Colonizer Within: The Social Quantification Sector in China

Russia maintains serous controls over its Internet.

India features a startup culture with the government cooperating with private industry, both domestic and foreign to develop economic prosperity.

China is the obvious case of colonization of one's own people. We are reminded that China also reaches the entire world with its Cloud empire because it has long provided manufacturing resources to most developed countries.

Recent controversies over US suspension of dealings with Chinese companies illustrate the concern that China has inserted surveillance mechanisms into products and services that are popular in the US. The primary difference between this and colonization is that surveillance of countries outside of China, by the Chinese, tends to be more for intellectual property theft than attempts to extract privacy related data. This could change. This week, news reports brought awareness to the fact that the Chinese government has placed “police” installations in numerous countries around the globe, ostensibly, to keep track of their “citizens when overseas.”

One other notion that I've mentioned before – – although China manufactures a lot of technology for Western companies, the US has exported most of the fundamental technologies that are being manufactured. We have also exported most of the surveillance gear that China uses against its people (and eventually against people living in other countries). With regard to China, we'll probably get exactly what we deserve.

Virtually every online function in China tracks people via video surveillance and/or data extraction. Urban centers are rift with video technology. The social credit-ranking system depends not only on data extraction but also on reports by neighbors, relatives, and sometimes even intimate family members. 

China maintains a closed intranet. While not impenetrable it is totally controlled by the state.

China's enormous population and its advanced use of surveillance technologies finds it in a position to lead the world in artificial intelligence applications.

China also steals a lot of technological knowledge – – intellectual property—especially from us.

In short, China provides an in-place actively developing cautionary tale. China represents the worst fears of dystopian society developed by new media implementations. Clearly, if the threats were all in the future we might refer to these issues as a kind of "science fiction" that perhaps will not come to pass. Unfortunately, in China we have dystopia in place, in charge, working just fine thank you, right now.

It is very likely that America has much of the infrastructure for similar approaches already in place. Previously our political systems were cooperative enough that elected officials protected us from these outcomes. Recent polarizations and authoritarian developments are very concerning. The Chinese model is very tempting to leaders who want to stay in power. Since the population in the United States is already inoculated and habituated to 24/7 surveillance, implementing these programs would not be terribly difficult although maintaining them might be politically challenging.

Working in the Cloud Empire

Low pay may not be as big a problem under the cloud empire as is no pay. Currently for example, most Americans using digital technologies on the Internet provide labor and value for data collectors without remuneration.

A quick trip to Walmart or Sam's Club or your local grocery store is a leading indicator – – shopping trips now include working for Sam Walton or Kroger's as you check yourself out and bag your groceries. Those minor irritations pale in comparison to the value that we provide to the data marketplace on a regular basis in an uncompensated fashion, online.

“in general, the more “social” a platform is, the less expectation there is that users will be recompensed for their work, since the joy of social interaction facilitated by the platform is presented as enough payment.”

We don't accept this concept and procedure at work (joy as pay) but we readily accept it outside of work.

The YouTube example on pages 58 and 59 reminds us that users are not the only participants who are left out of the profit equation. Essentially, new media companies have all but eliminated even producers of products and services from the profit equation when those producers are not the new media companies themselves.

Underpaid Labor

Mechanical Turkers of the world unite! 
Gamers who “MOD” unite! 
Facebook image taggers unite! 
Gig workers unite!

The days of working for high pay with benefits, for one company, for a long time, are in the past. This myth has been sold as though it was somehow freeing – – sort of like replacing the Encyclopaedia Britannica with Wikipedia.

Although we are seeing some degree of blowback – – think for example about Starbucks’ employees unionizing – – generally, the data economy provides fewer jobs with good pay and benefits than did the traditional economy that preceded it. Once again, the spoils go to the victors at the top of the new media organizational chart.

The libertarian political philosophy of the founders is winning. The rest of us are losing.

“The promise of intermittent work on platforms positions large numbers of people as a reserve army for work outside institutions. Thus, the combined effects of the gig economy and automation will likely be disastrous for most workers—not only will many of them face replacement by machines but those who remain will more likely accept lower wages and worse working conditions as the specter of a reserve army of gig workers, robots, and AI hangs over their heads.” (61)

The ideology of “personalization” made a lot of this seem zippy. 

