The Age of Surveillance Capitalism

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The Age of Surveillance Capitalism Page 90

by Shoshana Zuboff

Singularity University, 426

  Siri (Apple digital assistant), 269

  “A 61-Million-Person Experiment in Social Influence and Political Mobilization” (Bond et al.), 299

  Skinner, B. F., 361–363; About Behaviorism, 326, 362; anticipates instrumentarian power, 379–381; on applied utopistics, 437–438; on behavior for the greater good, 431; The Behavior of Organisms, 366; on collective decision making, 432–433; criticisms of, 323, 326, 441; on free will, 366, 367–368, 380; on increase in knowledge, 367, 368–369; and instrumentarian power, 379–380; and operant conditioning, 296, 361; and Other-One viewpoint, 366–368; Pentland as successor to, 418, 419, 424, 430, 431, 440; on planned society, 432–434, 437–438; prescribes future based on behavioral modification, 322–323, 412–413; on privacy, 370–371; on problem of autonomous individual, 439–440; on roots of behaviorism, 362–363; Science and Human Behavior, 367; seeks technology of human behavior, 369–371; on societal control of individual, 435. See also Beyond Freedom & Dignity; Walden Two

  Skybox, 152

  Skyhook Wireless, 135

  Slate, 164, 459

  SleepIQ app, 236

  Sleep Number bed, 236–237

  Sloan, Alfred, 29, 64

  slot machines, 450

  smart health, 247–248

  smart-home devices, 5–7; and Amazon, 268–269; Aware Home, 5–6, 234–235, 247; examples of, 238–239; Google Home, 261, 262, 269; Nest thermostat, 6–7, 237–238; and privacy, 234–238, 477–478; and rendition, 238–240; Roomba, 235–236; value of market, 6; and voice recognition, 261

  smart machines vs smart people (businesses’ investments in), 3, 181–182

  smartphones: data mining by auto insurers, 214; data mining by lending companies, 172–173; health apps on, 248–251; reality mining (rendition of social relations) through, 420–421, 422–423; as supply route, 133–135; tracking of location data, 137, 140, 154, 174, 242–245. See also Android mobile phones

  “smart skin,” 240

  Smith, Adam, 183–184, 257, 496, 499

  Snowden, Edward, 385, 511

  social comparison, 461–465; and adolescence, 447–448, 454; as core process of instrumentarianism, 397f; definition of, 461; Facebook’s use of, 468; in Facebook voting experiment, 307, 463; and FOMO, 462–463; intensity of increases with social media, 462, 466–467; mental health consequences of, 463–465, 466–467; operating through privatized digital spaces, 456

  social connection: dependent upon surveillance capitalism, 383, 455–456; surveillance capitalism offers, 383

  “social credit” system, China’s, 388–394

  social Darwinism, 106

  social efficiency (Pentland), 429, 438

  social graphs: Facebook’s, 92, 403; LinkedIn as Microsoft’s supply route to, 165; Pokémon Go as, 317

  social influence: and adolescence, 453–454; and Facebook’s experiments, 306–307; forms of (social pressure, social comparison, modeling, subliminal priming), 456; Pentland on, 440; and Pentland’s “social physics,” 428–429, 436–437, 438. See also social pressure

  socialism, 334, 357, 433, 523

  social learning, 466; definition of, 431

  social media: addictive design of, 448, 449, 451–452; Chinese censorship of, 392–393; and compulsion, 453–454; and destructive dynamics of hive mind, 21; DIALOG platform as precursor to, 270; emotional toll of, 445, 446, 447–448; and homing to the herd, 467–468; Instagram, 276, 457–458, 484; meta-data about, 272–273; Obama campaign’s use of, 123; privatization of, 455–456; profile inflation in, 462; rendition of the self through, 271–276; self-presentation through, 462, 464, 472; and social comparison, 462; surveillance-as-a-service firms’ use of, 173–174, 386, 388, 393; trust in, 340; users’ vulnerability to social influence, and Facebook’s experiments, 306–307, 436. See also Facebook; Twitter

  social network incentives, 436, 438

  social networks: Google+, 139; Google Buzz, 139, 156; Google’s efforts to establish supply routes in, 139, 156; LinkedIn, 165. See also Facebook

  social participation: as coextensive with means of behavioral modification, 342; and dependency on digital connection, 4, 11, 174, 339, 342, 446, 449, 455–456

  social persuasion: as one reason for success of surveillance capitalism, 343

  Social Physics (Pentland), 418, 419, 430

  social pressure: experienced by young people on social media, 447–448, 454; Facebook’s use of, 436, 446, 463, 467, 468–469; and instrumentarianism, 444; operating through privatized digital spaces, 456; Pentland’s advocacy of, in social learning, 431, 435–437; social comparison heightening, 463

