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Naomi Klein: Beware the Tech Billionaires and Their “Pandemic Shock Doctrine”
By dianeravitch
May 9, 2020 //
44
Naomi Klein coined the iconic book Shock Doctrine, about the way that the powerful elites use emergencies to expand their power because of the crisis. New Orleans was one of her prime examples of “disaster capitalism,” where the devastation of a giant hurricane created an opportunity to break the teachers union and privatize the public school system.
In this brilliant essay, published in The Intercept, Klein describes the many ways in which the plutocrats of the tech industry are turning the pandemic into a gold mine for themselves and planning a dystopian future for the rest of us.
Please read this provocative and frightening essay, which has numerous links to support her argument.
What she details is not just a threat to our privacy and our institutions but to our democracy and our freedom.
It is no coincidence, she writes, that Governor Andrew Cuomo is enlisting a team of tech billionaires to reimagine the future of the Empire State. They know exactly what they want, and it’s up to us to stop them.
She writes:
It has taken some time to gel, but something resembling a coherent Pandemic Shock Doctrine is beginning to emerge. Call it the “Screen New Deal.” Far more high-tech than anything we have seen during previous disasters, the future that is being rushed into being as the bodies still pile up treats our past weeks of physical isolation not as a painful necessity to save lives, but as a living laboratory for a permanent — and highly profitable — no-touch future.
Anuja Sonalker, CEO of Steer Tech, a Maryland-based company selling self-parking technology, recently summed up the new virus-personalized pitch. “There has been a distinct warming up to human-less, contactless technology,” she said. “Humans are biohazards, machines are not.”
It’s a future in which our homes are never again exclusively personal spaces but are also, via high-speed digital connectivity, our schools, our doctor’s offices, our gyms, and, if determined by the state, our jails. Of course, for many of us, those same homes were already turning into our never-off workplaces and our primary entertainment venues before the pandemic, and surveillance incarceration “in the community” was already booming. But in the future under hasty construction, all of these trends are poised for a warp-speed acceleration.
This is a future in which, for the privileged, almost everything is home delivered, either virtually via streaming and cloud technology, or physically via driverless vehicle or drone, then screen “shared” on a mediated platform. It’s a future that employs far fewer teachers, doctors, and drivers. It accepts no cash or credit cards (under guise of virus control) and has skeletal mass transit and far less live art. It’s a future that claims to be run on “artificial intelligence” but is actually held together by tens of millions of anonymous workers tucked away in warehouses, data centers, content moderation mills, electronic sweatshops, lithium mines, industrial farms, meat-processing plants, and prisons, where they are left unprotected from disease and hyperexploition. It’s a future in which our every move, our every word, our every relationship is trackable, traceable, and data-mineable by unprecedented collaborations between government and tech giants.
If all of this sounds familiar it’s because, pre-Covid, this precise app-driven, gig-fueled future was being sold to us in the name of convenience, frictionlessness, and personalization. But many of us had concerns. About the security, quality, and inequity of telehealth and online classrooms. About driverless cars mowing down pedestrians and drones smashing packages (and people). About location tracking and cash-free commerce obliterating our privacy and entrenching racial and gender discrimination. About unscrupulous social media platforms poisoning our information ecology and our kids’ mental health. About “smart cities” filled with sensors supplanting local government. About the good jobs these technologies wiped out. About the bad jobs they mass produced.
And most of all, we had concerns about the democracy-threatening wealth and power accumulated by a handful of tech companies that are masters of abdication — eschewing all responsibility for the wreckage left behind in the fields they now dominate, whether media, retail, or transportation.
That was the ancient past known as February. Today, a great many of those well-founded concerns are being swept away by a tidal wave of panic, and this warmed-over dystopia is going through a rush-job rebranding. Now, against a harrowing backdrop of mass death, it is being sold to us on the dubious promise that these technologies are the only possible way to pandemic-proof our lives, the indispensable keys to keeping ourselves and our loved ones safe.
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CategoriesBillionaires, Data and Data Mining, Democracy, Disruption, Education Reform, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Online Education, Privacy, Privatization
44 CommentsPost your own or leave a trackback: Trackback URL
Yvonne
May 9, 2020 at 10:08 am
BEWARE! BEWARE! BEWARE the “Tech Billionaires.”
