In the past few years, much discussion has focused on the question of personal data; what we give away in exchange for a supposedly free service, how a digital identity of who we are is constructed, and how the algorithms which possess this information creates a world almost wholly bespoke to us.
I first heard about the notion of an internet ‘bubble’ at my first year of university many years ago. At the time, the prospect that purely off the basis of previous search histories and selections, I could type the exact same thing into a search engine (okay, Google) as someone else, and the results which come up could be completely different. For example, ‘Hong Kong’, could yield top results which discuss the current delicate political situation there, or recommendations for tourist spots. What’s worrying about this is that it means people are increasingly not exposed to anything that challenges their viewpoint. To flip that, it means that people are only ever shown things which tell them that their beliefs and views are correct. The arguable consequence of this can be seen in the increasing partisanship across society – the refusal to even try to see where someone with divergent political beliefs may be coming from.
But it’s difficult to explain this to many people. These are complicated concepts that are difficult to explain to people. Enter Qualityland. A novel that sits somewhere between speculative and science fiction (to better understand the difference between the two, see here), it was initially published in German in 2017. The book’s setting is a futuristic unspecified country where algorithms and major companies have free reign in determining the lives of people – who they date, what they buy (products are literally delivered to people on the basis of a predictive algorithm determining when somebody will want something, and what it will be), how they live – even how they will vote. As the reader becomes immersed in the story of Peter Jobless and the world of Qualityland, very contemporary concerns about insufficient regulation on data privacy and corporate reach become accessible.
Don’t worry – the book is very readable, and there is quite a bit of acerbic wit to keep the subject matter from becoming too heavy; one of the book’s pivotal items is a pink dolphin vibrator. This contrives to mean that the plot unfolds in a way that surprises, which is quite refreshing when dealing with storylines which create a cautionary tale about corporate overreach.
One of the other dominant themes within the text is about the creation of artificial intelligence that is so sophisticated as to be a individual rather than a very clever machine. This is less relevant to the concerns of 2019, but as technology becomes ever more complex (remember, there is an AI which has passed the Turing test), and AIs become ever-more present in everyday life, this is a question that we as a society will have to face at some point.
I’ll confess that I dragged my feet in reading the first few chapters, not certain where exactly they were heading, and equally uncertain that I was fully engaged. Peter Jobless initially seems a rather dull character who is wholly content to allow himself to be pushed around by algorithms that do him no favours, but as the story develops, it swiftly becomes apparent that there is more to Peter than a first glance would suggest. I guess that’s the point of the book; individuals are more complex than the sum total of their browsing history. As we move toward an increasingly digitised world, it’s important for us to remember this and to delineate clearly where the analogue world and its myriad complexities begins and ends, and to understand the limitations of simply trusting in google to always give us the ‘right’ answer. It’s one of the reasons I think this book is well worth the read, and likely why it’s currently being made into a series by HBO. It’s also why it’s probably going to pop up as a recommendation for me to watch at some point.
Qualityland is available from Amazon, Book Depository, and other good book retailers as of January 7th 2020.
Will you be picking up Qualityland? Tell us in the comments below!
Synopsis | Goodreads
THE HITCHHIKER’S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY meets 1984. In the near-future, all decision-making is automated, until one man makes a brazen choice of his own, with global consequences.
Welcome to QualityLand, the best country on Earth. Here, a universal ranking system determines the social advantages and career opportunities of every member of society. An automated matchmaking service knows the best partners for everyone and helps with the break up when your ideal match (frequently) changes. And the foolproof algorithms of the biggest, most successful company in the world, TheShop, know what you want before you do and conveniently deliver to your doorstep before you even order it.
In QualityCity, Peter Jobless is a machine scrapper who can’t quite bring himself to destroy the imperfect machines sent his way, and has become the unwitting leader of a band of robotic misfits hidden in his home and workplace. One day, Peter receives a product from TheShop he absolutely, positively knows he does not want, and which he decides, at great personal cost, to return. The only problem: doing so means proving the perfect algorithm of TheShop wrong, calling into question the very foundations of QualityLand itself.
This book sounds amazing, how had I never heard of it before?! Adding it to my tbr now!