Personalisation Without Surveillance: Can AI Understand You Without Tracking? With Ian Cook

Personalisation has become one of the most powerful promises of AI – but it has also come with a growing cost: surveillance. From social media feeds to targeted ads, many systems rely on tracking individuals across the internet to predict what they might want next.

In this episode, Kenny sits down with Ian Cook, SVP of AI Technology at Qloo, a company building AI that maps culture and taste without tracking personal data. Instead of analysing individuals, their systems study the relationships between music, restaurants, brands, travel, and entertainment to understand how human preferences connect.

They discuss how AI can uncover cultural patterns without relying on personal identifiers, why recommendation systems can quietly create echo chambers, and what businesses can learn from analysing taste instead of behaviour. The conversation also explores a growing concern for parents and leaders alike: how the next generation should learn to question and think critically about the information AI and algorithms present to them.

As AI becomes more embedded in everyday life, the real question isn’t just what these systems can predict – but whether we can build technology that expands curiosity, encourages critical thinking, and understands people without turning them into data products.

Chapters:

00:00 – Meet Ian Cook (SVP of AI at Qloo)

01:03 – What Qloo Actually Does: Teaching AI to Understand Culture

03:27 – How AI Maps Human Taste and Preferences

08:56 – Personalisation Without Surveillance

13:09 – The Algorithm Problem: Echo Chambers and Doom Scrolling

16:46 – Parenting in the Age of AI and Social Media

19:21 – Teaching the Next Generation to Question AI

22:25 – The AGI Hype: Why So Many People Are Fearful

28:26 – Why Ignoring AI Is the Worst Strategy

31:04 – “Action Kills Anxiety” — The Best Advice for the AI Era

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