The Spectrum Of Control: A Social Theory Of The Smart City

We are fans of Professor Pasquale, don't know his co-author.

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From First Monday:
Volume 20, Number vii - 6 July 2015 
By Jathan Sadowski together with Frank Pasquale

About the authors
Jathan Sadowski is a Ph.D. candidate inwards the “Human together with Social Dimensions of Science together with Technology,” inwards the Consortium for Science, Policy & Outcomes at Arizona State University. His enquiry mostly focuses on social theory/justice together with political economic scheme of information-communication technology. He is currently writing a dissertation on the socio-politics of “smart cities”.
E-mail: Jathan [dot] Sadowski [at] asu [dot] edu

Frank Pasquale is a Professor of Law at University of Maryland’s Francis King Carey School of Law. His enquiry addresses the challenges posed to information law yesteryear quickly changing technology, especially inwards the wellness care, Internet, together with finance industries. He of late published The dark box society: The surreptitious algorithms that command coin together with information (Harvard University Press, 2015), which develops a social theory of reputation, search, together with finance.
E-mail: fpasquale [at] law [dot] umaryland [dot] edu

There is a sure allure to the thought that cities allow a someone to both experience at dwelling seat together with similar a stranger inwards the same place. That i tin john know the streets together with shops, avenues together with alleys, spell also going days without existence recognized. But every bit elites fill upwards cities amongst “smart” technologies — turning them into platforms for the “Internet of Things” (IoT): sensors together with computation embedded inside physical objects that together with so connect, communicate, and/or transmit information amongst or betwixt each other through the Internet — in that location is piddling escape from a seamless spider web of surveillance together with power. This newspaper volition outline a social theory of the “smart city” yesteryear developing our Deleuzian concept of the “spectrum of control.” We nowadays 2 illustrative examples: biometric surveillance every bit a shape of monitoring, together with automated policing every bit a especially barbarous together with exacting shape of manipulation. We conclude yesteryear offering normative guidelines for governance of the pervasive surveillance together with command mechanisms that constitute an emerging critical infrastructure of the “smart city.”

Contents
I. Introduction
II. What is a smart city?
III. The ideology of the smart city
IV. Smart cities inwards societies of control
V. The soft powerfulness of biometric surveillance
VI. The hard powerfulness of policing technologies
VII. Cyborg urbanization, blurred boundaries
VIII. Taking dorsum control

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I. Introduction
There is a sure allure to the thought that cities allow a someone to both experience at dwelling seat together with similar a stranger inwards the same place. That i tin john know the streets together with shops, avenues together with alleys, spell also going days without existence recognized. But every bit authorities together with corporate actors, frequently inwards unopen partnership amongst each other, fill upwards cities amongst “smart” [1] technologies — turning them into platforms for the “Internet of Things” (IoT): sensors together with computation embedded inside physical objects that together with so connect, communicate, and/or transmit information amongst or betwixt each other through the Internet — in that location is piddling escape from a seamless spider web of surveillance (cf., Hollands, 2008; Townsend, 2014; Neirotti, et al., 2014). Soon, for example, shoppers together with viewers volition last every bit “known” yesteryear a store or gallery every bit they are able to know it (Arnsdorf, 2010). Facial recognition software, or smartphone emanations, tin john projection your identity, probable spending habits, together with reputation: shoplifter or large spender, “Mortgage Woes” or “Boomer Barons” (to utilisation actual categories from marketers) (Castle Press, 2010).

“Big data” is the novel currency of commerce, but similar money, some take hold far improve terms of access to it than others. In finance, the average borrower must plough over detailed, personal records to have a loan; the banking company is nether no parallel obligation, though, to explicate its ain internal decision-making inwards nearly every bit much particular (Pasquale, 2015). The same dynamics are emerging inwards the IoT: powerful entities centripetally attracting to a greater extent than information from their users, but denying access to users together with regulators, fifty-fifty when really troubling information uses together with breaches occur. It no longer makes feel to think of “the Internet” every bit a thing that i accesses via a computer. Not when the metropolis itself is reimagined together with reconstructed every bit a platform for together with node inside networked information-communication technologies (ICT).

Wired’s flagship article on the IoT asks, “Have yous ever lost an object inwards your seat together with dreamed that yous could just type a search for it, every bit yous would for a wayward document on your hard drive?” (Wasik, 2013). Well yous tin john now, nosotros are assured, thank yous to a startup called StickNFind Technologies that sells cheap, small, “sticker” sensors. Lose a fry at the mall? “Smart fashion” RFID tags volition hold him or her plugged into the network together with tracked at all times. And why halt amongst kids when making sensor-laden sartorial choices? Before long your car, house, appliances, together with every other component of your environs volition last engaging inwards a constant flow of networked communication amongst each other. Taken at the urban scale, the metropolis becomes a cocoon of connectivity that engulfs us — or, alternatively, it becomes a spider web that ensnares us — every bit smart technologies are integrated into our everyday lives. These technologies are billed every bit modes of finding, of wayfaring. They are technologies of search (when nosotros apply them) together with technologies of reputation (when used to evaluate us) (Pasquale, 2015). They map, categorize, together with assort — together with what could last to a greater extent than innocuous than mere information?

