From The Wall Street Journal: Daniel Barron, psychiatrist and author of Reading Our Minds: The Rise of Big Data Psychiatry, is promoting digital surveillance—data captured by smartphones as well as new speech- and facial-recognition technologies—as a means to help “diagnose” and “treat” people.
Big data psychiatry is somewhat the peak of big data, the very reason why so many people are wary and concerned of big data, consciously or not – the end of the road.
It is always fascinating to see in action those people bringing humanity joyously and optimistically to the brink of the abyss.
“[…] the interests of the tech giants aren’t always aligned with those of the individual user or society at large. Using big data for behavioral healthcare offers a way to return ownership and benefit to the individual.”
Psychiatry used the “Don’t be evil” and “Do the right thing” mottoes trick way before Google…
One day, having a charged and turned-on smartphone in your pocket will be a component of your compliance in the eyes of the psychiatrist; not having a phone in your pocket most of the days won’t save you from algorithms’ rigidity.
Furthermore, psychiatry is the foe of all languages. It is not up to psychiatry to (un)rationalize the way in which a person expresses themselves.
There is no more treatment in a panopticon – because that’s what it’s all about – , nor diagnosis if we think about it; it would just be a constant set of micro-adjustments for each individual, ultimately.
So much to say, and at the same time we all know it…
