"Build a Better Monster: Morality, Machine Learning, and Mass Surveillance"

I came to the United States as a six year old kid from Eastern Europe. One of my earliest memories of that time was the Safeway supermarket, an astonishing display of American abundance.

It was hard to understand how there could be so much wealth in the world.

There was an entire aisle devoted to breakfast cereals, a food that didn’t exist in Poland. It was like walking through a canyon where the walls were cartoon characters telling me to eat sugar.

Every time we went to the supermarket, my mom would give me a quarter to play Pac Man. As a good socialist kid, I thought the goal of the game was to help Pac Man, who was stranded in a maze and needed to find his friends, who were looking for him.

My games didn’t last very long.

By: Maciej Cegłowski

Full Story: http://idlewords.com/talks/build_a_better_monster.htm

Many thanks to Lance Trebesch of http://www.ticketprinting.com for sharing.