Klein is right and so is Diane and the rest of us who see the SCAMS, lived the SCAMS, and continue to decry and fight whose SCAMBUGS … who are really SCUMBUGS.
People say they care about kids and then just USE them “for their own profits.” Americans really need to be a lot more critical. Could it be those commercials on TV and everywhere, which use propaganda?
The big daddies …. Common GORE, high stakes testing, and the narrowing of the curriculum to pass stupid tests have ALL failed America.
Reply
retired teacher
May 9, 2020 at 10:37 am
A germ free future is unlikely despite any efforts to make it that way. There is a good deal of research that says that germs and viruses actually actually teach our immune system how to defend itself. Many allergies in children today are thought to be the result of a super-antiseptic existence. Silicon Valley is preying on our insecurities and fears.
Many states are looking to save money in post pandemic America. Parents, teachers and concerned citizens wary of a “Black Mirror” existence must be ready to resist and organize to push back. I think our best defense is to present all of the negatives associated with technology and frame technology explosion as class warfare. The wealthy are not embracing ed-tech for their own children. Why should our young people be denied an equitable opportunity to grow and develop in a humane setting? We need to expose the tech giants for the profiteers they are. Their motives are all about making money at the expense of our young people.
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ciedie aech
May 9, 2020 at 1:07 pm
when “humane setting” means kids dealing with humans, not computers
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SomeDAM Poet
May 9, 2020 at 10:57 am
Humans are biohazards”
Who needs human species?
Biohazard waste
Who needs human feces
Rubbing in their face?
Better is the robot
Running every place
Go bot and the know bot
Human to replace
Reply
Gordon Wilder
May 9, 2020 at 10:57 am
The following, something I wrote for facebook, is not directly applicable to Klein’s great writing but is another aspect of the basic problem, greed, the worship of false gods, the golden calf if you will rather than the good of humanity, its relation to the forces of the great moral leaders and philosophers.
Finality; money is only as good and has only the worth which people give to it. We came within hours of it being worthless. We face a future in which humankind’s problems are becoming insurmountable because of this tendency to think that money gives us personal worth. Far from it.
The Soviet Nation no longer exists. Russia sits alone with Putin and his missiles. Soviets during the cold war spent so much on their military that they had no money to keep society at a cohesive level. Their country divided into independent “states”
“Those who do not know their history are bound to repeat it.”
Eisenhower warned us about the power of the military industrial complex. The United States spends more on national defense than China, Saudi Arabia, India, France, Russia, United Kingdom, and Germany. … Defense spending accounts for 15 percent of all federal spending and roughly half of discretionary spending. U.S. military spending dwarfs the budget of the #2 country – China.
Adequate military defense is necessary of course. WWII non preparation taught us that. BUT; Eisenhower, a Republican president’s budget; domestic priorities first, military expenditures what was left. During his eight-year term, he tamed the warfare state. The Eisenhower era of the 1950s was a time of unprecedented economic growth and prosperity. GDP (gross domestic product) grew by an astonishing 150% in the period from 1945 to 1960. In the 1950s, with only five percent of the world’s population the U.S. economy produced almost half of the world’s manufactured products.
Like the Soviets our infrastructure, roads, bridges etc crumble, our universities, the best in the world – great scholars from aound the world came here to study have been given increasingly less financial assistance from the government so now so very many students cannot attend and academic institutions are having huge financial difficulties and students who do go graduate with humongous debt. [other countries do not make that mistake, students pay little or no tuition and those countries face the future with an educated public] 20% of our children live in poverty, homelessness proliferates etc etc etc. Our state department’s budget is less than minimal but we can bomb and bully without measure.
Emphasizing military preparedness as the ONLY or even primary danger we face has now been proven untenable. What country would even think of attacking us? Now, covid-19 is here plus other dangers which could destroy us as a nation. Lack of preparation is proving devastating. In several countries which were adequately prepared, covid-19 effect has been minimal.
The president’s promises have been illusory. His tax returns which would have shown his true worth, the wall for which Mexico was to pay and now; trillions of added debt, countless unneeded deaths, economy in shambles, all caused by incompetent, inept abilities by the White House occupant. Truman said” the buck stops here. Integrity was known at that time, antithetical to what is happening now.
We positively know from recorded speech, what he said and when; we also know now what was known regarding the virus and when; all proof of gross incompetence in leadership. To this day necessities for testing, adequate protective gear is too often unavailable. The future is unknown but is NOT bright.
