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You may not realize it, but big data, machine learning, and artificial intelligence affect your life on a daily basis. Companies can gain information about you through such things as your internet usage patterns, the location data from your cell phone, and the photos you upload to the internet.

You may think you understand what private data these companies know about you.   But as machine learning becomes more and more powerful, these scraps of information can come together to make inferences about you, your life, your habits, and even things that you may or may not do in the future. Sometimes, it’s surprising how detailed this picture can be. These companies can use this information from anything from sending you a targeted ad to inferring your political ideology.  This is causing some to have privacy concerns with how deep big data can probe into our lives.

Today our guest is Dr. Rumman Chowdhury.  Rumman worked with multiple AI startups and is a thought leader of the Silicon Valley Big Data scene.  But she also is outspoken in discussing the social and humanitarian concerns that arise with the use artificial intelligence and machine learning.    Rumman and I discuss how companies use the analysis of big data to learn about you through snippets of information.  We discuss the resulting privacy concerns and how the general public can take back control of their personal lives.