“Smart” objects are euphemisms for the extraction of behavioral data.

Evidence

Each is reimagined as a gateway to the new apparatus, praised for being “smart” while traditional alternatives are reviled for remaining “dumb.” It is important to acknowledge that in this context, “smart” is a euphemism for rendition: intelligence that is designed to render some tiny corner of lived experience as behavioral data. Each smart object is a kind of marionette; for all its “smartness,” it remains a hapless puppet dancing to the puppet master’s hidden economic imperatives. — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 747

Categorization

• DEFINE: Frames the reader-facing “smart” label as a term of art for behavioral data rendition, redefining an everyday word.
• SEED: The contrast of “smart” vs “dumb” objects as a marketing vocabulary of rendition is a usable angle for a piece on IoT language.
• XREF: connects to: Apps now colonize even trivial bodily functions like thirst into trackable social data — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection: How Data Is…, 23; Smart tools differ from industrial machinery in directly using their users — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection: How Data Is…, 761; Everyday consumer objects are being redesigned as behavioral data sources — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 748 (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• Everyday consumer objects are being redesigned as behavioral data sources #expands (0.95) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 748
• Computer-vision modules are being embedded in appliances and toys to sense human behavior #exemplifies (0.90) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 752
• Behavioral data captured passively is held to be more truthful than self-revelation #qualifies (0.80) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1346
• Data relations are the social form that makes data extraction seem natural and normal #complicates (0.80) — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, 132
• Manufactured objects encode impersonal directives that strip users of individuality #complicates (0.75) — Fredric Jameson, Marxism and Form, 504