1424 Is AI Manipulating Your Shopping Cart?

SPEAKER_1 (0:00)

In 1986, a man named Scott Macklem was killed in broad daylight.

Police quickly found their suspect. Prosecutors convicted him. But now, almost 40 years later, I'm reexamining this case. I really didn't believe any of it was real.

SPEAKER_2 (0:17)

And I was like, well, they're going to figure out this is not me.

SPEAKER_1 (0:19)

They're going to do their police job. Has the wrong man been in prison this whole time?

Listen to Examined, the backfire effect wherever you get your podcasts.

Sarah Westall (0:33)

Well, AI is very good at it now when you have all the data on somebody. And they're getting it through all the credit card companies, the social media companies, anybody that can collect your data on your behavior. Because everything you do is tracked in data now. Whether you're pying for a credit card, you're traveling someplace, your location data, everything is trackable. So that all goes and is sold. Data brokers sell them to companies. And then the company has everything they have on you. So when you go and you buy, they know your whole profile. You're already profiled into a box. They know that you are a white guy who lives in Canada, about how old you are, what kinds of every preference and thing about you they know. And they know more about you than you know about yourself.

SPEAKER_2 (1:21)

Richard Syrett's Strange Planet, following the truth wherever it leads, exposing evil and corruption and the secret machinations of powerful elites. Revealing the highest strangeness beneath the surface of our supposed reality. Coming to you from the great white north and his studio beneath the stairs.

Here's Richard.

Richard Syrett (1:50)

Hey there and welcome to Strange Planet. You and your neighbor order the same groceries from the same store at the same time. You pay more. And unless you compare receipts, neither of you will ever know. Now imagine the company setting your price, knows you're short on cash, running out of options or desperate to get something today. Could your most vulnerable moment become its most profitable opportunity?

Tonight, we're following your shopping cart into the hidden world of data brokers, consumer profiling and algorithmic pricing. What information have you unknowingly handed over? Who is buying it? And could it be used to discover just how much you'll tolerate before you walk away?

Returning to Strange Planet is investigative journalist and Business Game Changers host Sarah Westall. Her background spans computer science, engineering and system design. She's led technology teams in the telecommunications industry, built an international import-export business and taught business at the University of Minnesota's Carlson School of Management. She understands how complex systems are built and asks difficult questions about whose interests they serve. Sarah, welcome back to Strange Planet.

Sarah Westall (3:00)

Thank you Richard. Thanks for having me here.

Richard Syrett (3:02)

It's great to be with you. How did we get to a point where buying groceries could make us unwitting participants in a pricing experiment?

Sarah Westall (3:11)

Well, when you hear people talk about Internet avatars, digital avatar, not Internet, but digital avatar, that's pretty accurate. I mean, they know everything about you. They know beyond what you look like, they know based on your driver's license and videos that are out there, but they know what you buy, what you like, where you spend time, where you spend time offline because they're tracking everything. When it comes to if you have a phone, they know where your locations are, they know what you spend money on, they know where you fill your gas tank at, they know what you buy, they know what crappy food you put into your body, even if you try to be healthy. They know what kind of computer you're using, they know where you like to do everything, how long you spend on certain websites and how long your cursor lands over certain products.

So when someone says you have a digital avatar, that's actually kind of true.

Richard Syrett (4:11)

I believe. And you helped build communication systems. Was there a moment when you realized the technology connecting us could also be used against us?

Sarah Westall (4:22)

I was more of an idealistic young engineer when I was in telecom, and I did more before I was responsible for all the systems and development and design for enterprise, which is we had upwards of 90% of the frame relay market, which was the backbone of the internet in the 90s. When the internet was really building out, that's what I did. But before I did that, I was responsible for all the data analysis and design, the management systems of the internet. So it was all data focused. At that point, I was super excited about it because I realized how powerful it was. I was just evangelizing on it. I was talking to the president of the company and I was just so excited about what we could do to make the world a better place. That's how I felt back then.