Of course, the results to date are retrospective; the research merely confirmed what had already occurred. But chief researcher Kalev Leetaru is already working on the next stage: adapting the system to work in real time and predict major events on the basis of fluctuating public and media sentiment.
Termed "automated sentiment mining", the technique, says Leetaru, is similar to what economic forecasting algorithms do and should be at least as accurate as weather forecasting now is.
I suspect that's under-playing it. Considering the researchers have not yet begun to tap into the plethora of social media sites, not to mention phone and video call records or internet use in general, this study result raises the spectre of all-knowing machines able to foresee all manner of social change.
Giving those with access to the data the opportunity to counter those changes - should they wish.
In short, it could spell the end of the possibility of revolution. The end, in theory, of any real freedom of choice.
Think about it. We already know the CIA uses capture-software to identify and log key words and phrases exchanged via telecommunications. The infamous spy-base at Waihopai is a key facility in their global prying network, playing its part in the so-called war against terrorism.
Apply "sentiment mining" algorithms to this data and you could potentially predict protests before they happen.
As the world observes the 10th anniversary of the fall of New York's Twin Towers, we here have good reason to also note the 30th of the Springbok tour protests; the time when the anti-apartheid movement finally demonstrated once and for all that, as in anything else in life, politics and sport are irrecusably mixed.
Imagine, then, that this new predictive technology was fully functioning at the time. What do you suppose might have happened?
"There's a strong chance New Zealand could experience civil war, sir," the CIA tells Ronald Reagan. "Better send some Marines down there to keep order then," the President replies. And Robert Muldoon, as fond as he was of surveillance data, would probably have welcomed them.
Yep. That really would have made Smith's Dream real.
At the same time, they'd be nipping the rainbow revolution in the bud in South Africa, too, I bet. Gotta prop up those gold and diamond reserves.
If you think this far-fetched, you haven't been paying attention. The world has been globalised by the big corporations, most of which are American at base, at the same time as American foreign policy has shaped the political map.
Now that environmental concerns and economic competition are threatening their empire, a predictive tool such as this will be welcomed as a means to "re-balance" dominance. It will not only be used but used proactively, I predict.
And if that means your right to protest an injustice is curtailed before it can even be expressed, that's very small beer.
Naturally, I'd like to pretend that such forecasts will be used to avoid wars and other man-made upheavals, and mayhap they might - but only if it suits those owning the knowledge to do so.
Knowledge is power and power that has predictive knowledge of social ructions will, knowing mankind's abysmal record, use it entirely for its own ends. Full stop.
I think I can hear Orwell sobbing ...
That's the right of it. Bruce Bisset is a freelance writer and poet.
