IoT engineers describe actuation as the critical turning point in ubiquitous computing

Evidence

The new power is action,” a senior software engineer told me. “The intelligence of the internet of things means that sensors can also be actuators.” The director of software engineering for a company that is an important player in the “internet of things” added, “It’s no longer simply about ubiquitous computing. Now the real aim is ubiquitous intervention, action, and control. The real power is that now you can modify real-time actions in the real world. Connected smart sensors can register and analyze any kind of behavior and then actually figure out how to change it. Real-time analytics translate into real-time action.” The scientists and engineers I interviewed call this new capability “actuation,” and they describe it as the critical though largely undiscussed turning point in the evolution of the apparatus of ubiquity. — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 915

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines ‘actuation’ as the shift from ubiquitous computing to ubiquitous intervention — a load-bearing term for the whole chapter.
• XREF: Connects to the broader surveillance-capitalism claim that prediction becomes intervention — moves beyond the knowledge-based framing of earlier chapters. — connects to: Actuation completes a new means of behavior modification aimed at guaranteed outcomes — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 916; Pervasive data sensing is built into basic computing architecture, not merely added by platforms. — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection: How Data Is…, 115

Broader Connections

• Actuation completes a new means of behavior modification aimed at guaranteed outcomes #expands (0.98) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 916