Calculating the costs together with benefits of the excogitation is a Sisyphean, together with deeply ideological, task. Who knows what sinister or spectacular applications may emerge? Scenario analysis together with planning could last a valuable alternative to cost-benefit studies (Verchick, 2010): these methods admit the incommensurability of the gains inwards convenience, together with losses of privacy, portended yesteryear the IoT. But corporate and authorities discourse on IoT has tended to marginalize the most of import negative scenario analyses, downplaying them every bit paranoid projections. Technocrats distort policy evaluations of pervasive surveillance together with command inwards urban environments. Moreover, their normative tools of evaluation, focusing on consumer together with citizen “consent” to surveillance, are manipulable plenty to comprehend fifty-fifty the most disturbing technologies of command — such every bit drone-driven crowd command directed at protesters, or automobile loan applied scientific discipline that disables cars mere minutes after a payment is belatedly — every bit expressions of democratic volition together with marketplace rationality.

Technocrats’ convenient blindness to the most worrisome aspects of the “smart city” invites a to a greater extent than balanced theoretical response. We suggest i such response that lays out the characteristics together with consequences of a dominant socio-political logic that courses throughout together with ties together many of the diverse practices together with ideologies related to “smart cities.” We laid out yesteryear providing a contextual overview of the “smart city,” edifice from the burgeoning analytical piece of work on the topic. This leads into a critical introduction to the ideology of the “smart city,” focusing on the stated aspirations of some of its most notable corporate, governmental, together with academic exponents. We together with so offering a Deleuzian alternative, outlining a social theory of the “smart city” inwards service to capital every bit a shape of command (rather than emancipation) of its subject-citizens. Next, nosotros nowadays 2 illustrative examples along the resulting spectrum of control: biometric surveillance every bit a shape of monitoring, together with automated policing every bit a especially barbarous together with exacting shape of manipulation. Our penultimate subdivision makes explicit the stakes of the deep integration of person–machine — metropolis inwards our “post-digital-dualist era” (Jurgenson, 2012). And nosotros goal yesteryear offering some normative guidelines for governance of the pervasive surveillance together with command mechanisms that constitute the emerging critical infrastructure of the “smart city.”


II. What is a smart city?
Globally — inwards terms of marketplace valuation, expendable capital, technological development, together with transformative influence — the smart metropolis displace has been growing at a rapid pace. Influenza A virus subtype H5N1 2013 report, released yesteryear the United Kingdom’s Department for Business, Innovation together with Skills, estimated that “the global marketplace for smart metropolis solutions together with the additional services required to deploy them [will] last $408 billion yesteryear 2020.” Linked to this growth is the exponential expansion of the IoT. According to commonly cited numbers from telecommunication giant Cisco, i of the major industries involved inwards the IoT together with smart cities, billions of things are already connected — “over 12.5 billion devices inwards 2010 alone.” And they predict, “Some 25 billion devices volition last connected yesteryear 2015, together with 50 billion yesteryear 2020.” [2] Less conservative estimates seat the smart metropolis marketplace into the trillion(s) of dollars over the adjacent v to 10 years, amongst the IoT marketplace existence worth fifty-fifty more. Case inwards point, IBM of late announced it would last investing US$3 billion over the adjacent 4 years inwards creating a novel IoT unit of measurement (Reuters, 2015) — an investment that volition certainly boost IBM’s already lucrative, multi-billion dollar “Smarter Planet” initiative. As an urban planning together with governance movement, a lot of travail is expended on pushing together with pulling “smartness” — the major corporate players piece of work hard to force smartness every bit an ideal together with to force metropolis leaders together with investors into the smartness orbit. These corporations did non just stumble upon an existing marketplace for which they could fill upwards the needs. They, rather, take hold worked hard to create this marketplace together with to shape it inwards sure ways.

Yet, amongst this massive growth together with uppercase investment, the label “smart city” is nebulous. There’s non a unmarried Definition that tin john last called upwards together with applied anytime the label is invoked (Hollands, 2008). This ambiguity does a lot of piece of work for smart metropolis proponents together with purveyors. The label is treated similar a floating signifier that tin john alter referents whenever needed. Allowing for a flexible, dynamic infinite inwards which to plug a diversity of products, practices, together with policies. Giving them discursive covert inwards instance they demand to distance themselves if something goes incorrect or doesn’t deliver on a promise.
One of import together with constant characteristic of these dissimilar visions, however, is that they aim to evoke positive alter together with excogitation — at to the lowest degree every bit the proponents regard it — via digital ICT; essentially, edifice an IoT at the city-scale yesteryear installing networked objects throughout the urban environs (and fifty-fifty human bodies) for a broad attain of dissimilar purposes. The typical examples used to illustrate an IoT-filled Earth are consumer products — similar the ever-present smart fridge that tells the store when yous demand milk. But, Bruce Sterling argues, this is a “fairy tale,” instead “the genuine Internet of Things wants to invade that refrigerator, mensurate it, musical instrument it, monitor whatever interactions amongst it; it would cheerfully give away a fridge at cost” [3]. Restricting our focus to the consumer devices poses a crimson herring that keeps our attending at the surface level, halting analyses that should locomote beyond the alternating currents of absurd farce together with gee whiz excitement. “These grand, world-scale [corporate] alliances did non shape inwards monastic tell to sell the reader a smart refrigerator. Most of them would truly similar the reader to dwell inwards a ‘Smart City’ where they provide the ‘smartness’ on their ain terms — together with they’re non much concerned most the reader’s consent every bit a citizen” [4]. The smart metropolis is non just a linearly scaled version of the smart dwelling seat where all of our personal devices together with domestic appliance are networked, automated, together with goodness communicators. It is fundamentally most infrastructural together with civic applications — the sort of things that constitute the techno-political ordering of guild — together with it is most the information together with command those applications generate. To last sure, non all “smart cities” are implemented inwards the same way; nosotros regard 3 main types.

