The Uncertain Digital Revolution

By André Vitalis

Digital information and communication technologies can be seen as a threat to privacy, a step forward for freedom of expression and communication, a tool in the fight against terrorism or the source of a new economic wealth.

Computerization has unexpectedly progressed beyond our imagination, from a tool of management and control into one of widespread communication and expression. This book revisits the major questions that have emerged with the progress of computerization over nearly half a century, by describing the context in which these issues were formulated.

By taking a social and digital approach, the author explores controversial issues surrounding the development of this "digital revolution", including freedom and privacy of the individual, social control, surveillance, public security and the economic exploitation of personal data. From students, teachers and researchers engaged in data analysis, to institutional decision-makers and actors in policy or business, all members of today's digital society will take from this book a better understanding of the essential issues of the current "digital revolution".

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wiley
• Release date: Sep 16, 2016
• ISBN: 9781119341307

Book preview

Introduction

When one is uncertain of one’s destination, it is better to be certain of where one comes from.

Proverb

The expression digital revolution entered public consciousness at the end of the 2000s when millions of people started using smartphones in order to connect to the Internet. Smart devices, which are merely the size of a deck of cards, appeared after the large computers of the 1960s and the smaller laptops of the 1980s and have enabled a great proportion of the population to gain access to the digital world, transferring information both automatically and instantaneously.

The vast majority of discussion surrounding this technological revolution tends to liken it to the Industrial Revolution of our times, a revolution that constitutes a new stage of technological progress while presenting major changes in every realm of experience. Difference in opinion arises on evaluation of the effects of such changes. For example, those who firmly believe in the benefits of the phenomenon do not tend to hold negative opinions about the changes that constantly occur within it. By allowing the individual to access an abundant amount of varied information, technology furthers crucial progress in areas such as general knowledge, education, health and work while guiding us toward a future that is more ecological, more democratic and with increased sustainability prospects.

If we were to perceive technological advancement in an ambivalent light, the effects produced by it would be remarkably contrastive. Along with the benefits come negative aspects such as increased surveillance, loss of jobs and dependence on private companies that monopolize the market (Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon (GAFA)). Those able to critically and objectively analyze believe that this revolution conceals a predatory form of capitalism that impedes the liberating possibilities inherent to digital technology. A more radical yet informed technological critic would be quick to question a technology that does nothing but extend technical and technoscientific movements, which started years before, insisting that the system is far from revolutionary.

The ambiguous digital revolution was preceded by 50 years of digitalization in society, marked by incessant technical innovations and increasing numbers of applications. Nothing has disturbed this continual development, considered a guarantee of economic and social progress, despite the fact that efforts were made to expose disadvantages, such as the threat to personal privacy. In France, a number of organizations such as CREIS, CECIL and Terminal magazine have been skeptical from the beginning, analyzing the situation, discussing it critically and introducing modes to educate people about what they call Information Technology and Society¹. As expressed by a technological historian, since 1980, criticism about the surge of information technology has never halted despite always being rather insignificant [JAR 14].

This work, by taking a digital and social approach, will examine the great issues of contention that have appeared as information technology has advanced. Context will be considered in order to explore the ways in which such issues were created and when necessary, theoretical tables will be used to get a better grasp of the issue and its scope. A time frame of half a century, beyond the short-term details and developments, will serve to thoroughly trace the crucial questions that have been revealed, to separate the sustainable from the unsustainable, the essential from the unessential and the innovative from the unimaginative. The phenomenon of computerization has often gone down unexpected paths, different to what had been predicted or announced. Never was it predicted that a management and control tool would turn into a major tool of expression and communication in the space of a few years. In the same way, in spite of the irrevocable concerns and warnings that people attached to the idea of automating personal files, no one could have predicted the sheer extent of control operations undertaken by American intelligence services, facts that were laid bare because of Edward Snowden. By looking back in time, regardless of positive or negative opinions, we can scrutinize events of the past, or the concept of ça a été, which was developed by Roland Barthes on his work surrounding photography. Of course, absolute objectivity will never be wholly possible, but the factual information collected has been proven, even if it has been acquired from sources with a particular stance, namely that of progress or, most commonly, that of the preservation of individual liberties. In this respect, particular attention has been given to the ever-changing status of personal data due to the fact that freedoms are dependent on the control or the lack of control that the individual does or does not dispose of when using technology. As Wolfgang Sofsky stated, respecting the private sphere is the foundation of freedom, and this freedom protects against any figure of power… He who thinks that he has nothing to hide has already renounced their right to freedom [SOF 11].

