Surveillance Capitalism: Out Of The Frying Pan Too Into The Fire

We know of Professor Mazzucato (UCL) past times way of the FT together with FT Alphaville, links below.

From Aral Balkan, July 30:

Mariana Mazzucato¹ has an article inwards MIT Technology Review titled Let’s construct private information into a world good.
Let’s not.
While Mariana’s criticisms of surveillance capitalism are spot on, her proposed remedy is equally far from the grade equally it maybe could be.

Yes, surveillance capitalism is bad
Mariana starts off past times making the case, together with rightly so, that surveillance capitalists² similar Google or Facebook “are making huge profits from technologies originally created alongside taxpayer money.”

Google’s algorithm was developed alongside funding from the National Science Foundation, together with the meshing came from DARPA funding. The same is truthful for touch-screen displays, GPS, together with Siri. From this the tech giants conduct maintain created de facto monopolies piece evading the type of rule that would rein inwards monopolies inwards whatever other industry. And their trouble concern model is built on taking wages of the habits together with private information of the taxpayers who funded the technologies inwards the commencement place.

There’s zip to combat alongside here. It’s a succinct summary of the tragedy of the green that lies at the catch of surveillance capitalism and, indeed, that of neoliberalism itself.

Mariana too accurately describes the trouble concern model of these companies, albeit without focusing on the actual machinery past times which the information is gathered to start with³:

Facebook’s together with Google’s trouble concern models are built on the commodification of personal data, transforming our friendships, interests, beliefs, together with preferences into sellable propositions. … The so-called sharing economic scheme is based on the same idea.

So far, hence good.
But then, things apace conduct maintain a real incorrect turn:

There is indeed no argue why the public’s information should non live owned past times a world repository that sells the information to the tech giants, rather than vice versa.

There is every argue why nosotros shouldn’t do this.
Mariana’s analysis is fundamentally flawed inwards 2 respects: First, it ignores a pith injustice inwards surveillance capitalism – violation of privacy – that her proposed recommendation would conduct maintain the lawsuit of normalising. Second, it perpetuates a fundamental imitation dichotomy ­– that at that spot is no other way to pattern engineering than the way Silicon Valley together with surveillance capitalists pattern engineering – which together with hence way that at that spot is no advert of the truthful alternatives: gratis together with open, decentralised, interoperable ethical technologies.

No, nosotros must non normalise violation of privacy
The pith injustice that Mariana’s slice ignores is that the trouble concern model of surveillance capitalists similar Google together with Facebook is based on the violation of a fundamental human right. When she says “let’s non forget that a large role of the engineering together with necessary information was created past times all of us” it sounds similar nosotros voluntarily got together to create a dataset for the mutual practiced past times revealing the most intimate details of our lives through having our conduct tracked together with aggregated. In truth, nosotros did no such thing.

We were farmed.

We powerfulness conduct maintain resigned ourselves to beingness farmed past times the likes of Google together with Facebook because nosotros conduct maintain no other selection but that’s non a salubrious Definition of consent past times whatever standard. If 99.99999% of all investment goes into funding surveillance-based engineering (and it does), together with hence people conduct maintain neither a truthful selection nor tin they live expected to laissez passer whatever meaningful consent to beingness tracked together with profiled. Surveillance capitalism is the norm today. It is mainstream technology. It’s what nosotros funded together with what nosotros built.

It is too fundamentally unjust.

There is a real of import argue why the public’s information should non live owned past times a world repository that sells the information to the tech giants because it’s non the public’s data, it is personal information together with it should never conduct maintain been collected past times a 3rd political party to start with. You powerfulness ask heed the same declaration from people who say that nosotros must nationalise Google or Facebook.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no! The respond to the violation of personhood past times corporations isn’t violation of personhood past times government, it’s not violating personhood to start with.
That’s non to say that nosotros cannot conduct maintain a information commons. In fact, nosotros must. But nosotros must acquire to construct a pith distinction betwixt information nigh people together with information nigh the the world roughly us.

Data nigh people ≠ information nigh rocks
Our fundamental mistake when talking nigh information is that nosotros exercise a unmarried term when referring to both information nigh people equally good equally information nigh things....MUCH MORE

Here she is at Camp Alphaville inwards 2014 (moderator: FTAV's Dan McCrum):

And, August 14, 2015:
Lunch alongside the FT: Mariana Mazzucato

The commencement fourth dimension I saw Mariana Mazzucato inwards activeness was when she intellectually eviscerated a guileless American venture capitalist at an economical conference inwards Italy. Anyone who has read Mazzucato’s volume The Entrepreneurial State — or fifty-fifty glanced at her website — could conduct maintain in all likelihood guessed it would live a bad thought to combat inside her earshot that Silicon Valley’s success was due entirely to vivid entrepreneurs doing whizzy things.

But the venture capitalist was sloppy on his due diligence together with was whacked past times a formidable Mazzucato, brandishing a volume of data, sharply honed arguments — together with a lot of attitude. In its way it was electrifying, specially if, equally I do, yous appreciate intellectual blood sports.

As professor inwards the Economics of Innovation at Sussex University, Mazzucato is much inwards need on the international lecture circuit for her iconoclastic views nigh how wealth is generated together with the world sector’s vital role inwards promoting innovation. She is equally forthright inwards her opinions equally she is eloquent inwards expressing them.

She chooses to run across at the Gilbert Scott eatery inwards the renovated St Pancras hotel, correct past times the Eurostar rail terminal, closed to her London home, together with symbolic of her life of travel. It is a high-ceilinged affair, boasting massive Fe low-cal fittings, cerise banquettes, together with grand paintings on its white walls. I acquire inwards early on together with eavesdrop on a grouping of 4 businessmen talking nigh their favourite James Bond films. H5N1 few minutes later, Mazzucato strides towards our table, a tall, striking adult woman inwards a abrupt bluish trouser conform together with regal top.....MUCH MORE

And many more.