First, yesteryear far the most mutual ‘actually existing’ smart cities are those that are retrofitted together with renovated amongst upgrades that transition electrical flow cities from dumb to smart. Many estimates seat the number of cities together with towns amongst smart initiatives into the tens or hundreds of thousands about the world. In these cases, “the smart metropolis is assembled piecemeal, integrated awkwardly into existing configurations of urban governance together with the built environment” [5]. Typically the underlying motivations are political economic, the termination of an increasingly entrepreneurial shape of urban governance that seeks to brand the metropolis into a oculus of (regionally or globally) competitive economical growth together with activity (Harvey, 1989). Getting smart is the handy panacea for overcoming austerity, managing the urban system, together with becoming an attractive seat for uppercase to time period into — all yesteryear using “networked infrastructures to improve economical together with political efficiency together with enable social, cultural together with urban development” [6]. Hence, smart initiatives hope to provide metropolis leaders amongst the way necessary for achieving their entrepreneurial ends.

Second, in that location is the ‘shock therapy’ method — or, what nosotros mightiness telephone telephone smart shock — wherein a metropolis undergoes a quick, large-scale integration of ‘smart’ ideals, technologies, together with policies into an existing landscape. There are non every bit yet whatever cities that take hold experienced a total shock, but rather in that location are examples where the smart metropolis transition has occurred to a greater grade together with at a to a greater extent than rapid criterion than the typical retrofits. Perhaps the best representative is the Intelligent Operations Center built inwards 2010 yesteryear IBM for the metropolis of Rio de Janeiro, which “draws together information streams from xxx agencies, including traffic together with populace transport, municipal together with utility services, emergency services, weather condition feeds, together with information sent inwards yesteryear employees together with the populace via phone, Internet together with radio, into a unmarried information analytics centre” [7]. With this NASA-esque command room, the metropolis of Rio is turned into a organization for optimization together with securitization. Different parts of metropolis life tin john last scrutinized together with managed at a to a greater extent than exacting level, hence amplifying the already existing practices of militaristic urban command (Wacquant, 2008). IBM together with other applied scientific discipline corporations take hold created similar information centers elsewhere for unmarried agencies similar constabulary departments, but none take hold yet reached the magnitude of Rio’s Intelligent Operations Center. Though, in that location is plenty of indication that Rio foreshadows the type of systems nosotros tin john seem to regard existence quickly built together with deployed inwards other cities.

Third, the idealistic models for the smart metropolis are the built from scratch projects that are existence constructed where naught existed before. Influenza A virus subtype H5N1 canonical instance is New Songdo inwards South Korea, which serves every bit a global test-bed (Halpern, et al., 2013) together with urban laboratory (Gieryn, 2006) for implementing large-scale smart systems inwards the wild. At a terms of to a greater extent than or less US$40 billion, Songdo’s corporate together with authorities backers hope to acquire inwards the world’s kickoff fully smart city. As Christine Rosen (2012) remarks, “Songdo claims news non from its inhabitants, but from the millions of wireless sensors together with microcomputers embedded inwards surfaces together with objects throughout the metropolis.” This type of implementation represents a zone of futurity. That is, a window into a grand, but plausibly potential, urban future. Furthermore, this type also reveals striking historical similarities that exists betwixt the smart metropolis ideology together with the ideology of twentieth century high-modernist architecture. Consider that Brazil’s federal uppercase of Brasília — a monument to the high-modernism ideals of technocratic administrative ordering — was built, inwards only 41 months (1956–1960), yesteryear clearing out a plot of Blue Planet inwards the Amazon rainforest (Scott, 1998). “Point yesteryear point,” writes Adam Greenfield [8], “whether they do so out of ignorance, ahistoricity, heedlessness or hubris, the designers of Songdo together with Masdar together with PlanIT Valley [other canonical smart cities] recapitulate the overspecification, overweening scientism together with ponderous authoritarian pomposity of Chandigarh together with Brasília, correct downward to the grand ceremonial axes.”

Even amongst this plurality of methods together with motivations, nosotros believe it is possible and necessary to laid out parsing out the underlying socio-political logics that these smart metropolis initiatives handgrip inwards common. As nosotros take hold shown, there’s no sign that the smart metropolis is slowing down. The ideals together with practices of the displace — inwards the diverse styles they are implemented — proceed to colonize the urban landscape together with political imaginations of metropolis leaders. Given the constraints of this paper, our overview is only meant to laid the phase for the critical social theory at the ticker of this paper. For a to a greater extent than exhaustive genealogical analysis of the dominant discourses together with ideologies that are driving these sociotechnical systems together with policies — specifically those emanating from the major corporate actors of IBM, Cisco, together with Siemens — nosotros betoken the reader to Adam Greenfield’s thorough pamphlet, Against the smart city (2013). What’s more, nosotros should last clear that our generalized utilisation of “smart city” inwards the repose of the article is meant to last a shorthand for technologies together with techniques that align amongst both the practices together with ideologies of the “smart city” label — no thing what their scale or trend of implementation. We don’t intend to homogenize or flatten out the differences inwards what the “smart city” way for dissimilar cities, policy-makers, together with corporations. Rather, our hope is to depict attending to the ways inwards which seemingly disparate technologies together with techniques take hold origins inwards together with reproduce mutual socio-political logics — together with nosotros volition do this yesteryear discussing specific initiatives. But first, the adjacent subdivision introduces the ideologies — updating together with adding depth to Greenfield’s ain study — that are embedded inside together with enacted yesteryear smart metropolis initiatives.


