Profiling - by Philippe Huneman (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

In this book, philosopher Philippe Huneman aims to offer an unprecedented and systematic understanding of a simultaneously banal and singular phenomenon of modern life: the digital profile. Diving deeply into the algorithms that produce these profiles, Huneman examines the way in which an individual becomes a predictable subject, both as unwilling producer of their digital profile and unwitting subject of digital marketing's attempts to influence beliefs and behaviors.

As the book demonstrates, today's society of profiling has profound implications for our understanding of self and politics. The book unfolds across three sections. In the first, Huneman explains profiles and profiling as they operate today and describes their contemporary pervasiveness, using examples from a variety of fields and considering the wide range of types of data that can be digitalized--be they traces, search histories, metadata or the like. In the second section, on profiles, Huneman reflects on who is the subject of profiling societies and what kind of consequences profiling has on individuals--from behavior to memory. And, finally, entering into metaphysical questioning, the book shines a spotlight on the feedback loop that develops between algorithmic profiling and reality.

Review Quotes

"[Huneman] underscores the stakes through disturbing examples of data misuse, including data brokers who sold a list of rape victims to pharmaceutical companies, allowing them to target patients as potential buyers of antidepressants and other medications.... The breadth of Huneman's exploration is impressive.... [H]e offers striking anecdotes, timely critiques, and moments of sharp insight." --Publishers Weekly

"Human lives are increasingly constituted by flows of data. I can't think of any other treatment of this phenomenon that ranges so widely--and that manages to take its subject matter so seriously--while also handling it with a lightness of touch and a keen eye for an arresting anecdote. This is a remarkable book: erudite, entertaining, and profoundly disquieting."--Tim Lewens, author of The Meaning of Science

"Huneman is a remarkable historian of science, and has also become an important commentator on current affairs. Profiling is an essential work." --Stefanos Geroulanos, author of The Invention of Prehistory

"I highly recommend this eloquent and engaging book. Not only does Profiling unravel the complex mechanisms of digital servitude, but it does so in a straightforward and accessible way." --Bruno Perreau, author of Spheres of Injustice

"The philosopher Philippe Huneman... demonstrates how we have become captive to data flows and aggregators, whether commercial corporations or public authorities. We are consumers consumed, evaluators evaluated, influencers influenced, all optimized by algorithms that establish blind correlations. Profiling is about aiming for an effect, a like, a purchase, a decision, a vote, in the absence of knowledge: 'content' replaces 'information.' A cult of efficiency that, according to Huneman, must be resisted." --Philosophie magazine

About the Author

Philippe Huneman is Director of Research at the Institut d'Histoire et de Philosophie des Sciences et des Techniques (CNRS/Paris I Pantheon Sorbonne), and the author, most recently of Why: The Philosophy Behind the Question (Stanford, 2023).