Tragically this same ineptitude shows similarly now in the climate change challenge which, instead of confronting its horrors, he has warred against any semblance of mitigating its effects. It is merely a Chinese hoax.
Who needs scholarly study when a president shows his superior understanding to that of those who study problems in detail. Evidently God has given him superior insight, garnered without any study or research on his part.
Scholars who had studied Iraq told George W Bush exactly what would happen with an invasion. He knew better? It happened and as prognosticated the chaos that is now prevalent. Economic depression ensued, thousands of lives lost, trillions added to our national debt. Bush came into office when we were PAYING OFF our national debt. He left office with unemployment at terrible levels, economy poor, one of our most despised presidents. The U. S. will never be the same.
No lesson learned. So many people voted for a man with no political understanding. We can see how that is turning out. We expect professional people to learn, understand, have experience in their craft; doctors, lawyers, dentists, et al but NOT a president?
Reply
Bob Shepherd
May 9, 2020 at 11:18 am
Dear Melinda:
Please let Bill know that there are many hobbies that he can take up that don’t hurt other people’s children. The Common Coring and testing and depersonalized education software and VAM and LMSs and student “data”bases have been terribly destructive and keep me and a lot of others awake at night. Here are a few suggestions: ceramics, macrame, paint-by-numbers, stamp collecting. Our experience with his education initiatives shows that he isn’t willing to invest time into actually learning something about his education hobby, so I hesitate to suggest baking or instrument making, which also involve significant learning curves.
Oh, and by the way, it was very thoughtful of you to remember that I was working on a mystery novel and looking for the perfect deadly potion for my villain to use. The Gates Cocktail you’ve recommended is PERFECT: Two parts money, two parts arrogance, two parts ignorance. A lethal combination.
Thanks again,
Bob S.
P.S. I know that Bill is really fond of numerology generally (e.g., Student “Data” Walls), so he might try Tarot card reading and casting astrological readings. These other pseudosciences are far, far less dangerous than the invalid testing and VAM and LMSs and remote learning software and student “data”bases he’s so crazy about. as you surely know, “remote learning” is a purported educational environment in which there is only a remote chance that any learning is taking place. Thanks.
https://bobshepherdonline.wordpress.com/2020/01/06/stopping-by-school-on-a-disruptive-afternoon/
Reply
SomeDAM Poet
May 9, 2020 at 11:44 am
Dear Melinda
Goat wet Bill two Hail
Dun stopper laundry wrote
Dun stopper long entrail
Ax apt do risky coat
Reply
Bob Shepherd
May 9, 2020 at 11:50 am
Yes. She will understand this just as well. Love the Hail/entrail rhyme, btw, and your use of sprung rhythm puts Hopkins to shame. Does this mean that you are entering your SomeDADAist phase?
SomeDAM Poet
May 9, 2020 at 11:55 am
Inspired by Ladle Rat Rotten Hut, Up cures
SomeDAM Poet
May 9, 2020 at 11:57 am
Did you just call me SomeDAM Sadist?
SomeDAM Poet
May 9, 2020 at 12:17 pm
Hint to anyone who does not get the last line “ax apt” has nothing to do with axes.
SomeDAM Poet
May 9, 2020 at 12:20 pm
And I’d like to see an AI program that can decode something like this.
Then I might start to believe some of the hype. Might.
SomeDAM Poet
May 9, 2020 at 12:22 pm
If Bill is a bot, he probably won’t be able to decode that
SomeDAM Poet
May 9, 2020 at 12:29 pm
Actually, even if he’s a human, he probably won’t be able to.
His partner Paul Allen was the smart one behind Microsoft.
Bob Shepherd
May 9, 2020 at 1:02 pm
Dadaist. As Ludwig Van said, DaDa Da Dum. Speaking of Dada, Salvador Dali once gave a press conference dressed in a Bugs Bunny suit covered in mayonnaise. But this was in Florida, and it was so hot inside the suit that he collapsed and had to be cut out of it. And all this made about as much sense as Trump’s cornavirus response has.
I am still working on translating the Anguish. Two hail. To hell. Dun stopper. Don’t stop her. Ax ap. Except or Accept. Hmmmm.
dianeravitch
May 9, 2020 at 1:35 pm
When you figure it out, please share.