III. The ideology of the smart city
In to a greater extent than formal spaces of policy advocacy, a stark meliorism informs a Whiggish imaginary of technological progress via the IoT. In a widely cited article for Foreign Affairs, 2 principal executives for Cisco trumpeted the benefits of applying the “Internet of Everything” to nearly all aspects of metropolis infrastructure together with governance (Chambers together with Elfrink, 2014). They promised “intelligent together with efficient stewardship of growing cities” to trim down “traffic, parking congestion, pollution, unloose energy consumption, together with crime.” Who could last against such a program? The only cost, the executives assure readers, would last a slight reorientation inwards governance together with information technology procurement strategies. First, “the Earth must rethink information technology investments” yesteryear “moving away from purchasing isolated services together with instead focusing on end-to-end solutions that are integrated across disparate or siloed systems.” Second, “hyper collaborative partnerships betwixt the populace together with private sectors” amongst strict “adherence to deadlines” is essential. As i of their principles for making smart cities the global “norm” proclaims, “the Earth can’t last afraid of embracing applied scientific discipline inwards novel ways. This way rethinking the contract amongst citizens together with the services information technology firms together with governments provide them” (Chamber together with Elfrink, 2014).

The shift inwards political linguistic communication — wherein the social contract is replaced yesteryear the corporate contract — is subtle, but critical for agreement the politics smuggled into the technocratic agenda of smart cities (cf., Sadowski together with Selinger, 2014). This explains why the 6 principles they suggest are all based on admonishing “city leaders” for non valorizing (enough) the products together with services offered yesteryear the ICT sector. Like savvy businessmen, the authors recognize the asymmetry of public-private partnerships inwards an era of neoliberalism. When acme managers at firms earn many multiples of acme civil servants, the latter readily allow the private sphere to reshape the populace sphere inwards its ain image. Corporations tin john afford a phalanx of economists, designers, attorneys, together with populace relations specialists, all skilled inwards presenting i possible futurity for the metropolis every bit a technocratic pensée unique. Indeed, other than the corporate model, “there be no large-scale alternative smart metropolis models, partly because most cities take hold mostly embraced a pro-business together with entrepreneurial governance model of urban development” [9].

Of course, Cisco has a commercial involvement here: designing, manufacturing, together with installing the hardware for these networks is Cisco’s lifeblood, together with futurity turn a profit margins may depend on the firm’s powerfulness to arts and crafts seductive narratives of ‘smartness.’ But numerous municipal leaders together with non-profit foundations take hold jumped on the bandwagon, every bit well. There are fabric motivations here, too, every bit politico-economic analyses of revolving door occupation patterns betwixt private, public, together with “third” sector concerns reveal. When civil servants tin john easily multiply their pay yesteryear moving from authorities to corporate offices, every bit long every bit they are pliable together with cooperative, few take hold an incentive to inquire hard questions (Carpenter together with Moss, 2013). The boundaries betwixt populace business office together with private consulting are porous.

Just every bit of import every bit fabric motives together with career ambition, the narrative of the smart city, every bit an interpretation of technological systems, rationalizes these urban transformations (Söderström, et al., 2014). In a commentary on smart cities research, geographer Rob Kitchin argues that it is problematic the way inwards which “much of the writing together with rhetoric most smart cities” — whether stemming from business, academia, or authorities — “seeks to appear non-ideological, commonsensical together with pragmatic” [10]. This is an outgrowth of a technocratic neoliberal ideology, together with a broader political economical imaginary of stable extraction of profits together with taxes. Advocates of the smart metropolis trend themselves every bit hard-headed job solvers who exceed the zero-sum politics that crusade other to locomote embroiled inwards gridlocked conflict. Yet, they all also frequently sideslip into the mental attitude memorably parodied yesteryear Clifford Geertz every bit “I take hold a social philosophy; yous take hold political opinions; he has an ideology” [11]. Here the “I” mightiness last smart metropolis contractors; the “you,” metropolis leaders; together with “he” the diverse involvement groups raising deeper concerns most the implementation of volume surveillance, information processing, together with control. Take, for instance, a speech communication yesteryear Samuel Palmisano (2010), together with so the Chairman, President, together with CEO of IBM, inwards which he asserted, “Building a smarter planet is realistic just because it is so refreshingly non-ideological.” However, every bit Geertz advises, the deployment of the term ideology is i of the most ideologized practices of modern rhetoric, a way of concealing the to a greater extent than contestable values together with assumptions driving those dismissing their opponents every bit ideological. In this paper, nosotros do non utilisation the term ideology every bit an a priori accusation, but rather inwards its descriptive capacity — together with somewhat ironically since many technologists together with neoliberals alike expend so much unloose energy claiming that their practices are the results of a value-free, Progress-driven, extra-human forcefulness (e.g., applied scientific discipline together with markets).

