Outnumbered

Despite a positive review of this book in The Economist (Sumpter is an occasional reviewer), I did not get on with it as much as hoped, for two reasons. First, I found Sumpter's style of writing quite blunt and therefore difficult to engage with. He ‘wants’ to be like Malcolm Gladwell, but somehow does not succeed. Second, and more fundamentally, I did not feel this book stands the test of time. Sumpter is right to recognise the self-perpetuating way in which mega-cap consumer tech businesses continue to strengthen their franchises by becoming better at collecting data. They correspondingly become more effective at selling things, whether it is product or advertising space. However, with the advent of AI and LLMs — which Sumpter appears to have dismissed in 2018 — many of his arguments and assumptions about the power and limitations of algorithms appear to have been superseded. Where Sumpter is perhaps strongest is in highlighting that those with power (in creating algorithms and/or working for big tech) have responsibilities too. Maths may be good for generalised results, but it has little to say about (human) fairness, not rated.

By David Sumpter