When we discuss the manipulation of voters in elections, mining large quantities of data and building models of society, it is generally considered to be a modern day problem, facilitated by big tech, in particular social media, along with the vast quantities of data that is created by people’s online presence. However, this democracy destabilising, consumer exploiting phenomenon has been present in our day to day lives for much longer than we think. During the height of the Cold War, a little known company called the Simulmatics Corporation was founded by scientists dreaming of building a computer simulation of human behaviour, which would allow people with access to it to use predictions to manipulate populations. Despite being forgotten in most history books, this company played a part in shaping some of the defining events of the 1960s, including the election of JFK and the Vietnam War.
This detailed history of the Simulmatics Corporation was written by Jill Lepore, a professor of American History at Harvard University, after she came across the company’s papers in MIT’s archives. It serves as both an origin story for many of Silicon Valley’s tech companies and a cautionary tale about the risks of using simulation and predictions to manipulate large populations of people. I would highly recommend this book to those interested in scandals such as Cambridge Analytica and how data and computer models are used and exploited.