This is a long article, and ther title is a bit misleading, but it's entertaining, and contains elements of truth. I wouldn't exactly buy into the world view, but I know any number of people who would. It's based on comparing what AI does with what divination systems did through the ages - systems like the I Ching, the Oracle of Delphi, astrology. What they are all based on is not a big database of facts, but a method of seeing patterns and relationships in things. But there are two ways to look at this - as a type of calculation, a 'prediction', or as a type of interpretation, a 'divination'. "Empire does not divine. Empire predicts. And to make its predictions look like truth, it had to make divination look like superstition." And it becomes 'colonialism' when "it manufactures the predicted outcome rather than say: I don't know." That's what the surveillance systems in Tesco are being used for, and where the art of not being seen becomes a strategy. But "the system doesn't give you the answer. The system creates the conditions for the answer to arrive from the collision between the corpus and the question you brought. You are never optional."
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