Fifty years of digitalization has provoked or seriously contributed to four major social problems:

1) Problems regarding social control that became relevant on the creation of the first data banks in the 1960s.

2) Problems regarding public security that came to the surface in the middle of the 1990s and which following the 9/11 attacks continue to be of particular relevance.

3) Problems regarding communication and exchange due to the invention of the laptop in the 1980s and above all the Internet which arose in 1993.

4) Problems regarding private bodies that use personal data for economic benefit, a phenomenon that appeared in the 2000s.

Each of these problems acquired an American expression before entering the French vocabulary as well as that of other democratic countries around the world. This American supremacy arises from the vital role played by the United States throughout the period. To this day, Silicon Valley remains the main player in the digital revolution.

Throughout the years, society and the digital world have continued to interact, intensified at certain points by purposeful interventions. At the beginning, legislative bodies wanted to control the progress of technology by devising ways to protect personal privacy. A little later, researchers influenced by counterculture in California transformed a means of power and control into one of expression and communication. After September 11, the United States inevitably endeavored to use digital support systems to increase the amount of surveillance imposed onto citizens. In the 2000s, large companies were to make the Internet suit their interests, all in order to maximize profit. Digital technology is not however a neutral tool that can always be mastered and handled with ease. As with all forms of technology, digital technology was to profoundly affect the society in which it was established. A particular social context encouraged the development of such a phenomenon. At the same time, it seems inevitable for this phenomenon to significantly affect the social context in which it was born. According to anthropologist Sherry Turkle, we create new technologies and in turn these technologies shape our lives. Lawrence Lessing, an American lawyer, once claimed that Code is law, while French lawyer Alain Supiot notes current problems in terms of being able to successfully maintain individual rights, as well as regarding the replacement of legal methods in favor of technological methods. In this way, expressing consent is rendered completely impossible due to the automation of collecting personal data, which is an irrevocable part of digital technology. In the same way, large banks of data deliberately violate the crucial principals of data protection, sending us, in the name of optimizing absolutely everything, straight into a world of unclear decisions made by automatons, which replace humans and endanger democratic societies.

In today’s climate, the crucial problems that have arisen with the development of information technology come together, often confronting each other. At a time of ecological and economical crisis, when a disaster seems more likely than a revolution, the technological industry capitalizes on the opportunity to extend the scope of their activity and exchange even further, an abundance of activity that is undertaken in a new universe in which the replication of our real world in data banks online offers the possibility for collaborative work as well as the inexhaustible potential for expression and communication. Comparing this period with that of the revolution of the steam engine in the 18th Century and that of electricity in the 19th Century should provide us with some optimism. It can be argued that we are in a transitional phase, about to pass from one industrial period to another. The current instability we witness should come to an end with the arrival of a technological era that has caused new modes of behavior to emerge and that has created a new set of rules in society.

Comparison is not equivocal to reason. Economists have claimed that the technological revolution has not transformed goods, services and production methods at the same dizzying rate as the two preceding revolutions did. The very nature of the progress is by no means the same, while in the 19th Century it was a question of making workers more productive; today, it becomes a question of replacing these very workers with software. By examining this issue in light of history and by placing it at the forefront of discourse about the future, we could neglect the sheer pace that this permanent innovation is developing at, a pace which at present makes determining an end goal in a stable future nearly impossible. The NBIC revolution (nanotechnologies, biotechnologies, information technology, cognitive science) is to be launched in the current climate from the association of information technology with other technologies, a development that should bring with it immense changes. The concern about when permanent instability will finally end will not be of concern in the future. As Lewis Mumford stated in 1963, whilst describing the technology that seeks to dominate us, I have never forgotten a great and enduring message – Prepare yourself for the unexpected! [MUM 63].

1 The different activities carried out by these organizations are shown on their websites. For the Centre of Research and Teaching Coordination for Information Technology and Society (CREIS-Terminal), see www.lecreis.org. For the Centre of Studies on Citizenship, Computerization and Freedoms (CECIL), see www.lececil.org.

1

Technological Surveillance Subjected to Restrictions

Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, new concerns were raised in response to the first digital data banks and projects involving interconnection files. It is clear that information technology that offers the possibility to record anything can also endanger the security of personal information, while producing an unequivocal entity easily manipulated by those in authority. Of course, recording personal information is by no means a new phenomenon, but the efficiency of a computer