The Secrets of Surveillance Capitalism by Shoshana Zuboff really has me scared. It is interesting to me how something so normalized and accessible to many people such as vehicles is being used as a way to collect data and keep track of the masses. I think this approach is very smart, but that does not make it less scary. It makes sense to target an object that so many people have and rely on in order to control and manipulate a population. People use cars to get to work, go to the grocery store, visit their family members, etc. They will never not use cars in the near future. Therefore, having access to data relating to a vehicle is very power. The article mentions that this data is “turning into beacons of revenue that illuminate a new commercial prospect”. A company can sell the the data about a vehicle’s location to see how much traffic occurs around a specific place to see if a shopping mall might benefit there. Or maybe an insurance company can pay for data about their customer’s driving habits. This data opens up a whole new lane for money to be made, which, I feel, always comes with many problems because people take it too far. The writing also mentions that “data can be used for dynamic real-time driver behavior modification triggering punishments,” such as engine lockdowns. This is so scary. My mind automatically jumped to traffic stops by police. I feel like this can almost make unjust traffic stops and police brutality easier. Someone will have control over your vehicle based off their own judgement. Scary.
What stood out to me most in Maciej Ceglowski’s The Internet With a Human Face, was the concept of memory. The reality that a computer’s memory is strictly binary emphasizes the black and whiteness of the Internet. It lacks how important certain information is over others. It can keep information forever or lose it in an instant. There is no in between. The mindset of programmers is to save everything. “Deleting is dangerous,” for them. Even if it the most tedious of information, you never know when this might be useful. Although, I find this mindset very unhealthy. I think we, as humans, were made to forget on purpose. If we kept all our memories and every detail we noticed, we would have no room to imagine.
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