Shoshana Zuboff
Shoshana Zuboff
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Full Name and Common Aliases
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Shoshana Zuboff is a renowned American philosopher and social theorist known for her work on the impact of technology on society.
Birth and Death Dates
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Born: May 21, 1942 (age 81)
Nationality and Profession(s)
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Nationality: American
Profession: Philosopher, Social Theorist
Zuboff's research spans multiple disciplines, including philosophy, sociology, and economics. Her work focuses on the intersection of technology, power, and society.
Early Life and Background
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Shoshana Zuboff was born in Brooklyn, New York, to a family of Jewish immigrants from Poland. Growing up in a working-class neighborhood, she developed an early interest in social justice and inequality. Zuboff's academic journey began at Radcliffe College (now part of Harvard University), where she earned her undergraduate degree in 1963.
Major Accomplishments
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Zuboff's groundbreaking work on the impact of technology on society has made significant contributions to various fields:
The Concept of "Surveillance Capitalism": Zuboff introduced this term in her book (2019) to describe how companies like Google and Facebook exploit user data for profit.
Critique of Neoliberalism: Her work challenges the dominant neoliberal ideology, arguing that it prioritizes profit over people's well-being.
Feminist Theory and Philosophy: Zuboff has made important contributions to feminist thought, exploring the relationships between power, technology, and human experience.Notable Works or Actions
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Some of Zuboff's notable works include:
"In the Age of the Smart Machine" (1988): This book examines the impact of computerization on work and society.
"The Support Economy" (2000): Co-authored with James Maxmin, this book explores the rise of service-oriented economies and their implications for individuals and communities.
"The Age of Surveillance Capitalism" (2019): Her magnum opus, which has received widespread critical acclaim for its incisive analysis of the consequences of data-driven capitalism.
Impact and Legacy
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Shoshana Zuboff's work has had a profound impact on various fields:
Influencing Public Debate: Her ideas have shaped public discourse around issues like data protection, algorithmic bias, and the role of technology in society.
Inspiring Activism and Advocacy: Zuboff's research has inspired numerous activists, policymakers, and scholars to challenge the dominant narratives surrounding technology and its consequences.
Fostering Critical Thinking and Reflection: Her work encourages readers to critically evaluate the impact of technology on human experience and to consider alternative futures.Why They Are Widely Quoted or Remembered
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Shoshana Zuboff is widely quoted and remembered for her:
Visionary Insights: Her work offers a nuanced understanding of the complex relationships between technology, power, and society.
Influence on Public Discourse: Zuboff's ideas have shaped public debates around issues like data protection, algorithmic bias, and the role of technology in society.
Commitment to Social Justice: Her research is guided by a commitment to social justice and an unwavering critique of systems that prioritize profit over people's well-being.
Quotes by Shoshana Zuboff
The absolute authority of market forces would be enshrined as the ultimate source of imperative control, displacing democratic contest and deliberation with an ideology of atomized individuals sentenced to perpetual competition for scarce resources. The disciplines of competitive markets promised to quiet unruly individuals and even transform them back into subjects too preoccupied with survival to complain.
Two men at Google who do not enjoy the legitimacy of the vote, democratic oversight, or the demands of shareholder governance exercise control over the organization and presentation of the world’s information. One man at Facebook who does not enjoy the legitimacy of the vote, democratic oversight, or the demands of shareholder governance exercises control over an increasingly universal means of social connection along with the information concealed in its networks.
In 2008 two Carnegie Mellon professors calculated that a reasonable reading of all the privacy policies that one encounters in a year would require 76 full workdays at a national opportunity cost of $781 billion.
We know how to punish retailers and manufacturers that don’t provide quality and value. But we’re lousy at fighting effectively for what we really need – reliable insurance policies; affordable health care; safe, healthy food.
Labor came to humanity with the fall from grace and was at best a penitential sacrifice enabling purity through humiliation. Laborwas toil, distress, trouble, fatigue – an exertion both painful and compulsory. Labor was our animal condition, struggling to survive in dirt and darkness.
Google had discovered a way to translate its nonmarket interactions with users into surplus raw material for the fabrication of products aimed at genuine market transactions with its real customers: advertisers.94 The translation of behavioral surplus from outside to inside the market finally enabled Google to convert investment into revenue. The corporation thus created out of thin air and at zero marginal cost an asset class of vital raw materials derived from users’ nonmarket online behavior.
Google is a shape-shifter, but each shape harbors the same aim: to hunt and capture raw material. Baby, won’t you ride my car? Talk to my phone? Wear my shirt? Use my map? In all these cases the varied torrent of creative shapes is the sideshow to the main event: the continuous expansion of the extraction architecture to acquire raw material at scale to feed an expensive production process that makes prediction products that attract and retain more customers.
Technological change defines the horizon of our material world as it shapes the limiting conditions of what is possible and what is barely imaginable. It erodesassumptions about the nature of our reality, the “pattern” in which we dwell, and lays open new choices.
Technology represents intelligence systematically applied to the problem of the body. It functions to amplify and surpass the organic limits of the body; it compensates for the body’s fragility and vulnerability...
What would hold society together in the absence of the rules and rituals of clan and kin? Durkheim’s answer was the division of labor.