  social proof, 456–457

  social relations, instrumentarianism’s principles of, 431–441; applied utopistics, 437–438; behavior for the greater good (collective perspective and values), 431–432; death of individuality, 438–441; as facts of modern life, 469; plans replace politics, 432–435; social pressure for harmony, 435–437

  social relations, rendition of, 419–429; instruments for, 419–421, 423–424; Pentland’s essay on, 426–429; and Pentland’s work on sociometrics, 422–425; and reality mining, 420–423

  social trust: in China, 389; and contracts, 334; decline of, 383–384; superseded by instrumentarianism, 442; and the uncontract, 336–337

  society: instrumentarianism’s control over, 20–21, 399, 400–404

  “Society’s Nervous System: Building Effective Government, Energy, and Public Health Systems” (Pentland), 426–429

  sociometer, 420, 423–424

  Sociometric Solutions (later renamed Humanyze), 424–425

  software-as-a-service (SaaS), 172–174

  Sonnets from China (Auden), 24; I, 98, 176, 398; II, 27; III, 495; VI, 63, 199; VII, 376; VIII, 445; IX, 329; X, 351, 416; XI, 293

  Sontag, Susan, 233

  sorcerer’s apprentice, 404, 481

  soul, the: as exempt from scientific inquiry, 364–365; totalitarianism’s engineering of, 353, 354–355, 359, 372–373

  sovereignty of the individual, 6, 21, 36, 469, 521; and creation of meaning from experience, 290–291; elemental rights of, 54, 332. See also decision rights; freedom

  Spain: commitment to democracy in, 517; economic crisis in, 56; Indignados movement in, 42, 56; right to be forgotten in, 27, 57–59

  Spanish conquest (fifteenth century), 176–177, 177–178, 193

  Spanish Data Protection Agency (Agencia Española de Protección de Datos), 57–58, 58–59

  speed: as form of violence (shock and awe approach), 344, 346, 400, 406; and velocity of surveillance capitalism, 115, 119, 344, 400, 406, 421, 433–434

  Spireon, 215, 216

  Spotify, 316

  Sprint, 316

  Spy-Fi scandal, 143–145

  Stalin, Joseph, 354–355, 356–357

  Stamp Act (1765), 502

  Starbucks, 316

  Starner, Thad, 417

  startups: acquisitions of, 102–103, 152; investment in, 72, 73, 117; surveillance-as-a-service firms, 172–173, 387–388

  state power: fusion of instrumentarian power with, in China, 388–392, 394; and instrumentarian power, 386–387, 443–444; means of behavioral modification as form of, 320, 322, 324, 326, 341

  Steinbeck, John, 226

  Stillwell, David, 273–274, 280, 613n54, 615n64

  stock share structures, 101, 102

  Street View. See Google Street View

  student data, collection of: resistance to, 140

  subliminal priming, 294, 301–302, 307, 456

  subprime mortgages, 507–508

  Sunstein, Cass, 294–295

  superorganisms, 373, 436–437

  supply routes (behavioral surplus), 102–103, 129–130, 130–132, 132–133, 133–135, 156, 157, 163–165, 169–170, 201, 289

  Surveillance After September 11 (Lyon), 112

  surveillance-as-a-service (SVaaS), 172–174; and law enforcement, 387–388; Microsoft patent for preempting human behavior, 412; and Pentland’s work on
sociometrics, 425; use of social media, 173–174, 386, 388, 393

  surveillance capital, 94

  surveillance capitalism: awareness as threat to, 307–308; dressed up in rhetoric of empowerment, 10; emergence of, 52–55; expansion into offline world, 10, 19–20, 129; exploiting human needs for effective life, 53, 342; foundations of, 18–19; how did it take root?, 53–54; how did they get away with it?, 100–101, 338–345; as human invention, 85–87; invisibility/illegibility/ignorance of, 10, 11; logic and operations of, 8–12, 93–96, 338–340; naming and taming of, 61–62, 347, 353; objectives of, 399; offers solutions for problems of second modernity, 383; as parasitic and self-referential, 9; Pentland on, 442; rejection of/withdrawal of social agreement to, 344–345; shift of focus to social world, 20–21; what is it?, 512–516; who are customers of, 10

  surveillance capitalism, summaries of key elements, 8–12, 93–97, 338–340, 512–516

  surveillance economy, 94

  surveillance exceptionalism, 74, 81–82, 112–121, 194, 324, 341

  surveillance revenues, 94, 97f, 111, 166–175

  susceptibility to persuasion, 308

  Swire, Peter, 113, 114, 385, 564n57

  synthetic declarations (form of resistance/withdrawing social agreement; assertion of alternative framework), 345, 395, 480, 524–525. See also resistance

