In Praise of a Book, 1: The Age of Surveillance Capitalism

In Praise of a Book is a series I will be publishing on the website. A kind of reading list, these are books and poems I find inspiring, sometimes related to my work, oftentimes not. Simply said, these are works I love and wish to pass on.

The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier Of Power, by Shoshana Zuboff

“The essential questions confront us at every turn: Who knows? Who decides? Who decides who decides?” Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism

If knowledge is power, this book contains the neurological force of an army. More than 500 pages dense with revelation, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism is a tome of our stranger-than-fiction reality. It’s a book that often left me breathless and frankly, terrified.

Shoshana Zuboff is a philosopher, sociologist, writer, Harvard professor emerita, and expert in the field of information technology. Here, she is brilliant as she lays bare the bones of our digital system. It may not be secret that our society is an increasingly tethered one, but the depth of exploitation and manipulation will likely be news for most. Zuboff offers some solutions (like complete encryption) – but first, an end to our ignorance, a matter of protecting what it means to be human and free.

It feels necessary to first dispel the two misconceptions I hear when someone catches sight of the book title: a) that Zuboff is writing as an anti-capitalist, and b) that she is a luddite, or anti-technology. In my reading, she is neither. She describes capitalism’s “plasticity,” its ability to evolve historically, and knows American capitalism will certainly evolve still. Rather, she sees surveillance capitalism as rejecting capitalism’s core philosophical and historical tenants, like reciprocity and a free and unknowable market. She does seem to argue for a more rational and humane capitalism, a system she says, “should not be eaten raw.” As for technology, she sees possible a future where it functions in our best interests, protecting human autonomy while enriching our lives.

I came across The Age of Surveillance Capitalism at a time of great unease (the same moment I began assembling In Praise of Thought). I was feeling existentially dizzy about the state of American culture, acutely aware that something was awry. Our brains had never been so enmeshed with machine; and handheld devices in our near permanent grasps were being controlled by only a few people. Since when did we give stray civilians – a few notable Ivy League dropouts who never made it to their ethics courses (as written about in What Tech Calls Thinking by Adrian Daub) – such unchecked power?

We have been herded into a system that preys upon our narcissistic vulnerabilities; one that prizes celebrity over almost everything else; where constant moral outrage boils and retreats daily; a society of extremism; a society that accepts an enduring mental health crisis, our children increasingly disconnected, isolated, and depressed. At the time, I couldn’t fathom that this was simply a result of supplying people with a platform, a “voice.” Something more nefarious and inorganic felt at play, though I didn’t have the knowledge or language to comprehend.

Zuboff lifted this veil for me. She defines surveillance capitalism as a novel market – a means of extracting human behavior to sell and trade as “data” in what she calls a behavioral futures market. What this translates to: every click, search, thought, conversation, night’s sleep, and day’s drive is not only tracked to generate a few annoying ads on your phone; rather, this behavioral data is individualized, analyzed, and targeted back to you in hopes of modifying your behavior. The more certainly an algorithm can predict behavior, the more profit they are certain to make. The creators and players in this market – a limited few at Facebook, Google, and even Pokemon Go – are tracking and extracting the most private and sensitive facets of a human life (behaviors, thoughts, schedules, even bodily functions) to exploit them in a one-way scheme.

Let’s reimagine a future: a freer (and encrypted?) internet. Bad ideas and bad actors will be present. They might even rise to power. Information of all kinds will float around, some true, some disreputable. We will certainly require gatekeepers, upstanding institutions and reliable newspapers. In fact, maybe a free internet is more likely to produce news sources based on truth rather than click-bait algorithm. As for algorithms, imagine they are coded to improve your online life, only; and similarly, they are not coded to herd or shepherd or manipulate you. And imagine, you aren’t spending any effort on being vigilant, protecting your privacy or your autonomy. All of this is possible if people demand it. All of this is essential for a human future that’s free.

I wish this book was more accessible to the masses. As I said before, the writing is dense. It’s academic with moments of narrative and parable. It’s verbose. This book is clearly a culmination of Zuboff’s life’s work, endless research, study, and mastery. It deserves to be in the annals of academic thought, discussed, analyzed, maybe even improved upon. But there is a need, too, for a more palatable, easy to digest body of work, one that discusses in detail surveillance capitalism beyond the surface. This is vital information for the masses, because it is the masses who are affected. We need solutions, actionable paths forward. Nonetheless, I hope those who share an interest in technology, and especially those who work in tech, read this book! As Zuboff writes, we must reclaim a lost astonishment:

“These operations challenge our elemental right to the future tense, which is the right to act free of the influence of illegitimate forces that operate outside our awareness to influence, modify, and condition our behavior. We grow numb to these incursions and the ways in which they deform our lives. We succumb to the drumbeat of inevitability, but nothing here is inevitable. Astonishment is lost but can be found again.”