To improve sympathise the invariably political grapheme of the smart city, consider a logical extension of some electrical flow smart metropolis thinking, proposed every bit a thought experiment yesteryear philosopher together with legal theorist Lawrence Solum. Singapore has “smart intersections that var[y] their red/green cycles according to traffic” (Baum, 2001), together with i tin john imagine far to a greater extent than elaborate methods of controlling the time period of automobiles. Solum posits the evolution of an “Artificially Intelligent Traffic Authority (AITA),” which could “adapt itself to changes inwards driver deportment together with traffic flow” [12]. The organization would last designed to “introduce random variations together with run controlled experiments to evaluate the effects of diverse combinations on traffic pattern” [13], recalling Jim Manzi’s (2012) recommendations for far to a greater extent than experimentation inwards populace policy. But the organization would non last really forgiving of individual experimentation with, say, violating its rules. Rather, every bit imagined yesteryear Solum, “[v]iolations would last detected yesteryear an elaborate organization of electronic surveillance” together with offenders would last “identified together with straightaway would last removed from traffic yesteryear a organization of cranes located at key intersections” [14].

Solum uses this representative to intermission downward the usual distinctions betwixt human together with artificial pregnant inwards law, rather than every bit a policy proposal for the futurity of traffic. The scenario is just every bit useful to flag the inevitably legal together with political aspects of automated law enforcement, fifty-fifty inwards an expanse every bit seemingly technical every bit traffic. Would the cranes posited inwards Solum’s hypothetical surgically take protesters, similar the Ferguson marchers, who blocked highways (Harcourt, 2012)? Would anyone amongst an expired license or tags last plucked away every bit good — inwards a vision already half-realized yesteryear subprime lenders who halt cars remotely every bit before long every bit a payment is belatedly (Sadowski together with Pasquale, 2014)?

The job for smart metropolis advocates is i of overcoming several tensions, if non outright contradictions, inwards their ideal-type of corporatized governance. Who is ultimately inwards accuse of “hyper collaborative partnerships betwixt the populace together with private sectors?” What are the penalties when, say, deadlines are non met? Who imposes them? What are the problems that the smart metropolis volition utilisation “end-to-end solutions” to solve? How volition the imposition of such “solutions” last sequenced?

To take hold some obvious examples: should novel forms of surveillance focus kickoff on drug busts, or evidence of white-collar crime, or unfair labor practices yesteryear employers? Wage theft is a massive problem, but rarely taken seriously yesteryear authorities (Bobo, 2011). Do the cameras together with sensors inwards restaurants focus on preventing employee theft of food, stopping nutrient poisoning, and/or catching security violations? Does “traffic control” include efforts to halt honking of horns together with loud motorcycles belatedly at nighttime inwards urban neighborhoods, or is that health-damaging noise deemed just every bit unworthy of computational scrutiny every bit it is casually excused yesteryear millions of modest acts of policing discretion each twelvemonth — every bit opposed to the accuse of “blocking pedestrian traffic” that is commonly used yesteryear constabulary every bit an excuse to harass African-Americans standing on empty sidewalks (Taibbi, 2014)? Would autonomous motorcar command systems prioritize preventing pedestrian deaths, or simply aspire to smoothen flows of cars into together with out of the city?

The ideology of neoliberalism all also frequently provides rapid, “obvious,” together with unchallenged answers, based on dubious cost-benefit analyses. Its summum bonum is to improve the occupation organization environs together with spread marketplace logics to all dimensions of human life. Yet problems multiply fifty-fifty inside the neoliberal framework, especially every bit it expects nation actors to realize occupation organization goals (and vice versa). The nation itself must capitulate to (and coordinate) its subjects’ purported emancipation from it. So, every bit Philip Mirowski argues, in that location is a neoliberal pattern of “hav[ing] it both ways: to stridently warn of the perils of expanding purview of nation activity while simultaneously imagining the strong nation of their liking rendered harmless” [15]. These tensions are a formal characteristic of ideological thought: it is a way of containing together with coordinating commitments that are contradictory either inwards theory or practise (Geertz, 1973).

Although these ideological beliefs are most frequently pegged to Wall Street together with Silicon Valley, they tin john last found, without much difficulty, inwards fifty-fifty our highest legislative bodies. In Feb 2015, the United States Senate held a hearing called “The Connected World: Examining the Internet of Things” [16]. The hearing featured statements from senators together with testimony from a panel of v witnesses. The attitudes throughout were overwhelmingly excited for the smarter lives nosotros volition all last leading thank yous to the IoT. While in that location were occasional mentions of basic issues related to security together with privacy, most of the concern stemmed from worries most “over regulation,” which meant anything to a greater extent than than a “light touch” approach. In his statement, U.S. Senator Cory Booker (D–NJ) neatly encapsulated the political economical ideology on display inwards the hearing — together with spell he was to a greater extent than enthusiastic together with explicit inwards musical note than others, his remarks are representative together with worth quoting at length:

“This is a phenomenal chance for a bipartisan, profoundly patriotic approach to an number that tin john explode our economy. I think that in that location are trillions of dollars, creating countless jobs, improving character of life, [and] democratizing our guild inwards ways that gives advantages to people who are existence marginalized on the edges, breaking downward barriers of race together with class. We can’t fifty-fifty imagine the futurity that this portends of, together with nosotros should last embracing that ... And so a lot of my concerns are truly what my Republican colleagues also echoed — which is, nosotros should last doing everything possible to encourage this, together with naught to bound it ... But for us to do anything to inhibit that jump inwards humanity to me seems unfortunate ... And I also believe that this should last a public-private partnership. We all take hold a role.”

Booker’s statements are non radical. He is inwards fact channeling the mainstream views most excogitation inwards society. The to the lowest degree nosotros tin john do is acquire out of the way. At best, our duty is to provide all the legal, material, together with ideological back upwards nosotros tin john for innovations — together with their innovators — similar the IoT. Anybody who wishes to inquire critical questions most the future, permit lone truly constrain together with deadening downward technological development, is de facto extinguishing an exploding economic scheme together with standing inwards the way of a democratizing forcefulness for justice.

