Google applies web-indexing methods to physically master reality

Evidence

Paradiso’s brilliant group of data scientists, engineers, musicians, and artists reconceives the world through the lens of Google Search by applying the same disciplines that mastered the web—datafication, indexing, browsing, and searching—to master reality itself. Without “ubiquitous sensate environments,” Paradiso writes, “the cognitive engines of this everywhere-enabled world are deaf, dumb, and blind, and can’t respond relevantly to the real-world events that they aim to augment.” In other words, ubiquitous computing is meaningless without the ubiquitous sensing that conveys the experience for computation. — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 645

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines ‘ubiquitous sensate environments’ and the core premise that sensing is prerequisite to ubiquitous computing — a load-bearing concept for the whole surveillance-capitalism framework.
• XREF: Extends the earlier chapters’ account of behavioral surplus extraction: here the logic of datafication moves from search queries to the physical world itself. — connects to: Street View extends Google’s web-crawler dispossession into the physical world — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 474; Physical space is being redesigned as browse-able environments of sensor data — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 647; Researchers aim to translate every physical space and behavior into searchable information — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 650

Broader Connections

• Researchers aim to translate every physical space and behavior into searchable information #expands (0.85) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 650