Yamaima Azeem Dean

2410173

SOC 237

Dr. Hassan Javed

Shoshana Zuboff’s “The Age of Surveillance Capitalism” is a comprehensive book that walks us through
the history of tech companies and how when pressured by ravenous venture capitalists, start-up
founders like Mark Zuckerberg created surveillance capitalism instead. This surveillance capitalism
profits from the rendering and analysis of behavioral data, and this untapped reservoir of information
that these surveillance capitalists collects, is sold to advertisers as humans attached to this data and
merely seen as accessories. When Facebook was caught on the back foot over its data privacy practices,
many people stopped using the app as they felt exploited. Even people from my immediate family who
weren’t as active on Facebook, deleted their Facebook accounts just because of this. Such companies
are able to do this because they have monopolized how they are viewed. Their work is hidden from their
consumers and they use non-disclosure agreements to obfuscate their practices. Zuboff explains the full
cycle of this exploitation which starts with diving into the untapped domain of user behavior and then
making the users habitual to this incursion, washing their works with ethics.

In the article The Social Production of Radical Space, the author states that our goal is to advance in th
spatial approach of digital labor practices. Digital capitalism means that the social and economic activity
is based on the exchange of digital information using data networks, and with the help of this debate,
the article focuses on issues that concern the unsure connection between the humans and technology.
In the first section of the reading, the author hypothesizes that digital machines contribute to the labor
processes by ways of computational force. This is why many of the physical labor processes have shifted
to computers hence increasing the need for digital labor. Digital labor on social media for example arises
from the fact that most of the value on social media platforms is created by the users, so, the users can
then be considered as the digital workforce.

Yamaima Azeem Dean

2410173

SOC 237

Dr. Hassan Javed

Nick Bostrom’s Superintelligence examines the risks associated with the arrival of machines which are
significantly smarter than us. This is a big deal because if machines get to the point where they’re even a
little bit smarter than us, they can soon, and very easily, reach the point when they will be a whole lot
smarter than the humans. Machines can think faster than us humans as our brains are not optimized for
speed, so there is a possibility that they will rapidly take over the human race. Being a theoretical
extrapolation, many people might not believe in this happening any time soon, but the evidence
suggests otherwise. It seems very reasonable to assume that the superintelligence would quickly
outsmart us, learning to do all the things a smart person can do; carrying out complex plans, building
robots for example. This just means that the superintelligence will also be able to do the things us
humans haven’t even thought of doing. The book then talks about ways to keep the superintelligence
under control once its produced, and there is only one possible strategy that might work: to design the
superintelligence in a way that it only acts in the best interests of humans. This is basically what all sci-fi
and artificial intelligence based movies show. As long as the AI is coded in a way that it sincerely and
honestly wants to do what’s best for us humans, then we’re good.

Arlindo Oliverlia’s The Digital Mind is a detailed explanation about how the developments in technology
may lead to the emergence of digital minds and intelligent machines that are greater in power than the
human brain. The main theme of this book is similar to that of Bostrom’s Superintelligence. So far, the
human brain is unequaled by any existing machine, as it is this mind that led to the creation of
computers that are almost as powerful as the human brain itself. The subtle nuances between mind and
intelligence and our anthropocentric concept of intelligence are some interesting points touched in this
book. Oliverlia although asserts that the digital mind will be accepted as legal persons in the near future,
he does not discuss about when or how will this take place. This might not take long though because
science has already made mind blowing discoveries in this field and the creation of super intelligent AI
and digital minds is in the making.