Surveillance capitalism

I think it's good to, it's good to be aware.

Now, the, the biggest system that we're operating in here is something called surveillance capitalism.

Now, I'm going to pop a reference and a couple of suggested reading items in the show notes for you so that you can read up a little more on this.

But essentially, we're not talking about surveillance as in spy cameras in your living room here.

It's, it's about habits and preferences that you might not even have articulated to yourself.

And so that kind of data can create a really powerful model for predicting what people might do next, being able to understand how people make decisions around purchases and engagement.

Like, what kind of videos will keep you watching? Which adverts are likely to make you pause and click and notice and like? Which are the notifications that will tempt you back in when you've ig- you know, ignored the previous ones? So when you combine that surveillance capitalism, behavioral surplus, economic system with attention hacking and the persuasive design pieces, you end up with something incredibly compelling.

Now, if we then think about all of this work that has been done to create an environment, is it reasonable to expect a seven-year-old, a nine-year-old, a 12-year-old, a 14-year-old to be able to manage and master and, and, and overcome all of that or to feel weak or shamed for not being able to? I think, I think that's asking a lot.

I think it's good to, it's good to be aware.

Um, now the, the bigger system that we're operating in here is something called surveillance capitalism.

Now, I'm going to pop a reference and a couple of suggested reading items in the show notes for you so that you can read up a little more on this.

But essentially, we're not talking about surveillance as in spy cameras in your living room here.

It's, it's about habits and preferences that you might not even have articulated to yourself.

And so that kind of data can create a really powerful model for predicting what people might do next, being able to understand how people make decisions around purchases and engagement.

Like, what kind of videos will keep you watching? Which adverts are likely to make you pause and click and notice and like? Which are the notifications that will tempt you back in when you've ig- you know, ignored the previous ones? So when you combine that surveillance capitalism, behavioral surplus, economic system with attention hacking and the persuasive design pieces, you end up with something incredibly compelling.

Now, if we then think about all of this work that has been done to create an environment, is it reasonable to expect a seven-year-old, a nine-year-old, a 12-year-old, a 14-year-old to be able to manage and master and, and, and overcome all of that or to feel weak or shamed for not being able to? I think, I think that's asking a lot.

And this is the thing that I think is putting the ad system and its harms on the map more than anything at this point and really should be.

So this is where we start to get into what so many in the industry call surveillance capitalism.

What we have is we've made a deal with the devil to say, I will give you all my data.

And in return, you will be able to market consumer goods at me.

So there's this woman in Europe.

Her name is Helena Malikova.

She recently published this report called The Dark Horses of Surveillance Capitalism.

And in it, she's talking about the companies who take our supposedly anonymous data and re-identify us with it.

Which is interesting because as I st- was working on the Imponderable film which comes out of that dynamic.

First did a book called Imponderable, and it's a, like 1,200 images from my collection that I organized, and 10 essays by scholars around the work.

And this was done by Luma Foundation and published by Ringier.

And hopefully that's gonna come back out.

It's, it's published twice.

Anyway.

But Luma first put the book out, then Maja Hoffmann, in her generosity, also, uh, helped me produce a story that came out of the archive.

And the archive, just to jump back, I mean, I've been collecting this kind of material for a long time, and it, it was generally collected for my projects through the years.