Digital is political
It has been said many times that technology is changing society and digitization challenges the way we live. These changes create new paths of solving problems that have never been possible before. Around this, there are positive and negative aspects for which we must think in advance on how to address them.
Technology is changing society and digitization challenges the way we live.
This post stems from the conversation between Bernard Marr — author, futurist, international speaker and strategic consultant — and Jamie Susskind, award-winning lawyer, speaker and author of Future Politics: Living Together in a World Transformed by Tech.
In the video that can be seen below, Marr and Susskind talk about the trends that are changing civilization and everything we should consider about a future where artificial intelligence and technology are transforming the way we live and the need clarity through laws and regulations. Those who control and own the most powerful digital systems in the future, more and more control over the rest of us, “predicts Susskind.
Those who control and own the most powerful digital systems in the future, more and more control over the rest of us, “predicts Susskind.
Nothing is as remote as yesterday’s utopias, says Nick Cohen (2018) in The Guardian, related to the subject in question. From the 1990s to the end of the last decade, critical optimists saw the explosion of computing power as a liberating force, a retreat from the authoritarian mechanisms of society. We are in a moment where democracy, justice, our ability to earn a living, makes us feel precarious. “All solid things melt in midair,” Marx said of nineteenth-century capitalism. In our times, economic systems are not only affected by instability, but also by basic assumptions about how humans live together.
Nothing is as remote as yesterday’s utopias.
By collecting data about our preferences, browsing history, etc., some companies increase their power over people. They know what moves us and they know which are the things that motivate us the most and which produce the opposite effect. The Cambridge Analytica cases and the 2016 US Presidential campaign are clear in understanding the potential of technology in influencing voters. The data and analytics company had key data on 200 million Americans. This allowed them to project an image of a candidate tailored to individual preferences, biases, and biases. Let me understand what motivates you and I will make a speech just for your preferences.
By collecting data about our preferences, browsing history and more, some companies -people-have power over us.
Simply put: the more data that is collected about us, the easier it is for others to persuade, influence, and manipulate us. And not only that, knowing that data is collected about us can change our behavior, this is the basis of the panoptic system, a type of prison architecture devised by the utilitarian philosopher Jeremy Bentham towards the end of the 18th century. The objective of the panopticon structure was to allow its guardian, sheltered in a central tower, to observe all the prisoners, confined in individual cells around the tower, without them knowing if they are being observed. The most important effect of the panopticon is to induce in the detainee a conscious and permanent state of visibility that would guarantee the automatic operation of power, without that power being exercised effectively at all times, since the prisoner cannot know when to watch and when not. The panoptic device was thus to create a feeling of invisible omniscience about detainees. The philosopher and historian Michel Foucault (1975) studied the abstract model of a disciplinary society, inaugurating a long series of studies on the panoptic device. Long before Bentham (1780) predicted “Reformed morality, preserved health, vigorous industry, widespread instruction, diminished public office, fortified economy, all thanks to a simple architectural idea.” Who was going to say that we were going to be, at the beginning of the 21st century, expanding public — and private — positions to the extreme and spying on the most intimate processes of human beings: their own thoughts, and shortly even the chemical processes in the brain that give rise to it.
A close approach is that developed by Shoshana Zuboff (2019) on her idea about Surveillance Capitalism, a new term that addresses the process of marketing personal data with the primary goal of making a profit. Since personal data can be commercialized, it has become one of the most valuable resources on earth. The concept emerged after advertising companies saw the possibilities of using personal data to target consumers more specifically.
Increasing data collection can have several benefits for people and society, such as self-optimization (Quantified Self), social optimizations (such as smart cities), and optimized services (including various web applications). However, the collection and processing of data in the context of capitalism’s central profit motive could present an inherent danger. Capitalism has focused on expanding the proportion of social life that is open to data collection and processing. This can have significant implications for the vulnerability and control of society, as well as for privacy. But obviously this does not stop at the gathering, for my friend and student of human capacities for the future Donna Eiby: The final objective of surveillance capitalism is not only to earn money, but also to possess our will. That it will no longer be free. Once it is known that we can be manipulated to buy red pajamas, it is a small step to move to operate according to a motivation that is subtly suggested to us.
The economic pressures of capitalism are driving the intensification of online connection and monitoring with spaces of social life open to saturation by corporate actors, aimed at profit-making and action regulation. Therefore, personal data points increased in value after knowing the possibilities of targeted advertising. Due to the capitalist market mechanism, the rise in the price of data has caused limited access for the wealthiest in society to purchase more and more personal data and associated data points.
Personal data points increased in value after learning about targeted advertising possibilities.
Many people do not understand the level of vigilance that is already happening. As more people become aware of the fact that we are always being watched, Susskind believes that people will begin to change their behavior. This is a type of power in itself, albeit subtle but important.
Simply put: the more data that is collected about us, the easier it is for others to persuade, influence, and manipulate us.
At the end of the day it’s about a balance in the use of technology to improve people’s lives and the power of that same technology to manipulate those same people. It is important to be aware of such manipulative potential. It is not about slowing down the development of technology. It is about understanding your opportunities and risks, maximizing the former and reducing the latter. Small decisions we make today can have a profound impact on the future. That’s what it’s about. From making the right decisions today to avoid headaches in the future, which will undoubtedly be deeply digitized.
References:
Marr, Bernard (2020) What’s The Impact Of Artificial Intelligence And Technology On Society. Mar 9, 2020.
Cohen, Nick (2018) Future Politics: Living Together in a World Transformed By Tech — review. In an age where our every action can be harvested as data and used against us, Jamie Susskind’s book makes crucial reading. Mon Sep 17 2018. The Guardian.
Zuboff, Shoshana; Möllers, Norma; Murakami Wood, David; Lyon, David (2019) “Surveillance Capitalism: An Interview with Shoshana Zuboff”. Surveillance & Society. 17 (1/2): 257–266. 03–31–2019.
Foucault, Michel (1975) Watch and punish.
Bentham, Jeremy (1780) Le Panoptique. The 56-page work was translated from English and printed by order of the Legislative Assembly in 1791.
