pioneer Phil Agre Is Found Alive (Feb 1 2010) http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2010/01/missing_internet_pioneer_phil.html https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1093773
He's mentioned in several HN comments as well, though suprisingly few. Notably: recommended writings: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21818796