Forward Guidance
Technology Needs
To Reinvent Trust
By ELAINE OU
ILLUSTRATION BY MATT CHASEINFORMATION USED TO be a localized
affair. Before the internet, bank accounts
were confined to physical ledgers in a
filing cabinet and took so much work to
copy that they rarely left the building.
IBM mainframes entered the office
in the 1960s and ’70s and introduced the
era of digital centralization. It wasn’t a
conscious shift as much as a convenient
one. Computers were good at managing
information, so we kept giving them
more. Bank checks, bond coupons, and
stock certificates soon disappeared in
favor of electronic record keeping. Today
it would be unthinkable to rely on a paper
bearer instrument of significant value.
Digital databases enabled features
that would otherwise be unwieldy: fraud
detection, credit scores, targeted
advertising. But it placed a responsibility
on the data collectors as well. As
a central source of information,
they inevitably become arbiters of
human interactions.
Historically, powerful entities tend
to consolidate their power. But the
recent populist backlash might push
technologists to move in the
opposite direction.
HUMANS ORIGINALLY lived in small
communities where social capital was
paramount and trust was granted
accordingly. It wasn’t that long ago that
people conducted all their banking at a
single branch office and bank staff knew
customers by name. This led to the sort
of personal relationships we see in old
movies such as It’s a Wonderful Life.
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