A bit of philosophy again... ;-P
We can't change human nature in its thirst for knowledge, but we
are always controlling it, so that is something we can & do change
Both "since" "Adam and Eve" "ate" from "The Tree" and then put their "Fig Leaves" on for their privacy.
Those seeking power keep looking for new ways how to use knowledge for their profit, those that want their privacy prosecute for it.
The reason we have been allowing it is that we're seeing/feeling/getting more advantages than disadvantages from the amassment.
The reason it seems so free, like a vapor, is that the majority in the US value and choose freedom more than privacy.
Whenever that tide changes this can be changed. The reason you can't see that is because the tide isn't changing much in the US.
Here in Germany CoV is encouraging more digitization. At the same time laws regarding privacy are getting stricter.
We can no longer burn every single copy of certain books on earth, like in the (legend of the) fire of Alexandrian library in 48 BC,
but we can and
do use the same machines to reduce and make it hard to find and use the digital "carbon copies".
I can find some old webpages via the wayback machine, but it is possible to not only take sites offline,
but also delete web content to a practical and helpful extent, if there is enough will.
Same goes for any databases - regulations & human ethics can account for 90-95%, practice shows that works enough.
So some "vapor" can be put back into the bottle, a lot of it can be neutralized: enough. Once there's a will, there's a way.
Here we know and can influence what is allowed. In the US you can do much less.
To protect your privacy you'd need to read European information, use European search engines and e-mail accounts etc.
Whistleblowers like Snowden don't just show us "how bad the world is", they show us what you could do about it.
However, a much more important part of this is becoming aware that
machine learning is an exponential quantum leap away from simply amassing information,
it is possibly the most powerful instrument we have ever invented.
And much slicker / slyer than Thought Police!
The
manipulation of thoughts since the last 3(+?) US elections is far greater
than any advertising or media control & normal fake news has ever been able to.
Thought Police is kindergarten.
The machines learn from any data they are given, apply what is wanted and spit out according recommendations
without the humans even knowing how & "why" they do it - better & better.
All humans need to do is adjust & push the machines in the right direction a few times as long as the results don't fit.
As
@Dooi said, there are millions of robots in social media
to spread fake news and get people emotional, to influence their decisions. Dangerous enough without machine learning.
Almost since the beginning of the e-mails large scale scam mails used social engineering
to emotionalize some people to do rash things if they didn't realize in time.
But the more machine learning is used to steer any utterances,
the less anyone realizes there is something making them do it, because the machines can quickly learn how to do this.
So it's become much more dangerous with the use of machine learning, much harder to distinguish and a "black box" behind it all.
And yes,
that genie is out of the bottle. But I don't think it's impossible to influence how it is used, same as fairy tale genies are "used".
However only if you really
want and
try to. My impression is that it is being trivialized in the US even more than other countries.
The majority is continually deciding to give it free play, altho they would know if they wanted to.
And that makes way for the belief that
everything about it impossible to change, which is a self-fulfilling prophecy....
As long as people don't try it enough, this won't be realized.
All I'm writing here is something about me for machines to analyze once again -
I know they "know" and even "understand" that, and I know someone may try to use that on me and I'm tempting fate... ;->