By Adriana Alarcón (Written for MakerZone)
Intellectual property in virtual spaces represents the boundary between what happens inside and outside the market, it does not disappear because the time of life is reduced to the influence of economic calculation and value, and this has repercussions on a global scale because there is a tendency to convert every idea into something for consumption. These relationships occur exclusively in a financial way.
It is here that Silicon Valley participated from the beginning in the development of automated computing and today still has a broad advantage in the field because it understood that the economy of the present and the future consists of the algorithmic accompaniment of life in order to offer the best of all possible worlds at all times. It is also where more than six thousand companies in the technology sector are clustered, a large number of which enjoy important prestige, such as Apple, Google, Netflix, etc. These companies immediately occupied a monopolistic position in the global market.
However, it is necessary to understand the role it plays in the geopolitical world, in transhistorical events. It is from Eric Sadin's ideology on the siliconization of the world, that this idea is developed. An example is the 2008 financial crisis caused by subprime mortgages as a trigger of enormous consequences, it is not an isolated phenomenon but occurs in a global context in which other already tangible catastrophes are added. In turn, it establishes that:
"State debts, massive unemployment, the cost of living, wage inequalities and precariousness cause an instability that erodes the common basis of existence and makes social ties fragile".
This is intertwined with the concept of platform capitalism developed by Nick Srnicek, professor of Digital Economics at the Department of Digital Humanities, King's College London, which seeks more to provide a service, and it does not matter so much who provides it. Also, in the face of these constant changes after a crisis, it is then that they take advantage as a result of the system of this economic need in the case of countries that no longer have pensions, they opt for a path without labor benefits. What matters most or sells most is intelligence and creativity, as human capital, since knowledge is fundamentally different from knowledge and intelligence, meaning, the cognitariat.
Therefore, knowledge is the main productive force, however, it is because of this that the precariousness of working people is going to grow due to automation, and the repercussions of unemployment will continue to become deeper and longer, especially in jobs that begin to automate, the fear of being replaced by a machine. And when we talk about the slum classes, they will be exacerbated by a kind of pure deindustrialization. In other words, urban marginalization in developed economies is going to be on the rise, underpaid, becoming an austere platform.
And before these false notions of progress and economic development based on technology, technoliberalism gets immersed, where there is an integral commodification of human life, merely innovation dictated by an economic advantage. And this is strengthened by the great consumerist habits, where the concern for comfort is prioritized before the ethical imperative.
It is here where the problem arises, since technological dependence is so great, that there is already a continuous algorithmic accompaniment and the worldview it's based on that, in the face of fundamental human deficiency, that is, that artificial intelligence will save us. And now artificial intelligence has greater political power than a single person.
Therefore, we speak of technological nihilism or radical anti-humanism, and of the great fallacy that exists, around free will because the algorithm now decides for us. The most significant cases are the last two presidential elections in the United States of 2015 and 2020, where social networks were not only key in terms of advertising but were also responsible for determining what is true and what is not. In addition, to the fact that in the last one, the owners of large social networks such as Twitter and Facebook vetoed Donald Trump's profiles. And as Thomas Kuhn rightly says:
"Digital innovation weakens the possibility of political action".
Sources:
Kuhn, T. (1971). La Estructura de las Revoluciones Científicas. Retrieved on: https://materiainvestigacion.files.wordpress.com/2016/05/kuhn1971.pdf
Sadín, E. (2018). La silicolonización del mundo. La irresistible expansión del liberalismo digital. Caja Negra Editora.
Srnicek, N. (2018). Capitalismo de Plataformas. Retrieved on: http://catedradatos.com.ar/media/Capitalismo-Plataformas-Nick-Srnicek-Intro.-Cap.-2-y-Entrevista.pdf
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