Bob Shepherd
May 9, 2020 at 4:17 pm
Go with Bill to hell.
Don’t stop along the road.
Don’t stop along a trail
Except to. . . .
to be continued
Bob Shepherd
May 9, 2020 at 5:19 pm
Perhaps:
Go with Bill to hell.
Don’t stop along the road.
Don’t stop along a trail
except to rest the goat. (Billy)
SomeDAM Poet
May 9, 2020 at 1:55 pm
Dun stopper laundry wrote” was stolen directly from Ladle Rat Rotten Hut
SomeDAM Poet
May 9, 2020 at 2:08 pm
SomeDAM Poet
May 10, 2020 at 8:07 am
Bob
You got all but the last part of the last line.
It was supposed to be “Except to this de code”
But that is not really standard English and I think ” except to rest the goat” is much better, at at rate.
So, you win.
The checks in the mail from Trump.
dianeravitch
May 10, 2020 at 10:02 am
What rhymes with Trump? Chump.
SomeDAM Poet
May 10, 2020 at 10:29 am
Incidentally, I think this sort of stuff reveals a lot about language.
Among other things, it tells us that absent context, language loses much of its meaning.
Something for David Coleman to chew on.
SomeDAM Poet
May 10, 2020 at 10:46 am
Conman Corp
Coleman met eh conman corp
Redding clothes, an mulch mulch moor
Coleman’s ding worse jest infest
Inner “vixen” up detest
SomeDAM Poet
May 10, 2020 at 10:49 am
Oops should be
“Conman corps”
SomeDAM Poet
May 10, 2020 at 11:06 am
Gates infested lost up dawdlers
Jest fur nutting, butt sum “scowlers”
Gates well nabber gibbet hup
Grid ass watt hee’s god an gut
SomeDAM Poet
May 10, 2020 at 11:20 am
Grid ass watt ease god an gut
dianeravitch
May 9, 2020 at 12:25 pm
Bob,
I had to laugh out loud at your suggestion that Billy Gates could keep himself busy with macrame!
Reply
SomeDAM Poet
May 9, 2020 at 12:35 pm
With our luck he will take up macabreme
retired teacher
May 9, 2020 at 12:44 pm
Thanks, Bob, for all the hilarious images in your Gates’ letter.
Reply
LisaM
May 9, 2020 at 2:22 pm
I’ve been privy to some dreadful screeds put out by the REOPEN/FREEDOM/LIBERATE movement and they clearly DO NOT like Bill Gates. These fringe groups think Bill has something to do with the manufacture of the virus. I’d bet that they are looking into the rest of these tech giants, also. The techies should be fearful of their lives….because the fringe is truly a dangerous crowd and we are in a desperate situation.
Reply
retiredbutmissthekids
May 9, 2020 at 3:32 pm
LisaM: are fringe groups confusing “viruses” (you know, like computer viruses w/airborne/bodily viruses?!)–??
Reply
LisaM
May 9, 2020 at 5:04 pm
They are linking Gates to the lab in Wuhan, to the World Bank and to WHO. They clearly don’t like WHO either. They have some pretty interesting thoughts. SCARY!
dianeravitch
May 9, 2020 at 5:49 pm
The conspiracy theorists are nuts.
Have they linked Gates to the international Jewish cabal yet, even though he is not Jewish?
LisaM
May 9, 2020 at 8:57 pm
I haven’t seen that one, but they don’t like Dr. Fauci either. Marc Cyborg used to be on their good side, but lately FB is taking down their toxic, untruthful postings….and so they are getting a little frustrated with him. Where is the Cyborg lately? Maybe he got smart and headed to an underground bunker in New Zealand or SD? Usually a vulture like him would be circling the dead meat. Sorry, but I have NO love for the tech giants.
Laura H. Chapman
May 9, 2020 at 4:13 pm
This is a brilliant summary of the forces at work to undermine democracy while also engaging in PR about being of huge importance and benefit to the national defense.
Back in 2016, major tech companies actually formed the “Partnership on Artificial Intelligence to Benefit People and Society.” The stated mission was to “Harness AI for solutions to some of humanity’s most challenging problems: education, climate change, food, health and wellbeing, transportation, and inequality.”
