It seems the world is driving towards some kind of "unique conscious collective intelligence". I guess the idea is that machine learning and AI are hungry for data, and as long as there is money, it's obvious that privacy won't matter, but data will.

It's important to understand the positive aspects of the consequences of data collection. Of course information is power and it short circuits democracy. But on the other hand, computers give the extraordinary possibility to gain an insight through actual statistics. It's a loss for a gain. Maybe that's how democracy will evolve, and maybe it will help voters, in the end?

It's murphy's law.