  Taínos (indigenous people), 12, 177–178, 193

  targeted applications, 217, 250

  Tea Act (1773), 503

  TechCrunch, 317, 318, 458–459

  technological “drift,” 226

  technologies, surveillance capitalism confused with (“puppet master vs puppet”), 14–17, 238, 352, 376

  technology addiction, hand-and-glove relationship of, 449–453

  technology of human behavior, 369–371, 379–380. See also behavioral modification; radical behaviorism

  telematics, 205–206, 206–207, 214–215, 216

  telemedicine, 247–249

  telemetry, 204–205, 218, 247, 375

  telestimulation, 206, 207, 307, 312, 319, 470

  television, 263–266, 462

  Tenet, George, 116

  tensor processing units (TPUs), 189

  terms-of-service agreements, 48–49, 237. See also contracts

  terrorism: instrumentarian power as solution to, 385–387; war on terror and surveillance exceptionalism, 112–116, 324, 341

  Thaler, Richard, 294–295

  theory and practice: of instrumentarianism vs totalitarianism, 396f; of neoliberal market economics, 38–39; of surveillance capitalism, 406; and utopianism, 406. See also dispossession cycle; Pentland, Alex

  third modernity, 46–52; Facebook as one model of, 469–470; and hiding technologies, 489–491; the hive as instrumentarianism’s model of, 443–444; positive possibilities for, 54, 195; two visions of, 55, 395. See also second modernity

  Thrun, Sebastian, 413–414

  Time, 357, 361, 371, 459

  Toronto, Ontario, 231–232

  Toronto Globe and Mail, 232

  Total Information Awareness (TIA) program, 116

  totalitarianism, 20, 354–360; Burnham’s prediction of success, 523; in China, 389; compared with instrumentarianism, 396f–397f, 399; defied comprehension, 353, 356–360, 394; in Germany, 355; instrumentarianism mistakenly equated with, 352; intent of, 353; in Italy, 354; neoliberalism’s fear of, 108, 504–505; in 1984, 372–373; path to, 518; in Russia, 355–357; state solution to problems of first modernity, 383

  totality: instrumentarianism’s pursuit of includes society, 399, 400–404, 430, 519; surveillance capitalism’s urge toward, 95, 268, 351, 399, 497; totalitarianism’s pursuit of, 354, 399. See also certainty

  Townshend Acts (1767), 503

  tracking programs: analyses of, 135–137; through Android phones, 136–137, 154; and broadband privacy regulations, 171–172; Facebook’s, 47–48, 91–92, 136, 159–160, 160–161, 457, 482; Google’s, 136, 161, 243–244; location data on smartphones, 137, 140, 154, 174, 242–245; and Pokémon Go, 317, 318; through smart TVs, 264–265; and surveillance-as-a-service firms, 174; by Verizon, 166–170. See also cookies

  traffic/transit data, 228–229, 230

  travel, 35

  TripAdvisor, 110

  Trump campaign (2016), 278

  trust. See social trust

  tuning approach to behavioral modification: definition of, 294–295; and Facebook, 299–300, 301–302, 307, 463, 470; nudges, 202, 294–295, 370, 435; Pentland’s use of, 434–435, 438, 466; and radical indifference, 505

  Turn, 167, 168, 169

  TVs, 263–266

  Twitter: and content moderation, 509; and free speech, 110; funding Pentland’s research lab, 417; and personality prediction, 273, 276, 277; removal of metrics from, 491; and tracking, 136; and Verizon tracking ID, 168

  tyranny, 513–514

  Uber, 230, 393

  ubiquitous computing: and actuation/behavioral modification, 293–294; Aware Home as living lab for study of, 5–6; data from as “dark data,” 210–211; and inevitabilism, 221–225, 227; and instrumentarianism, 8, 20, 352, 374–375, 376–377; Paradiso on, 207, 208–209, 221, 224; Pentland on, 427; producing certainty, 203–204; and reality mining, 420; and rendition, 233–241; and smart cities, 227–232; terminology of, 202; and ubiquitous sensing, 207–209; Weiser on, 199–200, 398. See also Big Other; internet of things

  uncertainty: and contracts, 333, 334, 336; and inevitabilism, 221–222; and instrumentarianism, 384–385; and insurance industry, 214–215, 216; and the will, 330–331, 333, 337. See also certainty

  uncontracts, 218–221, 295, 333–336

  unemployment, 42, 56

  Unger, Roberto, 521

  United Kingdom: August 2011 riots in, 27, 41–42, 44; Brexit vote, 278, 507; and democracy, 501, 502–503, 503–504, 517; “missing generation” of data scientists in, 189; outside-looking-in experience of young women in, 447–448; Pokémon Go in, 316; resistance to Street View in, 143–144; response to terrorism, 387