In 2016, the organization was nothing more than an effort to put a positive spin on AI in the face of increasing public and press disapproval of data mining and the use of algorithms to drive online behavior (e.g. Facebook’s profit-seeking from Russian operatives who interfered with our elections, China-like surveillance systems and social credit schemes).
The grandiose vision of artificial intelligence as a panacea for social problems is clearly betrayed by the overwhelming purpose of the founding companies, all seeking profits from the personal data of individuals. The “founding” the companies were:
–Amazon has customer reviews, 1-Click shopping, personalized recommendations, Prime, Fulfillment by Amazon, AWS, Kindle Direct Publishing, Kindle, Fire tablets, Fire TV, Amazon Echo, and Alexa.
–Apple sells iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch, and Apple TV, has software platforms — iOS, macOS, watchOS, and tvOS with services via the App Store, Apple Music, Apple Pay, and iCloud.
–DeepMind, based in London, acquired in 2014 by Google (part of Alphabet group) works on AI programs that can “learn to solve any complex problem without needing to be taught how.”
–Google is a subsidiary of Alphabet Inc. Google products/platforms include Search, Maps, Gmail, Android, Google Play, Chrome, and YouTube.
–Facebook. Facebook has AI Research (FAIR) and Applied Machine Learning.
–IBM’s Watson is. .”.the most advanced AI computing platform available today, deployed in more than 45 countries and across 20 different industries.”
–Microsoft says, “More than any other technology that has preceded it, AI has the potential to extend human capabilities, empowering us all to achieve more.”
This PR campaign is now up and running, fully staffed, and with a long list of “partners.” Of these, 21 are for-profit partners but 76 are non-profits. The meaning of “partner” is not clear, nor is the cost of a partnership, but the logos and lists of partners are worth a second look. https://www.partnershiponai.org/about/
For example, some of the non-profits listed as partners are promoters of AI. One is the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE.org). IEEE is building standards to legitimize and expand the scope and influence of AI decision-making. A recent example is a trademarked draft of an IEEE’s “Well-being Metrics Standard for Autonomous and Intelligent Systems” with this definition of well-being.
“Well-being, for the purposes of IEEE P7010, Well-being Metrics Standard for Autonomous and Intelligent Systems is defined broadly to encompass positive and negative affect (feelings), flourishing (also called eudaimonia), satisfaction with life and satisfaction with domains of happiness (also called conditions of life), and the state of the domains. Positive affect includes feelings of happiness, joy, contentment, calm, peace, and other positive feelings.
Negative affect includes feelings of sadness, stress, anxiety, unhappiness, anger, confusion and other negative feelings. Flourishing includes but is no limited to purpose, meaning, positivity, optimism, worthiness, mastery, self-esteem and other aspects of flourishing.
Satisfaction with the domains (also called conditions of life) and the state of the domains can be measured with objective and subjective indicators – the domains are: (1) Affect, (2) Community, (3) Culture, (4) Education, (5) Economy, (6) Environment, (7) Human Settlements, (8) Health, (9) Government, (10) Psychological Well-Being/Mental well-being, (11) Satisfaction with life and (12) Work.”
Just imagine this definition and set of standards being reduced to computer code based on AI training for social-emotional learning (SEL), now a hot topic in education, with Alexa or Siri programmed to detect moods and serve in lieu of a therapist.
Click to access IEEE-P7010_WellbeingMetricsforA_IS_ShortPaper_December272018For_Submission_reviewedbyIEEELegal-1.pdf
I think that more than one of the non-profit supporters of this Partnership for the Benefit of People and Society are interested in risk management for AI systems (reducing legal liabilities) or they have band-wagon enthusiasms for AI. For example, the American Psychological Association appears to be enthusiastic about AI https://www.apa.org (search Artificial Intelligence)
The ACLU has no formal positions on AI, but it is circulating papers from outside experts. Many of these papers are raising red flags, especially about privacy but also the use of AI in making “governmental” decisions. See these at https://www.aclu.org/issues/privacy-technology/will-artificial-intelligence-make-us-less-free
Also, if you have an interest in gender and other biases in AI, checkout the 2019 report of AI Now housed at New York University or their amazing study titled “Amazon’s Echo: An anatomical map of human labor, data and planetary resources” at https://anatomyof.ai
I am suspicious of organized tech and its rebranding efforts. The International Association for K-12 Online Learning (iNACOL) has rebranded its online competency-based agenda as the Aurora Institute. The rebranding is happening with some help from Chan/Zuckerberg and the New Profit grant program. Somehow the “Partnership for the Benefit of People and Society” has the ring of a Soviet-style propaganda operation.
