Surveillance capitalists redirected behavioral economists’ nudges toward private profit rather than individual welfare.

Evidence

Surveillance capitalists adapted many of the highly contestable assumptions of behavioral economists as one cover story with which to legitimate their practical commitment to a unilateral commercial program of behavior modification. The twist here is that nudges are intended to encourage choices that accrue to the architect, not to the individual. The result is data scientists trained on economies of action who regard it as perfectly normal to master the art and science of the “digital nudge” for the sake of their company’s commercial interests. For example, the chief data scientist for a national drugstore chain described how his company designs automatic digital nudges that subtly push people toward the specific behaviors favored by the company: “You can make people do things with this technology. Even if it’s just 5% of people, you’ve made 5% of people do an action they otherwise wouldn’t have done, so to some extent there is an element of the user’s loss of self-control.” — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 921

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines the ‘digital nudge’ as a commercial behavior-modification tool whose choices accrue to the architect, not the individual—a core contested concept for the reader’s foundational purposes.
• XREF: Connects to the drugstore data scientist quote about user loss of self-control, and to earlier machine-behavior/behavior-modification themes in surveillance capitalism. — connects to: Schmölders believed some economic behaviors could be deliberately reshaped by policy. — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 337; Surveillance capitalism operates through Big Other to engineer behavior rather than souls — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1196; Surveillance capitalism may realize Skinner’s utopia in service of profit — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1188 (+1 more)
• QUESTION: Worth chasing: what exactly is the empirical evidence that ‘nudge’ effects like 5% gains were ever about individual welfare versus corporate profit in other domains?

Broader Connections

• Surveillance capitalism’s behavioral modification creates heteronomous individuals contrary to democratic ideals #expands (0.80) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1003
• Surveillance capitalism operates through Big Other to engineer behavior rather than souls #qualifies (0.78) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1196
• Surveillance capitalism may realize Skinner’s utopia in service of profit #corroborates (0.75) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1188