Booker’s linguistic communication recalls the puffery of finance uppercase — the same grouping he vigorously defended inwards 2012 after the leader of his political political party (Barack Obama) gently suggested the possibility of ending private equity taxation loopholes. Overclaiming the value of the smart metropolis is vital to contemporary uppercase markets, since extreme inequality inwards wealth allows rentiers to alive good fifty-fifty on the really depression involvement rates offered yesteryear nearly risk-free sovereign debt. The “smart money” likely volition sympathise the “smart city” every bit an fifty-fifty to a greater extent than speculative bet if it peruses security experts’ warnings most the security problems at nowadays endemic inwards the Internet of Things. (As Bruce Schneier (2014) has observed, when computing is embedded into hardware (as is the instance inwards most of the IoT), sensors together with routers are “riddled amongst vulnerabilities, together with there’s no goodness way to patch them”). The riskier the investment, the to a greater extent than spectacular the potential gains must be: hence the proliferation of characterizations of smart metropolis applied scientific discipline every bit epochal, groundbreaking, world-making.

Of course, the rhetoric is non ever so grandiose — in that location are cross-cutting, technocratic pressures to audio cool, analytical, together with mechanically objective when describing novel technology. Bland bipartisanship is also a favored rhetorical mood. Boosters lard manifestos, manuals, together with exhortatory books amongst simple, straightforward examples of problems all tin john handgrip demand fixing (Newsom, 2013; Townsend, 2014), inwards monastic tell to obscure the stakes of automated surveillance together with regimentation of every minute together with place. Influenza A virus subtype H5N1 pothole-spotting app, for instance, is a criterion toward at to the lowest degree informing (if non guaranteeing the filling of) an unmitigated, car-harming bad. But non everyone agrees with, say, Goldsmith together with Crawford when they debate for “postprogressive” metropolis administration that focuses on “results non compliance” [17], in i trial the “results” desired displace far beyond fast trash pickup or smoothen roads. Indeed, the really choice to deploy resources for route smoothing (rather than, say, develop or omnibus air conditioning, or light-green spaces) is an inherently political one. Goldsmith together with Crawford celebrate a new, “smart” fingerprinting initiatory aimed at criminals [18], amongst nary a reflection on the ways inwards which these records databases create underclasses of effectively unemployable individuals.

Smart metropolis advocates may counter that such conflicts over resources resources allotment are inevitable inwards whatever political order, together with stress that their ain deployment of sensors, apps, opened upwards data, together with progress reporting cannot last expected to unravel them. But realities of scarcity apply to political attention, problematization, together with activity every bit well. Time spent organizing to deploy a “platform for citizens to engage metropolis hall, together with each other, through text, voice, social media, together with other apps” [19], is fourth dimension non spent on highlighting the role of taxation resistance yesteryear the wealthy inwards creating the really shortage of personnel that smart cities are supposed to assist cure yesteryear “force multiplication” of the cities’ remaining workers (Winters, 2011; Bady, 2013). Would Newark, New Jersey, demand Mark Zuckerberg’s donation of US$100 i thou m to its schoolhouse system, if so many others inwards the billionaire shape had non fought so hard to trim down their ain (and corporate) taxes, shelter wealth abroad, together with defang regulation? Each fourth dimension a “quantrepreneur” proposes ingenious novel ways of criterion together with maximizing the “output” of authorities workers, a critical citizenry should ask: how did nosotros come upwards to this pass? Where has the constant pressure level to “do to a greater extent than amongst less” come upwards from? Focusing on the tech of “doing more” displaces critical debate on the why of “less” governmental resources together with employees.

The corporate together with governmental actors behind the smart metropolis ideal take hold distorted debate inwards 2 ways. First, focusing on the narrow goals of promoting transparency together with efficiency, they take hold obscured the revolutionary changes inwards law enforcement’s intensity, scope, together with punitive comport on portended yesteryear pervasive surveillance systems that are easily embedded into a regime of ambient law. Second, they offering a doubly crabbed view of the politics together with ethics of digitizing infinite via the IoT: every bit a post hoc constraint imposed on technical systems, primarily to encourage “privacy,” inwards the individualistic feel of the correct to command the collection of information most oneself.

By applying a hermeneutics of suspicion, a to a greater extent than consummate — together with troubling — social theory of the smart metropolis emerges. Even at the to the lowest degree intrusive goal of the spectrum of command enabled yesteryear the IoT, in that location is far to a greater extent than at stake than the nebulous laid of concerns most perception together with reputation traditionally encapsulated inwards the umbrella term “privacy.” And at the far goal of control, the stakes are really high. The IoT is non simply a adventure to watch people, but to create together with reproduce sure patterns of interaction (Bogard, 1996), together with to replace people amongst robotic agents in i trial information most them has been so pervasively recorded that it tin john last downloaded into an automaton to imitate their actions.


IV. Smart cities inwards societies of control
What volition a social theory of the smart metropolis demand? As opposed to the ideology of advocates, social theory is a “systematic, historically informed together with empirically oriented theory seeking to explicate the nature of ‘the social,’” where the social “can last taken to hateful the full general attain of recurring forms, or patterned features, of interactions together with relationships betwixt people” [20]. To take hold on ideal-types of interactions inwards urban environments, critical patterns include relationships of allocation/extraction, oppression/emancipation, together with recognition/misrecognition (Fraser, 1995). Close exam of the phenomenology of existence a surveilled subject, a information subject, reveals the vulnerability of each resident of the smart metropolis to extraction, oppression, together with misrecognition.