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speduktr
May 9, 2020 at 7:41 pm
Somehow their solutions to problems seem to leave out much of a role for people.people
Reply
GregB
May 10, 2020 at 12:27 am
I really suck at math, but if my calculations are close to correct, Sweden, with a population of approximately 6 million is 1/55th of the US population. If that is correct, their incidence rate is slightly higher than ours, with a high death rate of people who are elderly or with underlying risk factors. I can already anticipate some naysayers out there saying, “see, it we had done nothing, we’d still be exactly where we are.” The real answer, if most of us were not responsible, is that the incidence and death rates would still be significantly higher here. But with quashing and ignoring CDC guidelines, we may well reach our potential.
LeftCoastTeacher
May 9, 2020 at 7:41 pm
Disaster capitalism is a pandemic.
Reply
speduktr
May 9, 2020 at 7:43 pm
Where is the AI when I make obvious mistakes?
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bethree5
May 9, 2020 at 10:59 pm
Don’t be distracted by the specific business of tech moguls. IT automation/ surveillance is scary, but what’s key here is how its titans propose to enhance their global position.
“More than any other factor, however, the NSCAI points to China’s willingness to embrace public-private partnerships in mass surveillance and data collection as a reason for its competitive edge.”
“By late February, Schmidt was taking his campaign to the public… Schmidt called for ‘unprecedented partnerships between government and industry’ and, once again, sounding the yellow peril alarm”
Four decades’ incremental unravelling of democracy toward something that’s starting to resemble feudalism… The principal fief-holders, chafing at democratic limits to global dominance, now crab-walk us toward a bizarre version of Asia’s capitalist-modified socialism. Well-captured in the liberal scoff “socialize the risk and privatize the profits” (shorthand: “corporate welfare”).
Is US govt/ public so unschooled as to buy Schmidt’s disingenuous recommendation to adopt his faux version of Asian biz model? What he recommends is nothing like the tinkering with Chinese socialism [or with Japan’s age-old govt/ family-dynasty “nation-as-family” companies], adding less-govtlly-regulated capitalist elements to bolster social programs– where the overriding goal is to spread wealth more evenly. In our govtl context, it’s simply oligarchy. Russian– not Asian– a govtl model that’s bringing Russians no closer to equitable or even functional distribution of goods than they had under communism. Recommendations completely untethered to notions of social welfare. Schmidt says so himself: “”Ultimately, the Chinese are competing to become the world’s leading innovators, and the United States is not playing to win.”
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kzahedi
May 10, 2020 at 8:24 am
Of course Cuomo’s “reimagining eduction” – with Gates on board- will imagine more tech in schools. I’m concerned about the health concerns around the radiation levels of 5G. School were already struggling with the impact of too much tech in schools. The incidence of depression and anxiety run parallel with increased tech connectivity. Of course much of it is the social/emotional impact of social media, but the physical concerns of kids not knowing (perhaps energetically) the difference between the impasse of their own thoughts and waves (in the air) seemed to be at play.
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gitapik
May 10, 2020 at 8:49 pm
At first I thought it was Gates, Bloomberg, and that other guy…Schmidt. Then I checked out “that other guy”.
This is beyond serious. I’m sending this link and info out to my friends and will be posting it on FB, tomorrow.
The key here, in my mind, is to hop on it NOW, in terms of questions and resistance. Gates took us by surprise with the CCSS. By the time the public was made aware; the money was spent and the train had left the station.
Reply
steven jones
December 10, 2020 at 12:14 am
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Attendance Management System In Pakistan
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« Excellent Source of Information about Spread of COVID-19: Worldometer
Seattle: Beware Coronavirus Capitalism! »
Naomi Klein: Beware the Tech Billionaires and Their “Pandemic Shock Doctrine”
By dianeravitch
May 9, 2020 //
44
Naomi Klein coined the iconic book Shock Doctrine, about the way that the powerful elites use emergencies to expand their power because of the crisis. New Orleans was one of her prime examples of “disaster capitalism,” where the devastation of a giant hurricane created an opportunity to break the teachers union and privatize the public school system.