I do not know the numbers on youthful attitudes in this respect. I know however what I suspect the numbers would look like. In general, I'm betting that most young Americans think that we are better off because of Uber and Lyft,  AIR B&B and VRBO. 

Self-service checkout seems efficacious when one has grabbed six or seven items for a couple’s dinner. That option is much less appealing to a parent with two or three screaming babies/young children and a cart and a half of groceries waiting in a long line for one of the few checkers to make progress so the family’s provider can go home and make a meal.

I sometimes use the services; I'm almost always left feeling somewhat guilty when I do. Sometimes I’m even angry when I have to use the services rather than to choose them on my own. I don’t like working for Sam Walton.

Further, in many segments of the economy the companies that we thought of as "peppy startups" were actually lawbreakers and have become monopolists. In many of these new ways of doing commerce local laws were bent or broken (or simply ignored) under the rhetoric of "freeing the economy from traditional constraints” – – such as hotels or taxis. Often the companies did not pay taxes, follow building or housing codes, follow state-mandated licensing laws – – etc. – – until after they were brought to heel but had established themselves, thereby making opposing them very difficult.

Peoria is still battling short-term rentals. Many big cities have found that rides-haring outfits have become no more than unregulated taxi services while licensed and regulated taxi companies have been strained to the limits in their abilities to serve the communities there are good at providing rides for. While there was always a sense in which traditional industries might have overplayed their political hand and developed monopolies and unfair business practices. In retrospect those practices generally pale in comparison to the abuses brought about by these "new media based" outfits.

These companies (like Uber) are “important exemplar(s) of a projected direction for global capitalism: it represents the potential to create new forms of exploitative work, to substantially increase the levels of exploitation within established forms of work, and to circumvent human labor altogether (the company is currently investing heavily in driverless cars and trucks). Data-gathering and data tracking are essential to all these functions, the fact of which makes exploitation seem like the “natural” outcome of algorithmic processes.”

Remember: it’s not just media. 

Surveilled Labor

Two magic words pretty much capture this section and these issues: Amazon warehouse. 
Oh I suppose we could include two other words: click tracking.

Three types of surveillance are presented: applicant surveillance, workplace surveillance, and workforce surveillance.

We know for example that many University admissions departments and many corporate employment offices now search through social media profiles before paying much attention to applications and/or resumes. After all, the jobs are posted on INDEED, why not search digital resources before reading applications or resumes?

Esther Kaplan observes that:
“in industry after industry, this data collection is part of an expensive, high-tech effort to squeeze every last drop of productivity from corporate workforces, an effort that pushes employees to their mental, emotional, and physical limits; claims control over their working and nonworking hours; and compensates them as little as possible, even at the risk of violating labor laws.”

Data management becomes a core “management tool”

Where Is the Cloud Empire Taking Us?

“The prediction that technology would bring about the end of unfulfilling labor does not seem to be unfolding according to the hopes of economists.”

“Automation and AI technologies, which many corporations in the social quantification sector actively develop and promote, seem to be designed to eliminate laborers, not liberate them.”

The only thing that workers are being liberated for is for being out of work and for having to take on gig jobs to make a living – – in other words, workers are being liberated to work for peanuts forever while business owners get rich.

The United States has been here before – – at the turn of the 20th century, before the labor movement fully kicked in, industrialists and monopolists imposed these sorts of constraints and expectations on workers. Eventually the union movement and the federal government pulled back on the reins. One has to wonder if that's possible now?

And look – – here come the robots and artificial intelligence.

The cloud empire enables governments to cooperate with the private sector to control people in support of each other's goals. 

While we had hoped that the Internet would provide democratizing forces as information was spread, instead surveillance enables governments and industry leaders to collect information about people so they people can be constrained and suppressed. The largest damage – – as usual – – is dealt to vulnerable social groups.

Data management is used to “measure: life. Apps, platforms, and smart technologies capture and translate our life into data as we play, work, and socialize. AI algorithms then pore over the data to extract information (personal attributes from “likes,” emotions from typing patterns, predictions from past behaviors, and so on) that can be used to sell us our lives back, albeit in commodified form. Science, technology, and human ingenuity are put at the service of this exploitation, making it likely that, unless resisted, the Cloud Empire will in a few decades seem like the natural order of things.”