Google tells me the term Surveillance Capitalism first appeared in 2014. Photo / AP
Google tells me the term Surveillance Capitalism first appeared in 2014. Photo / AP
Opinion
COMMENT:
Earlier this year a magnificent book was published. It qualifies as magnificent for its size, 691 pages, of which 127 are notes on the book's 18 chapters. It is truly a tome.
Praise for the book emanates from differing shades of political and economic perspective. Tom Peters, co-author ofIn Search of Excellence suggested the book, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, has a high probability of joining the likes of Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations and Max Weber's Economy and Society as defining socio-economic texts of modern times. Kevin Werbach from the famed Wharton School was more dramatic: "The Age of Surveillance Capitalism is a masterpiece that stunningly reveals the essence of 21st-century society and offers a dire warning about technology gone awry that we ignore at our peril…A work of penetrating intellect, this is also a deeply human book about what is becoming…a dangerously inhuman time." Even Naomi Klein and Gloria Steinem offered a joint endorsement.
While I made an advance purchase, it has sat on the shelf biding its time, which has come. The author defines the term Surveillance Capitalism as, first, a new economic order that claims human experience as free raw material for hidden commercial practices of extraction, prediction and sales. There are seven more meanings given, of which the last is the most threatening and therefore most important: An expropriation of critical human rights that is best understood as a coup from above: an overthrow of the people's sovereignty.
Retail offers, airline offers, accommodation, sale offers, new product offers land in our inboxes. Photo / Getty Images
The author Shoshana Zuboff is professor emerita at Harvard Business School. Google tells me the term Surveillance Capitalism first appeared in 2014, in an article in Monthly Review by a couple of journalists. Google also tells me that Zuboff invented it in the same year. Well, a Google search produced that. Either way Zuboff owns it, and there has been plentiful use of the term since the book release.
The introduction of the internet was met with joyous rapture as it developed, providing us with anticipated dividends of liberty. Technology, though, accelerated at such pace that the knowledge and familiarity gap between developers and consumers has only ever got bigger. Familiarity is a very powerful force. Let's get personal. Until this year I could email, search articles and print using print-friendly and not much more. I was extremely jealous of my privacy and would rather go without than divulge information.
It was online banking that made the breakthrough. I stayed away from it initially but it got me in the end, a combination of convenience, familiarity and the banks were encouraging. Or should that be pushy? Prior to the net, I would buy an occasional book from Book Call in New York. After faxing the order, along with payment arrangements the book would arrive two months later. Amazon changed all that. And once you're in that far, what the heck.
The internet has become familiar and convenient and is becoming a powerful force.
But over the last six months or so, there's been much more aggression in my email box. Numerous retail offers, though rejected or ignored, just got turned around and resubmitted. Airline offers, accommodation, sale offers, new product offers, last chance and then really true last chance, followed by extension of offer due to demand! And I live with someone who wants them to know just because she bought a pair of shoes six months ago, that doesn't mean she wants daily notifications. Ms Zuboff would undoubtedly advise that their AI knows your weaknesses better than you do.
There is a question I'd like an answer to. When did they know? They being whoever is driving things in Silicon Valley. How much development do they have up their sleeve for future release? Was there a long-term plan? Did Apple, when the Mac was invented, have any idea that down-line they'd produce a phone, call it smart, and it would have more computing power than early moon shots. And if so, when can I expect Saturday's Lotto numbers on Saturday morning?
Zuboff concerns herself with things that matter to me; freedom, liberty and the future of governance. She considers that the "darkening of the digital dream began with Google", the pioneer of surveillance capitalism. I remember clearly the first time I heard the word Google. It was midday and Chris Carter, who followed my programme, arrived early so he could tell me he'd found the best search engine on the net. I thought Google was a weird name heading only for oblivion. Amusing how things change. There's that familiarity factor again.
In the US the federal government is attempting to create an electronic national identification system called E-Verify, according to David Bier from the Cato Institute. Bier says once E-Verify becomes fully mandatory for employment nationwide, proponents will seek to use it to enforce other laws. Of course, they will. I call it digital progressivism. A line from Ms Zuboff's book, "In a democratic society the debate and contest afforded by still healthy institutions can shift the tide of public opinion against unexpected sources of oppression and injustice."