In this brilliant essay, published in The Intercept, Klein describes the many ways in which the plutocrats of the tech industry are turning the pandemic into a gold mine for themselves and planning a dystopian future for the rest of us.
Please read this provocative and frightening essay, which has numerous links to support her argument.
What she details is not just a threat to our privacy and our institutions but to our democracy and our freedom.
It is no coincidence, she writes, that Governor Andrew Cuomo is enlisting a team of tech billionaires to reimagine the future of the Empire State. They know exactly what they want, and it’s up to us to stop them.
She writes:
It has taken some time to gel, but something resembling a coherent Pandemic Shock Doctrine is beginning to emerge. Call it the “Screen New Deal.” Far more high-tech than anything we have seen during previous disasters, the future that is being rushed into being as the bodies still pile up treats our past weeks of physical isolation not as a painful necessity to save lives, but as a living laboratory for a permanent — and highly profitable — no-touch future.
Anuja Sonalker, CEO of Steer Tech, a Maryland-based company selling self-parking technology, recently summed up the new virus-personalized pitch. “There has been a distinct warming up to human-less, contactless technology,” she said. “Humans are biohazards, machines are not.”
It’s a future in which our homes are never again exclusively personal spaces but are also, via high-speed digital connectivity, our schools, our doctor’s offices, our gyms, and, if determined by the state, our jails. Of course, for many of us, those same homes were already turning into our never-off workplaces and our primary entertainment venues before the pandemic, and surveillance incarceration “in the community” was already booming. But in the future under hasty construction, all of these trends are poised for a warp-speed acceleration.
This is a future in which, for the privileged, almost everything is home delivered, either virtually via streaming and cloud technology, or physically via driverless vehicle or drone, then screen “shared” on a mediated platform. It’s a future that employs far fewer teachers, doctors, and drivers. It accepts no cash or credit cards (under guise of virus control) and has skeletal mass transit and far less live art. It’s a future that claims to be run on “artificial intelligence” but is actually held together by tens of millions of anonymous workers tucked away in warehouses, data centers, content moderation mills, electronic sweatshops, lithium mines, industrial farms, meat-processing plants, and prisons, where they are left unprotected from disease and hyperexploition. It’s a future in which our every move, our every word, our every relationship is trackable, traceable, and data-mineable by unprecedented collaborations between government and tech giants.
If all of this sounds familiar it’s because, pre-Covid, this precise app-driven, gig-fueled future was being sold to us in the name of convenience, frictionlessness, and personalization. But many of us had concerns. About the security, quality, and inequity of telehealth and online classrooms. About driverless cars mowing down pedestrians and drones smashing packages (and people). About location tracking and cash-free commerce obliterating our privacy and entrenching racial and gender discrimination. About unscrupulous social media platforms poisoning our information ecology and our kids’ mental health. About “smart cities” filled with sensors supplanting local government. About the good jobs these technologies wiped out. About the bad jobs they mass produced.
And most of all, we had concerns about the democracy-threatening wealth and power accumulated by a handful of tech companies that are masters of abdication — eschewing all responsibility for the wreckage left behind in the fields they now dominate, whether media, retail, or transportation.
That was the ancient past known as February. Today, a great many of those well-founded concerns are being swept away by a tidal wave of panic, and this warmed-over dystopia is going through a rush-job rebranding. Now, against a harrowing backdrop of mass death, it is being sold to us on the dubious promise that these technologies are the only possible way to pandemic-proof our lives, the indispensable keys to keeping ourselves and our loved ones safe.
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CategoriesBillionaires, Data and Data Mining, Democracy, Disruption, Education Reform, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Online Education, Privacy, Privatization
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Yvonne May 9, 2020 at 10:08 am
BEWARE! BEWARE! BEWARE the “Tech Billionaires.”
Klein is right and so is Diane and the rest of us who see the SCAMS, lived the SCAMS, and continue to decry and fight whose SCAMBUGS … who are really SCUMBUGS.
People say they care about kids and then just USE them “for their own profits.” Americans really need to be a lot more critical. Could it be those commercials on TV and everywhere, which use propaganda?
The big daddies …. Common GORE, high stakes testing, and the narrowing of the curriculum to pass stupid tests have ALL failed America.
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retired teacher May 9, 2020 at 10:37 am
A germ free future is unlikely despite any efforts to make it that way. There is a good deal of research that says that germs and viruses actually actually teach our immune system how to defend itself. Many allergies in children today are thought to be the result of a super-antiseptic existence. Silicon Valley is preying on our insecurities and fears.
