Foreign Affairs: Big tech companies .. New world leaders

Economic historian Karl Polanyi in his classical book The Great Transformation told the story of modern capitalism as a "double movement" that led to the expansion and restriction of the market.

During the 18th and early 19th centuries, societies reimposed restrictions on the market as Polanyi entered the writing world after excessive capitalism destroyed the environment, damaged public health and led to economic panic and recession.

In an article in Foreign Affairs magazine, writer Paul Starr says Shoshana Zubov, an honorary professor at Harvard Business School, sees a new version of the first half of Polanyi's "dual movement", which is working today with the emergence of "watch capitalism," a new paradigm. For the market created by Facebook and Google.

He adds that technology companies have moved through data mining and forecasting to intervene in the real world.

In her book, The Age of Observing Capitalism, Zubov argues that capitalism is expanding the market again by considering human experience as a raw material free of the hidden business practices of extraction, forecasting and sales, and that with the emergence of "mainstream computing" and "Internet of Things" data mining has become Rampant.

Zubov warns that surveillance capitalism has so far succeeded in escaping the counter-movements described by Polanyi.

The author explained that Zubov's book represents a genius analysis of the digital economy and a call to recognize the changes imposed by technology on political and social life.

He adds that most Americans see the threats posed by technology companies as privacy issues, but Zubov proved that surveillance capitalism does not include the accumulation of personal data on an unprecedented scale only.

Corporate Strength
Paul Starr notes that technology companies and their experts are creating new forms of power and behavioral modification that operate outside the individual's personal consciousness, and that checking their strength requires a new counter-movement that restricts surveillance capitalism in the name of personal freedom and democracy.

It shows that reactions against the strength of the technology sector have already begun, with the US Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission conducting antitrust investigations at Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google.

The writer adds that Congress is considering legislation to limit the use of data technology companies, and points out that this national debate, whose final impact remains uncertain makes Zubov's book appropriate in time.

The rise of surveillance capitalism has an international dimension, he says, and US companies have long dominated the technology and Internet industry, raising suspicion and opposition in other countries.

Americans are worried about personal data stores that fall into the hands of hostile foreign powers, the writer said, adding that the Facebook application created by a Russian company in July has alarmed Americans.

Russian intelligence
Paul Starr says he is said to have used the application by Russian intelligence to collect facial recognition data and possibly to create deep counterfeit videos, rumors the company has denied.

He adds that Zubov believes that surveillance capitalism originated with the great discoveries of Google, and that the company's enormous potential in the field of artificial intelligence has enabled the huge data flows to create what Zubov considers a real basis for the monitoring industry, predicting what people will buy is the key element in advertising, Behavioral predictions have clear value for other purposes, such as insurance, employment decisions, and political campaigns.

Zubov argues that Gmail, Google Maps, the Android operating system, YouTube, and even self-driving cars are all ways to expand the company's "supply routes" to get user data both on and off the network.

This type of expansion reflects a fundamental logic of the industry.In competition for AI and surveillance revenues, companies that are able to obtain huge and diverse flows of data are given preference, and other companies involved in surveillance capitalism at the highest level, such as Amazon and Facebook, The same expansionist policies.

Interference with reality
By extracting data and making predictions, technology companies have moved to real-world intervention, Paul Starr said.

Using sensors, cameras and location data, Side Walk Labs, a subsidiary of Alphabet, is looking to create a "profitable city" with ways to enforce city regulations and dynamic markets for the city's most prominent online services.

The system will require the use of Sidewalk Labs' phone payment system and allow the company, as its CEO Daniel Doctoroff explained, to "target ads to nearby people and then track them through location services."

"We learn how to write music, and then we make music push them to dance," one of the developers of an Internet of Things company told Zubov.

Competition and obstruction
The author points out that Zubov wrote that the industry has moved from "automating the flow of information around you to automating people".

Zubov argues that dismantling big tech companies will not solve the problems they raise, although antitrust may be justified for other reasons, and some reformers have therefore proposed the creation of an entirely new organizational structure to deal with the influence of digital platforms and improve the process of “algorithmic accountability”, that is, to identify Damage caused by algorithms and remediation.

The greater the technological platforms exert their influence on politics and society, the greater their opposition, not only in the United States but throughout the world, so it is likely that the spread of US surveillance capitalism globally is only a temporary stage, and competition between competing companies and regimes may lead. Political efforts to hinder any efforts to introduce reforms at the heart of the US technology industry.