In roughly the last third of this
episode of Idle Thumbs, the hosts answer a question from a Reader: Can using playtesting data in game design go too far? Their answer was no because humans aren't slaves to data. They are informed by it, but they are still human beings that can consider data but still make reasonable decisions that are informed by experiences other than current data.
Listening here nine years in the future, it occurs to me that now data often does not have a human interpreter. Google and Facebook and others just let machines that influence millions go nuts with data, unchecked. The human judgment happens when the systems are built, then for the most part, it transforms into whatever it may, consequences be damned.
For the most part, the initial human judgment is "do whatever increases engagement," which of course, leads to the promotion of dangerous conspiracy theories, reply-generating Nazi tweets, and harassment.