J
Jill Lepore
Jill Lepore is a historian and staff writer at The New Yorker. Her book These Truths: A History of the United States offers a sweeping look at American history. She's a sharp observer of our nation's past and present.
If Then
- Pages
- 661
- Published
- 2020
- Language
- English
Synopsis
The Simulmatics Corporation, founded in 1959, pioneered data mining and voter targeting, influencing news and politics decades before modern tech giants. This book unearths the almost unbelievable story of this vanished corporation, revealing how its scientists, borrowing from psychological warfare, used computers to predict and direct human behavior. It explores how Simulmatics invented the future by building the machine in which the world now finds itself trapped and tormented, algorithm by algorithm.