  US Congress: broadband privacy regulations overturned, 171–172; regulation of human research by, 325–326; Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, 169; Senate Subcommittee on Constitutional Rights, 320, 322, 323–325; surveillance activities expanded post-9/11, 114

  US Department of Agriculture, 43

  US Department of Commerce, 252

  US Department of Justice, 508

  US Department of Transportation (DOT), 228

  US Department of Treasury, 508

  US government: collusion with tech companies, 385–386, 511; funding Pentland’s research lab, 417; response to terrorism, 386, 387; trust in, 384; use of behavioral modification by, 320–322, 324, 326

  unprecedented, the, 12–14, 20–23, 66, 95, 178, 193–195, 341, 351–353, 516, 519; Google Glass as horseless carriage, 156. See also “horseless-carriage” syndrome

  “User Behavior Monitoring on a Computerized Device” (2013 Microsoft patent), 411–412

  user profile information (UPI), 78–80, 92

  user profiles, consolidation of, 140

  users: vs customers, 69; reciprocal relationship between Google and, 68–69, 74, 81–82, 88; as suppliers of raw material, 88, 94

  US Steel, 52

  us-them relationships: of instrumentarianism society, 430; and means of behavioral modification, 327

  utopianism: applied utopistics, 404–407, 407–411, 421, 437–438; and authority, 437–438; elements of, 405; and inevitabilism, 222; and instrumentarianism, 404–407; and surveillance capitalist vision for transformation of society, 401, 403

  Varian, Hal, 84; on continuous experimentation, 298; on contractual forms, 218–219, 333; on feedback loop in improvement of Google Search, 68–69; on new uses of computer-mediated transactions, 64–65, 212–213, 256, 298; on personalization/customization, 256–257, 552n6

  vehicular monitoring systems, 213, 215, 219, 333, 336

  velocity of surveillance capitalism (speed), 115, 119, 400
, 406, 421, 433–434; as one reason for surveillance capitalism’s success, 344

  venture capitalists, 72–73

  Verizon, 166–170, 171, 417

  Verma, Inder M., 303–304

  video marketing, 282, 512

  violence: in instrumentarianism, 360, 381–382, 395, 396f, 515; speed as form of (shock and awe approach), 344, 346, 400, 406; in totalitarianism, 356, 357–358, 396f

  Viv (Samsung digital assistant), 269

  Vizio, 265

  voice communications, capture of, 262–263, 268; resistance to, 140; by toys, 266; by TVs, 264

  voice recognition, 260–269; and digital assistants, 260; and toys, 266–267; and TVs, 263–266

  voting, and Facebook experiment, 299–301, 306–307, 436

  Waber, Ben, 424

  Walden, Ian, 237

  Walden Two (Skinner), 362; as antidote to totalitarianism, 372, 373–374; and behavior for the greater good, 431; collective decision making in, 433; critical reception of, 371; form of power in, 372; and ideal of Other-One, 373–374; and instrumentarian power, 379; social planning in, 437–438; social pressure for harmony in, 435

  Wall Street Journal: on app-based lending startups, 173; Facebook in, 159, 303; Google in, 104, 126, 154, 157, 231; Pokémon Go unveiled to, 314; on Silicon Valley investment community, 73–74; on Verizon/AOL advertising programs, 170

  Walmart, 168

  Wang, Yang, 392

  wardriving, 145

  Washington Post, 104, 119, 124, 125, 166, 174, 451–452

  Watson (IBM machine intelligence system), 211, 276–277

  Watson, John B., 362

  Waze, 152

  wearable technologies: and emotion analytics, 289; Google Glass, 139, 156–158, 417; and government surveillance, 387; and health care, 247–250; for hiding from surveillance, 489–490, 490–491; independently networked, 490; MacKay’s first generation of, 205–206; and Pentland, 417, 422, 423–424; Picard’s vision of, 287; and Pokémon Go, 314; rendition of the body through, 246–247; resistance to, 140; sociometer, 420, 423–424

  Weaver, Henry “Buck,” 64

  web bugs, 86

  Weber, Max, 16, 115, 333–334, 628n10

  WebMD, 168

  websites as intermediaries or publishers, 110–112

  Weiser, Mark, 199–200, 398

  Weiwei, Ai, 491

  Weizenbaum, Joseph, 292

 

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