Society’s of Control are technocolonial societies. Big Tech engages profit extracting practices. These practices seek to enter the mind space of people and colonize it. It is space from where the individual relates to oneself and builds coherence as one relates to oneself and the world. We seem to have moved from the land grab of the colonial times to data grab of our times. The four x’s of colonialism Explore, Expand, Exploit and Exterminate have come to haunt us on the wing of Big Business. Big Tech explores and expands but it does not involve geographical lands but virtual territories of our datafied lives. This data involves our intimate lives. Our shopping habits, interactions with family, friends, co-workers and lovers belongs to the data set. The place of our homes, towns, workouts, entertainment, political inclinations and hobbies also forms part of that data. Big Tech exploits us by converting the data of our intimate lives into wealth and power. This data is used to target us individually and collectively through customized advertising and profiling. This means our private data is aggregated to make decisions and predictions using algorithms which then impact large numbers of individuals. This means Big Business eliminates competition and build monopoly by manipulating our mind space.
The control over our lives can be dangerous. It can be used to spread violence and hatred. It can be used to influence political decisions. Cambridge Analytica Scandal is still green in our memory. Today AI has taken us by storm. It proponents tell us that its benefits out way its dangers. This mean Big tech is fast determining what is relevant, normal and acceptable. This reminds us of the civilising mission of colonization. Big Tech like colonization hinds behind its beneficial mission to humanity. Civilising mission has economic teeth and is an exercise of power. It brings us under extreme surveillance and exploitation. It produces data that becomes raw material for Big Business to produce wealth. Our health profiles, financial transactions, online buying histories, travel inclinations, political preferences are studied and are used to serve the market. Although very often our habits and practices are anonymized and tokenized into numbers for the algorithms to compute. This computation transforms data into marketable commodity which then is brought and is used to manipulate us. We have stepped into a surveillance capitalism which aims to build wealth by hacking us. We are living a hackable life.
We are steadily stepping into AI saturated ecosystem. AI is all set to transform our education and labor conditions. AI is celebrated as leading to human flourishing. Here too data is being collected in the name of further enhancing of the services. Face to face teachers are said to be on the vein. Robotic teachers and workers are said to be ready to replace real human being. All of this will come with more and more data extraction. Every worker is under surveillance for performance and delivery. Data has become a new oil for Big Business. Gig economy has brought aggregators for the laborers. We have Ola, Uber and other car apps. We have Swiggy, blink it, Zomato etc., as delivery apps. This has opened us to the potential for work on demand with its benefits and risk. Worker now can work when they want and rest when they wish. It is brought up flexi work hours. These platforms are centrally controlled and give too much power to their owners. The workers can be hired and fired by whims and fancies of their owners. Besides work on demand seems to be hiring faceless/ ghost people. We seem to have ghost workers. Uber, for instance claims that it is not employing any one but are managing database. Hence, we are into what is called algorithm despotism which thrives on asymmetrical power relations between workers and those who govern their work. Workers are facing algorithmic cruelty. These developments have several toxic effects on the workers.
Big Data, Big Tech and Big Business feeds on the rhetoric on living smart lives. But is seems to be a trap to live in an idiotic life while thinking that one has embraced smart life. In fact, the platforms of the Big Tech are asymmetrical and the data that they extract in the name of improving their services while offering us convenience is employed to maintain the power of the owners. These platforms are data-rich and they serve their masters and hence, these technologies are anything but neutral. Above everything, we have to guard against the rhetoric that positions Big Tech as the weapon of the weak. Although it has assisted in the setting up some revolutions like the Arab Spring but the recent developments in Nepal shows that it is not so much necessary. In fact, engaging Big Tech can be traumatizing as well as depressing at several levels and is thought to bring us closer to death leading us to leave a Tech sucked up life. It produces filter bubbles were polarization and hate thrives. Our democracies are facing decline. Boundaries of nation states are in dangers. World is becoming homogeneous and flat. Hence, it is important to understand the dark side of smart live that we are living and creatively, critically, and responsibly respond to Big Tech, Big Data and Big Business convergence . This response has to be ethical as well as emancipative.
