AI for Social Good: Using Artificial Intelligence to Save the World by Rahul Dodhia

Author:Rahul Dodhia [Dodhia, Rahul]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781394205790
Published: 2024-03-06T00:00:00+00:00

Surveillance Capitalism

Many tech companies are updating their economic models by incorporating AI-powered surveillance systems to collect user data for advertising and other purposes. This phenomenon is known as surveillance capitalism, and it has been criticized for pushing the boundaries of rights to privacy and user exploitation.

Let's go back to our fictitious protagonist, John, who by now has been released from jail. He is an avid social media user but favors one called Instagram. Most of his friends are also on that network, and they use it to chat with each other throughout the day. They post photos of themselves and of their shared interest in vintage cars and rock concerts, show off their purchases, and live in it as a second world. It's easy and free.

John vaguely suspects, but does not really know, that Instagram and Meta, its parent company, analyze his data and have built a detailed profile of his interests and preferences. Meta then sells access to his profile to various businesses who want to advertise on the platform. A car specialist company, for example, might pay to display their ads to John, given his interest in vintage cars. Similarly, a music streaming company might target him based on his interest in music.

In this way, Meta is able to offer a “free” service to users while making money by selling targeted advertising based on the data it collects. This is a basic example of surveillance capitalism, where the commodity is user data, and the profit comes from the ability to predict and influence user behavior.

Surveillance capitalism has an insatiable appetite for user data. Tech giants like Meta, Google, and Baidu were already amassing vast troves of personal information, but now AI offers opportunities for more personalized content and even more finely targeted ads. This content will be designed to shape users’ online behavior in ways that increase profitability for these companies’ advertisers and financial value for their shareholders.

The practice of surveillance capitalism has ignited a firestorm of criticism.13 Shoshana Zuboff, a renowned scholar and professor at Harvard Business School, is a leading voice in this arena. In her book, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power,14 Zuboff exposes how surveillance capitalism threatens privacy rights and exploits users for economic gain. She strongly condemns Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s avowal that “privacy is no longer a social norm” and others who say this type of surveillance should not cause any concern to those who have nothing to hide.15

Civil liberties organizations and digital rights advocates such as the EFF and the Center for Digital Democracy have also diligently studied the impacts of surveillance capitalism on privacy and civil liberties. They warn that the unbridled collection and utilization of personal data by tech companies erode individual autonomy, creating a chilling effect on freedom of expression and behavior. As Facebook’s algorithms and many other social media sites have shown, their AI algorithms can manipulate user preferences by promoting which posts will cause the most outrage and lead to more engagement and more profits on the sites.

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