Platforms of Surveillance Capitalism

• In Event: Disturbances, Recreation, and Renovation of Labor: AI, Robots, Platforms, and Algorithms - II

Abstract

The application of big data and new algorithms are definitely changing the nature of work and the structure of the economy. However, the nature of that change it is always determined by the social, political, and business choices we make. Problems appear when such innovations become part of what Srnicek (2017) had conceptualized as ‘platform capitalism’. In such instance, it is not anymore the ‘nature’ of digital technology but it is capitalism that found a way to use technology for its own purposes. This nascent logic of accumulation leads towards a ‘surveillance capitalism’ (Zuboff 2015). Behavioural data about human interactions and experiences become the raw material for our new ‘virtual factories’. At the core of this system change, it is the declining rate of profitability in the manufacture and the need of capitalism to turn towards data as the centre of it accumulation process in the twenty-first century (Srnicek, 2017).

De Stefano (2015) explains that such new “work-on-demand via apps” outsourcing offers a triple advantage to the capitalist. It is fast, cheap and deregulated. For example, certain work-on-demand apps use algorithms for extracting and encoding data that allow them to track each step of the service. This study looks to analyze the role of these ‘virtual factories’, in relation to the principles of collective action and its institutional space. The study raises the question about how do we conceptualize collective action and those new platforms institutional spaces and in times of surveillance capitalism.

References

De Stefano, V. (2015). The rise of the just-in-time workforce: On-demand work, crowdwork, and labor protection in the gig-economy. Comp. Lab. L. & Pol'y J., 37, 471.
Srnicek, N. (2017). Platform capitalism. John Wiley & Sons.
Zuboff, S. (2015). Big other: surveillance capitalism and the prospects of an information civilization. Journal of Information Technology, 30(1), 75-89.

Authors

• Juan Felipe Espinosa, Universidad Nacional Andrés Bello

• Jorge Feregrino, FES Acatlán UNAM