In many ways, Foucault’s concept of biopower has explanatory fit. One shape of biopower is, he writes, “centered on the trunk every bit a machine: its disciplining, the optimization of its capabilities, the extortion of its forces, the parallel growth of its usefulness together with its docility, its integration into systems of efficient together with economical controls, all this was ensured yesteryear the procedures of powerfulness that characterized the disciplines: an anatomo-politics of the human body” [21]. In contrast to the modes of sovereign powerfulness that exercised the correct “to take life or let live” [22], the modes of disciplinary biopower exercise the powerfulness to administer together with deal bodies together with populations. The smart metropolis non only operates on people inwards this way — for instance, viewing citizens every bit analog-cum-digital information nodes, or “citizen sensors” [23] — but it also reimagines together with reconstructs the city, inwards itself, every bit a machine, which tin john together with must last administered together with managed. One theorist, inspired yesteryear Foucault’s concept of “governmentality,” has deemed this type of disciplining “smartmentality” (Vanolo, 2014).

While the concept of biopower is certainly illuminating, it doesn’t give us the total picture. We tin john divulge to a greater extent than most the smart metropolis yesteryear applying a dissimilar social theory — i that explicitly sought to succeed Foucault’s disciplinary societies, just every bit Foucault’s model succeeded the “societies of sovereignty” — namely, Gilles Deleuze’s (1995) notion of “societies of control.” If the sovereign powerfulness was, every bit Foucault points out, symbolized yesteryear the sword, together with disciplinary biopower was represented yesteryear industrial machines, together with so command corresponds to estimator networks (Deleuze, 1995). Now, of course, the existence of i manner of powerfulness does non abolish the others. Rather, it is a interrogation of which i is the dominant operational logic. And, when applied to ICT, especially the networked technologies of smart cities, Deleuze’s framework makes clear the mutual logics underlying these practices together with ideologies. We volition provide a preliminary application of this framework to demonstrate its merit every bit a social theory of the smart city.

Influenza A virus subtype H5N1 Deleuzian “society of control” has at to the lowest degree 3 crucial components — dividuals, rhizomes, together with passwords — which come upwards together to shape a continuously acting logic.

When i someone observes another, a basic perceptual apparatus of sight together with vision demands at to the lowest degree some minimally holistic assessment. It is hard to register what a walking someone is wearing, for example, without also noticing gender, if the someone limps or strides, is tall or short, amid the hundreds of other bits of tacit knowledge that may last conveyed yesteryear an appearance. Monitored yesteryear sensors, yesteryear contrast, metropolis dwellers are becoming less individuals than “dividuals”: entities ready to last divided into whatever number of pieces, amongst specific factors separated, scrutinized, together with surveilled. What the person does becomes less of import than the consequences calculated inwards response to emanated information streams. For example: the metadata from a telephone phone telephone may last far to a greater extent than fateful than the talking which nosotros commonly take hold to last its purpose.

With digital technologies, the private is atomized, blown apart into streams of information fed into processors. And every bit these sensors gain immediate influence over physical objects similar doors, fences, together with automobiles, in that location is piddling to no adventure of the communicative dialogue that is a hallmark of human interaction. Instead, these relations are at their heart together with soul strategic, inwards the Habermasian sense, rather than communicative (Habermas, 1984). Consequences volition termination non from the “unforced forcefulness of the improve argument,” or fifty-fifty coaxing together with cajoling, but rather, yesteryear forcefulness alone, every bit programmed yesteryear a laid of managers together with software developers far removed inwards fourth dimension together with infinite from particular implementations of programmed rules [24].

For example, facial recognition software enrolls a person’s face, together with yesteryear extension the someone it is associated with, into a network, whether the someone wants to last enrolled or not. Hackers at nowadays claim they tin john fifty-fifty utilisation photographs to seat fingerprints every bit good (Santus, 2014), a potentially massive boon for law enforcement. The wellness wristband paints a moving painting of a self yesteryear collecting together with analyzing somatic data. The location-tracking sensor registers geospatial coordinates. The Department of Homeland Security’s Cell-All initiatory senses “deadly” chemicals. The RFID reader only cares most the chip inwards your wallet. The biometric lock is only concerned amongst your fingerprint or irises. The listing of ways that people are dividualized goes on. It is identity via synecdoche, where a factor — which factor depends on the organization — becomes representative of the whole together with becomes all that matters.

The array of underlying technical systems, which are frequently hidden from sight together with mind, tin john last conceptualized every bit what Deleuze calls a “rhizome” — similar the roots together with shoots of a persistent, massive laid of plants, it seems to popular upwards everywhere. Rhizomes are assemblages of concepts, relationships, materials, together with actions. They take hold no distinct boundaries; rather, they are fluid fields, ever acting, pulsating power, emanating from multiple directions amongst varying intensities. The city’s networked, ‘smart’ technological apparatus tin john simultaneously be: sensing chemicals inwards the atmosphere; tracking bodies every bit they displace through space; surveilling the types of faces on the street; sending constabulary to take unwanted people; moving traffic along the roads; together with more.

