Online Shopping Center

What do you think about an online shopping service that sends products to your home before you have even ordered them? In 2014, Amazon was granted a patent for a ‘predictive shopping’ algorithm, designed to ‘streamline’ the shopping process; predicting what you may like to buy next based on patterns from your account and others like you. These goods are then sent to your home, before you have looked at them online or placed any orders. To streamline the purchasing process even more, Sam Lavigne programmed a brain scanner with an algorithm that classifies brain activity into two states while asleep – “shopping-like” or “death-like”. Based on the readings of Lavigne’s brainwaves, his computer either browsed online marketplaces or websites related to death. After three nights of the experiment, Lavigne’s shopping carts reached full capacity. In this piece Lavigne asks visitors to help train his new algorithm.