Competition drove surveillance capital from predicting behavior to shaping it.
Evidence
Eventually, surveillance capitalists discovered that the most-predictive behavioral data come from intervening in the state of play in order to nudge, coax, tune, and herd behavior toward profitable outcomes. Competitive pressures produced this shift, in which automated machine processes not only know our behavior but also shape our behavior at scale. With this reorientation from knowledge to power, it is no longer enough to automate information flows about us; the goal now is to automate us. In this phase of surveillance capitalism’s evolution, the means of production are subordinated to an increasingly complex and comprehensive “means of behavioral modification.” In this way, surveillance capitalism births a new species of power that I call instrumentarianism. Instrumentarian power knows and shapes human behavior toward others’ ends. Instead of armaments and armies, it works its will through the automated medium of an increasingly ubiquitous computational architecture of “smart” networked devices, things, and spaces. — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 36
Categorization
- DEFINE: Defines instrumentarian power and gives the causal mechanism (competitive pressure) for the shift from knowledge to modification.
- XREF: Echoes the Milgrom claim that institutional design responds to competitive/informational pressure; also parallels the graft article’s theme of infrastructure that shapes rather than merely serves. — connects to: Surveillance capitalism extracts behavioral surplus to predict and modify behavior. — , The Braided Reading EPUB: 5-Year…, 73; Surveillance capitalism moves from predicting behavior to actively shaping it in real time — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 481
Broader Connections
- Surveillance capitalism moves from predicting behavior to actively shaping it in real time
#corroborates(0.95) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 481 - Surveillance capitalism extracts behavioral surplus to predict and modify behavior.
#expands(0.90) — , The Braided Reading EPUB, 73