Even every bit a swarm of disconnected, “dumb” machines, this emerging rhizomatic apparatus of monitoring together with command tin john last intimidating. No i wants to last on the incorrect side of its algorithms. As urban technological networks grow vaster together with to a greater extent than interconnected, secondary uses of information barely imaginable at the fourth dimension “users” laid out participating inwards the IoT may good locomote commonplace (Hoofnagle, 2003). Data gathers together with brokers — from corporations to governments — volition discover a plethora of uses for the information. Consider the biometric lock: Surely the times, places, together with identities of who is granted access volition last categorized together with logged, but what mightiness last fifty-fifty to a greater extent than interesting to authorities is the information for who is denied access.

And people-qua-dividuals take hold liberty only insofar every bit all their “passwords” — the products of dividualization that grade access or restriction, allowing i to displace freely through or last stymied yesteryear the rhizomatic organization — are inwards working order. (Do yous wishing to acquire into through a keypad lock? Your PIN is the password. Do yous wishing to buy something? Your credit bill of fare is the password.) Life is filled amongst these passwords. Yet, at whatever minute a password could last rejected — rightly or wrongly, amongst or without your knowledge — together with the amount of command the array of underlying mechanisms take hold over yous locomote bluntly apparent. Deleuze asked us to imagine “a metropolis where i would last able to locomote out one’s apartment, one’s street, one’s neighborhood, thank yous to one’s (dividual) electronic bill of fare that raises a given barrier; but the bill of fare could just every bit easily last rejected on a given 24-hour interval or betwixt sure hours” [25]. As infrastructure decays together with the rhizomatic tendrils extend further, metropolis dwellers increasingly experience the Kafkaesque frustration such a scenario entails.

Technology critics frequently portray these unexpected developments inwards technological command every bit a sort of Frankenstein’s monster or sorcerer’s apprentice, i that “we” take hold unleashed via thoughtless adoption of applied scientific discipline [26]. Social theorists must force the interrogation of causation together with agency further, identifying the powerful actors who stay higher upwards the fray of dividualization, weaving a spider web of forces that increasingly constrain the fourth dimension together with infinite of metropolis dwellers (Krieger, 1994). Masses may last consenting to last dividualized, but only a few wrote those terms together with enforce them (Rothkopf, 2009).
Through Mirowski’s detailed analysis of the crusade together with context of the fiscal crisis, nosotros tin john regard how these ‘smart’ initiatives plug into the ideologies together with tactics of neoliberal political economy: “Technocratic elites could intently maintain the fiction that ‘the people’ had their say, spell reconfiguring authorities functions inwards a neoliberal direction. These elite saboteurs would select most the neoliberal marketplace guild far to a greater extent than completely together with efficaciously than waiting for the fickle populace to come upwards about to their beliefs” [27]. The distinction betwixt command together with consent is of import to several recent initiatives toward the creation of smart cities. Pervasive interlinking of surveillance/sensor arrays, computational processing, together with virtual databases into the physical construction of cities is only legitimate if citizens can, both politically together with inwards private encounters, tin john last said to take hold “consented” to it. But when that consent is remote or indirect, its force, validity, together with orbit should last vitiated. Internet “terms of service” are the ideal-type of desiccated, hollow, pro forma “consent” that is improve termed obeisance, acquiescence, or learned helplessness. Thus the overall pattern of relationships inwards the smart metropolis results inwards a seamless “spectrum of control,” amongst meritorious or simply creepy technologies straight imbricated amongst deeply disturbing ones.

The thought of a “spectrum of control” is to a greater extent than than a plough of phrase [28]. It serves every bit a symbolic visualization of an interpretation of a text — here, the text is the city, considered simultaneously every bit a sort of aesthetic object together with software program. As Charles Taylor has stated, inwards canonical piece of work on interpretive social science, interpretation “is an endeavor to brand clear, to brand feel of an object of study” that is inwards “some way confused, incomplete, cloudy, seeming contradictory — inwards i way or another, unclear” [29]. Just every bit skilled commentators tin john translate literature, judicial opinions, together with works of art, nosotros should take hold the city’s increasingly technologized systems of governance every bit expressive texts inwards demand of interpretation.

Both the rhetoric of the “smart city,” together with the actual metropolis itself, are texts together with text-analogues. They are cloudy together with confused at nowadays because so much theoretical travail has gone into separating out wheat together with chaff, to minimize “coercion” together with maximize opportunities for “consent.” This well-meaning, but ultimately futile, normative agenda contributes to confusion together with contradiction because the IoT together with all-pervasive surveillance are edifice less a smart city than a cyborg city (Gandy, 2005) — urban places where the stakes of access to sure prosthetic extensions of the self are ever rising. In such cyborg cities concepts similar consent vs. coercion, command vs. autonomy do non be every bit binaries — but rather they be on a continuum. Shoehorning the daily experience of the smart metropolis dweller into such binary choices volition only farther falsify the lived experience of urbanites. Economic pressure level toward a “full disclosure future” [30] makes opting out a luxury goodness (Angwin, 2014).

By theorizing inwards terms of a spectrum of command nosotros tin john depict connections betwixt technologies that were earlier thought of every bit discrete together with independent. The innocuous is enfolded amongst the menacing. Any important applied scientific discipline of the smart metropolis becomes a tool to last repurposed for later, often-unforeseeable goals. Claude Lévi-Strauss has compared human thought processes to the piece of work of the handyman, or bricoleur, who fixes problems every bit best he tin john amongst whatever tools or materials are lying at mitt (Lévi-Strauss, 1966). Influenza A virus subtype H5N1 similar physical care for of bricolage volition embed technologies of the smart metropolis into solutions proposed for problems large together with modest — together with will, inwards turn, assist define what is viewed every bit a job properly solved yesteryear the polity....MUCH MORE