Prophecy: Prediction, Power, and the Fight for the Future, from Ancient Oracles to AI

★今天的數據科學家正扮演著古代神諭和中世紀占星師的角色，掌控著社會資源的分配。
★本書將揭露 AI 如何透過「預測」來誘導行為，最終讓我們活成演算法設定好的樣子。
★在這個監視資本主義時代，我們該如何拒絕被標籤化，重新拿回對自己生活的主導權？

【權力不在未來，而在於誰「定義」了未來】
從古代神諭到當代 AI：一場橫跨三千年的預測爭奪戰。

為什麼銀行能決定你是否能貸款？為什麼演算法能預判你何時會辭職？
我們以為預測是為了避開風險，但牛津大學教授 Carissa Véliz 尖銳地指出：「預測」從來不是為了預知未來，而是為了「控制」人類。

From an award-winning University of Oxford professor comes a brilliant, urgent new look at prophecies—the predictions that determine our lives, from our personal finances and the quality of our healthcare to the news and social media we consume and the products foisted upon us.

Today’s computer scientists play the same role as the oracles of the ancient world and the astrologers of the Middle Ages. Modern predictions not only advise on war, crop output, and marriages, but algorithms and statisticians also now determine whether we can get a loan, a job, an apartment, or an organ transplant. And when we cede ground to these predictions, we lose control of our own lives.

In this powerful, refreshing new look at the many ways prediction shapes our everyday lives, University of Oxford professor Carissa Véliz explains how putting too much stock in others’ predictions makes us vulnerable to charlatans, con artists, dubious technology, and self-deception. Examining a wide range of subjects both personal and societal, including medicine, climate, technology, society, and others, Véliz uncovers a number of insights: predictions about humans tend to be self-fulfilling; more data doesn’t guarantee better outcomes; AI is more likely to increase risk than decrease it; and a free and robust society requires not more prediction, but better preparation.

Véliz argues in this incisive and bracingly original book that the main promise of prediction is not knowledge of the future, but rather power over others. Prophecy is an invitation to defy those orders and live life on our own terms.