Navigating the Era of Surveillance Capitalism: Understanding, Adapting, and Resisting
Updated: Sep 17, 2023
The era we live in is marked by a new form of capitalism known as "surveillance capitalism." This system provides free services to billions of people in exchange for the ability to meticulously monitor our behaviour on the internet, often without our explicit consent.
Tech giants like Google, Facebook, and Instagram continue to expand their empires by collecting this data, which is then processed by advanced machine intelligence to make market predictions.
Machine intelligence, situated at the intersection of machine learning and artificial intelligence, enables machines to interact intelligently with their environment.
Artificial Intelligence (AI), on the other hand, encompasses a range of algorithms, processes, and methodologies that empower computer systems to perform tasks that typically require human-level intelligence.
AI can manifest as a component within a larger system or as a standalone application, digital agent, or autonomous machine.
This new phase of capitalism has divided the citizens of society into two groups: the overseers and the supervised.
Capitalism & Surveillance
Surveillance capitalism has transformed us into digital codes, numbers, and dehumanised entities. It functions as a mechanism of social control through marketing and advertising.
In today's world, even brands and political candidates are essentially treated as brands, using slogans to persuade people that something new and different is on the horizon, often without significant change occurring.
Marketing wields significant influence over reality by suggesting that our choices are confined to what the market offers, typically based on our previously monitored interests.
Resetting such a complex process is nearly impossible, especially given that surveillance often grants us privileges few would willingly relinquish.
Consider what our social and professional lives would be like without social media. The solution lies in adapting to the changes in our society, understanding how these new institutions control us, "resisting the temptations of marketing," and making control more conscious, creative, and health-focused.
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