Surface assistant devices are cogs in vast cloud networks that command their users.

Evidence

Cloud capital is, physically, defined as the agglomeration of networked machinery, software, AI-driven algorithms and communications’ hardware criss-crossing the whole planet and performing a wide variety of tasks, new and old, such as: Inciting billons of non-waged people (cloud serfs) to work for free (and often unconsciously) at replenishing cloud capital’s own stock (e.g. to upload photos and videos on Instagram or TikTok, or submit film, restaurant and book reviews) Helping us switch off the lights while recommending to us books, films and holidays, etc. — Yanis Varoufakis, Technofeudalism, 850 (#expands, via linked claim)

Google’s asymmetrical power draws on all the social sources that we have considered: its declarations, its defensive fortifications, its exploitation of law, the legacy of surveillance exceptionalism, the burdens of second-modernity individuals, and so on. But its power would not be operational without the gargantuan material infrastructure that surveillance revenues have bought. Google is the pioneer of “hyperscale,” considered to be “the largest computer network on Earth.” Hyperscale operations are found in high-volume information businesses such as telecoms and global payments firms, where data centers require millions of “virtual servers” that exponentially increase computing capabilities without requiring substantial expansion of physical space, cooling, or electrical power demands. The machine intelligence at the heart of Google’s formidable dominance is described as “80 percent infrastructure,” a system that comprises custom-built, warehouse-sized data centers spanning 15 locations and, in 2016, an estimated 2.5 million servers in four continents. — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 590 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim
• XREF: connects to: Cloud capital is physical networked machinery plus unwaged user labor — Yanis Varoufakis, Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism, 850; Google’s surveillance power depends on massive physical data infrastructure — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 590

Related

• Cloud capital is physical networked machinery plus unwaged user labor (similarity 0.86)
• Google’s surveillance power depends on massive physical data infrastructure (similarity 0.85)
• Cloud capital uniquely combines attention-holding, free labour and privatised transaction spaces (similarity 0.80)
• Big Tech turned workers into cloud proles and everyone else into cloud serfs. (similarity 0.80)
• Cloud capital’s physicality and commanding power do not distinguish it from earlier capital forms (similarity 0.79)
• Colonial-style ownership extends to device production and cloud computing capacity (similarity 0.79)
• Cloud capital’s historic step was automating the command of humans, not replacing them (similarity 0.79)
• The physical infrastructure of big tech is worthless without users’ free content (similarity 0.79)
• Cloud capital reproduces itself without waged labour, unlike all prior capital. (similarity 0.78)
• Cloud capital made humanity work for free or a pittance (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Cloud capital is physical networked machinery plus unwaged user labor #expands (0.85) — Yanis Varoufakis, Technofeudalism, 850
• Google’s surveillance power depends on massive physical data infrastructure #corroborates (0.80) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 590