No Excuses Posted December 30, 2016 Share Posted December 30, 2016 Quote In most countries, the existence of a credit system isn't controversial. Past financial information is used to predict whether individuals will pay their mortgages or credit card bill in the future. But China is taking the whole concept a few steps further. The Chinese government is building an omnipotent "social credit" system that is meant to rate each citizen's trustworthiness. By 2020, everyone in China will be enrolled in a vast national database that compiles fiscal and government information, including minor traffic violations, and distils it into a single number ranking each citizen. That system isn't in place yet. For now, the government is watching how eight Chinese companies issue their own "social credit" scores under state-approved pilot projects. Quote Sesame rates the online financial transactions of those using Alibaba's payment system, in addition to data it obtains from its partners including the taxi service Didi Kuaidi, rating whether users bothered to settle taxi payments. Controversially, the company does not hide that it judges the types of products shoppers buy online. "Someone who plays video games for 10 hours a day, for example, would be considered an idle person, and someone who frequently buys diapers would be considered as probably a parent, who on balance is more likely to have a sense of responsibility," Li Yingyun, Sesame's technology director told Caixin, a Chinese magazine, in February. The Chinese authorities are watching the pilot process very carefully. The government system won't be exactly the same as the private systems, but government officials are certainly taking cues from the algorithms developed under the private projects. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-34592186 Read the whole thing. This is going to be the most bizarre and perhaps the largest social science experiment ever. Goes way further than the credit system we have in the US which is largely restricted to the finance sector. Too bad the Chinese government will never share this data for public analysis. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FanboyOf91 Posted December 30, 2016 Share Posted December 30, 2016 Big Data as a political system = guaranteed social-economic disaster. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Why am I Mr. Pink? Posted December 30, 2016 Share Posted December 30, 2016 Geez ..... China really really wants to transition and re-balance its economy from manufacturing to domestic consumer spending and services ..... like the US of A. Good easy to read but detailed article on China's shifting economy. http://www.wsj.com/articles/as-growth-slows-china-highlights-transition-from-manufacturing-to-service-1453221751 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tshile Posted December 30, 2016 Share Posted December 30, 2016 I like the idea behind it, the obvious problem is that things like this never work are open to so many problems. I wonder if it'll be like our credit system where it takes forever to go up the scale, but you can slide far down with a few mistakes. I was lucky in that my parents emphasized the importance of credit rating, and I didn't star utilizing mine until I was 25 or so. Almost every one of my friends jumped into credit cards when they were 18, made a lot of mistakes, and paid the price once they were actually an adult and needed to start borrowing real money for real things. Quote "A person's appearance is very important," explains Baihe's vice-president, Zhuan Yirong. "But it's more important to be able make a living. Your partner's fortune guarantees a comfortable life." Oh good. They've graduated from the importance of looks to the importance of money because it "guarantees a comfortable life." You know... our financial companies are using your social media accounts to factor into your credit score... It isn't a government sanctioned/controlled/funded database. We also have allowed our companies to basically collect all data on all of us and use it any way they want. Our government collects and stores every piece of data they can on us, where we go, and to whom we associate with. It's not the exact same, but it's not all that different... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DogofWar1 Posted December 30, 2016 Share Posted December 30, 2016 Well isn't this just the cutest little Orwellian nightmare. Black Mirror gonna need to step its game up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Larry Posted December 31, 2016 Share Posted December 31, 2016 5 hours ago, tshile said: I like the idea behind it, the obvious problem is that things like this never work are open to so many problems. I'm absolutely horrified by the idea. And I agree with you, that we "voluntarily consent" to the exact same thing. (With the not-subtle distinction that it isn't run by the Chinese government. Although I'm not at all sure that corporations are any more ethical). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Forehead Posted December 31, 2016 Share Posted December 31, 2016 5 hours ago, DogofWar1 said: Well isn't this just the cutest little Orwellian nightmare. Black Mirror gonna need to step its game up. This was my first thought. I tried to watch this on Netflix, and for some reason, it jumped me straight to Season 3, Episode 1, the one with Bryce Dallas Howard where everything in life is tied to your social status score. I thought that was the pilot episode. I didn't care much for the acting, so I haven't watched any other episodes, but Black Mirror 3.1 was the first thing I thought of. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zoony Posted December 31, 2016 Share Posted December 31, 2016 This is inevitable, really Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Destino Posted December 31, 2016 Share Posted December 31, 2016 That is entirely about control and power, not financial risk. Calling it a credit score is absurd. They are creating a system that transforms the approval of the powerful into an official assessment of character. Work hard (for them) and you'll be deemed good person. Fail to behave in a way that benefits the powerful, and you're a bad person. Calling this dehumanizing would be an understatement. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DallasCowboyFan156 Posted December 31, 2016 Share Posted December 31, 2016 A program designed and run for the benefit of an authoritarian government to give every citizen a single number to designate that citizen's "trustworthiness." Yeah, there's about a 0% chance this will be used for the benefit of the citizen and only for financial reasons. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PokerPacker Posted December 31, 2016 Share Posted December 31, 2016 Sounds like the next logical progression for the way society is moving. Heck, with all the data being collected on us by corporations in the US, who's to say the same doesn't exist in an unofficial capacity over here already? We're coming to a cross-roads in society where we have to decide just how important privacy is. So far, we've been electing against it at most every turn. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
No Excuses Posted January 2, 2017 Author Share Posted January 2, 2017 On 12/31/2016 at 3:40 AM, PokerPacker said: Sounds like the next logical progression for the way society is moving. Heck, with all the data being collected on us by corporations in the US, who's to say the same doesn't exist in an unofficial capacity over here already? We're coming to a cross-roads in society where we have to decide just how important privacy is. So far, we've been electing against it at most every turn. My understanding is that the online data collected for us here by corporations isn't necessarily tied to our personal identities, but rather basically anonymous profiles that create a highly categorized list of our online shopping behavior etc. But a company won't necessarily know that it is "me (with access to my name)" to whom this online behavior profile belongs to. I could be completely wrong on this of course but this is my fairly elementary understanding of the data corporations collect on us and it comes from a book I read a while ago that talked about how online advertising is done these days (it's a mind **** and really difficult to comprehend). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tshile Posted January 2, 2017 Share Posted January 2, 2017 The connection between you and that profile depends on how much you guard it. When the trail leads to your Facebook page then they know who you are. How much they're actually interested in that, and what they do with it, varies. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PokerPacker Posted January 2, 2017 Share Posted January 2, 2017 2 hours ago, tshile said: The connection between you and that profile depends on how much you guard it. When the trail leads to your Facebook page then they know who you are. How much they're actually interested in that, and what they do with it, varies. Sadly, it depends on more than just yourself. You're at the mercy of all of your friends, too, who may be quick to give up info about you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FanboyOf91 Posted January 2, 2017 Share Posted January 2, 2017 5 hours ago, No Excuses said: My understanding is that the online data collected for us here by corporations isn't necessarily tied to our personal identities, but rather basically anonymous profiles that create a highly categorized list of our online shopping behavior etc. But a company won't necessarily know that it is "me (with access to my name)" to whom this online behavior profile belongs to. I could be completely wrong on this of course but this is my fairly elementary understanding of the data corporations collect on us and it comes from a book I read a while ago that talked about how online advertising is done these days (it's a mind **** and really difficult to comprehend). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spokeo Quote The site has evolved to become an information-gathering website that offers various options for finding information about people. It purports to know, among other things, your income, religion, spouse's name, credit status, the number of people in your household, a satellite shot of your house and its estimated value.[7] The company's revenues for 2014 were $57 million,[8] and as of 2015, the site had 18 million users.[9] Technology Spokeo utilizes deep web crawlers to aggregate data.[10] Searches can be made for a name, email, phone number, username or address. The site allows users to remove information about themselves through an "opt-out" process.[11] Spokeo aggregates information from public records and does not do original research into personal data. It aggregates marketing data approximations into the data it finds from social media and online registry sites.[12][13] The company gives users access to 12 billion public records And it has plenty of competitors... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PokerPacker Posted January 3, 2017 Share Posted January 3, 2017 Here's a part of a Ted Talk that discusses how, despite the anonymizing of data for legal purposes, they manage to tack it right back on to you anyways. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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