The Age of Surveillance Capitalism

In this masterwork of original thinking and research, Shoshana Zuboff examines the rise of surveillance capitalism, and the control, and modification of human behavior by powerful corporations. She describes a 21st-century industrial revolution that weaves together three primary elements: digital technology, behavioral economics, and our own patterns of behavior monitored by technological applications such as smartphones and social media networks. Zuboff's quest to warn us against surveillance capitalism gains steam throughout the book as she explores the power of algorithms to predict our behavior, the construction of a “behavioral futures market” where predictions about our behavior can be bought and sold, and the surrendering of goods and services to become means of behavioral modification. The stakes could not be higher: in Zuboff's view, surveillance capitalism threatens human nature in ways that we have yet even imagined or comprehend.