PDR - Personal Data Record

One probable near-term outcome of AI and a through-line in all three of the scenarios is the emergence of what I’ll call a “personal data record,” or PDR. This is a single unifying ledger that includes all of the data we create as a result of our digital usage (think internet and mobile phones), but it would also include other sources of information: our school and work histories (diplomas, previous and current employers); our legal records (marriages, divorces, arrests); our financial records (home mortgages, credit scores, loans, taxes); travel (countries visited, visas); dating history (online apps); health (electronic health records, genetic screening results, exercise habits); and shopping history (online retailers, in-store coupon use). In China, a PDR would also include all the social credit score data described in the last chapter. AIs, created by the Big Nine, would both learn from your personal data record and use it to automatically make decisions and provide you with a host of services. Your PDR would be heritable—a comprehensive record passed down to and used by your children—and it could be temporarily managed, or permanently owned, by one of the Big Nine.

A way to think about how we interact with large corporations, what we share, and what they know about us. There are conveniences that come from sharing data with them as well as dangers.