Sidewalk Labs applied Google’s behavioral surplus model to physical urban space

Evidence

In April 2016 a “curated group of leaders” in tech, media, and finance met at the Yale Club in Manhattan to hear Sidewalk CEO Dan Doctoroff’s talk: “Google City: How the Tech Juggernaut Is Reimagining Cities—Faster Than You Realize.” His remarks provide a candid assessment of the “Google city” as a market operation shaped by the prediction imperative. He could not have been more direct in articulating Sidewalk Labs’ approach as a translation of Google’s online world to the reality of city life: … In effect, what we’re doing is replicating the digital experience in physical space.… So ubiquitous connectivity; incredible computing power including artificial intelligence and machine learning; the ability to display data; sensing, including cameras and location data as well as other kinds of specialized sensors.… We fund it all… through a very novel advertising model.… We can actually then target ads to people in proximity, and then obviously over time track them through things like beacons and location services as well as their browsing activity. — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 720

Categorization

• XREF: Directly extends Google’s online ad-targeting model from chapter one into physical space, showing the continuity of the behavioral surplus extraction machinery. — connects to: Behavioral surplus extraction extends from virtual spaces into physical life — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 623; Behavioral monitoring replaces reasons with algorithmic performance thresholds in urban governance — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 716; Google’s auctions actually traded derivatives of behavioral surplus — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 259 (+5 more)
• ADDENDUM: Relevant to the ‘Grafting & Growth’ piece in that it shows corporate infrastructure being imposed on cities, though the link is thematic — surveillance infrastructure rather than arboreal.

Broader Connections

• Google’s mapping games served as test beds for expanding surveillance capitalism into physical space #corroborates (0.85) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 472
• Google’s auctions actually traded derivatives of behavioral surplus #expands (0.75) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 259
• Behavioral surplus extraction from workers moved from lab to commercial market #complicates (0.75) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1351
• Platforms extract behavioral surplus from human activity to predict and modify it. #expands (0.70) — , The Braided Reading EPUB, 809