Many states are looking to save money in post pandemic America. Parents, teachers and concerned citizens wary of a “Black Mirror” existence must be ready to resist and organize to push back. I think our best defense is to present all of the negatives associated with technology and frame technology explosion as class warfare. The wealthy are not embracing ed-tech for their own children. Why should our young people be denied an equitable opportunity to grow and develop in a humane setting? We need to expose the tech giants for the profiteers they are. Their motives are all about making money at the expense of our young people.
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ciedie aech May 9, 2020 at 1:07 pm
when “humane setting” means kids dealing with humans, not computers
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SomeDAM Poet May 9, 2020 at 10:57 am
Humans are biohazards”
Who needs human species?
Biohazard waste
Who needs human feces
Rubbing in their face?
Better is the robot
Running every place
Go bot and the know bot
Human to replace
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Gordon Wilder May 9, 2020 at 10:57 am
The following, something I wrote for facebook, is not directly applicable to Klein’s great writing but is another aspect of the basic problem, greed, the worship of false gods, the golden calf if you will rather than the good of humanity, its relation to the forces of the great moral leaders and philosophers.
Finality; money is only as good and has only the worth which people give to it. We came within hours of it being worthless. We face a future in which humankind’s problems are becoming insurmountable because of this tendency to think that money gives us personal worth. Far from it.
The Soviet Nation no longer exists. Russia sits alone with Putin and his missiles. Soviets during the cold war spent so much on their military that they had no money to keep society at a cohesive level. Their country divided into independent “states”
“Those who do not know their history are bound to repeat it.”
Eisenhower warned us about the power of the military industrial complex. The United States spends more on national defense than China, Saudi Arabia, India, France, Russia, United Kingdom, and Germany. … Defense spending accounts for 15 percent of all federal spending and roughly half of discretionary spending. U.S. military spending dwarfs the budget of the #2 country – China.
Adequate military defense is necessary of course. WWII non preparation taught us that. BUT; Eisenhower, a Republican president’s budget; domestic priorities first, military expenditures what was left. During his eight-year term, he tamed the warfare state. The Eisenhower era of the 1950s was a time of unprecedented economic growth and prosperity. GDP (gross domestic product) grew by an astonishing 150% in the period from 1945 to 1960. In the 1950s, with only five percent of the world’s population the U.S. economy produced almost half of the world’s manufactured products.
Like the Soviets our infrastructure, roads, bridges etc crumble, our universities, the best in the world – great scholars from aound the world came here to study have been given increasingly less financial assistance from the government so now so very many students cannot attend and academic institutions are having huge financial difficulties and students who do go graduate with humongous debt. [other countries do not make that mistake, students pay little or no tuition and those countries face the future with an educated public] 20% of our children live in poverty, homelessness proliferates etc etc etc. Our state department’s budget is less than minimal but we can bomb and bully without measure.
Emphasizing military preparedness as the ONLY or even primary danger we face has now been proven untenable. What country would even think of attacking us? Now, covid-19 is here plus other dangers which could destroy us as a nation. Lack of preparation is proving devastating. In several countries which were adequately prepared, covid-19 effect has been minimal.
The president’s promises have been illusory. His tax returns which would have shown his true worth, the wall for which Mexico was to pay and now; trillions of added debt, countless unneeded deaths, economy in shambles, all caused by incompetent, inept abilities by the White House occupant. Truman said” the buck stops here. Integrity was known at that time, antithetical to what is happening now.
We positively know from recorded speech, what he said and when; we also know now what was known regarding the virus and when; all proof of gross incompetence in leadership. To this day necessities for testing, adequate protective gear is too often unavailable. The future is unknown but is NOT bright.
Tragically this same ineptitude shows similarly now in the climate change challenge which, instead of confronting its horrors, he has warred against any semblance of mitigating its effects. It is merely a Chinese hoax.
Who needs scholarly study when a president shows his superior understanding to that of those who study problems in detail. Evidently God has given him superior insight, garnered without any study or research on his part.
Scholars who had studied Iraq told George W Bush exactly what would happen with an invasion. He knew better? It happened and as prognosticated the chaos that is now prevalent. Economic depression ensued, thousands of lives lost, trillions added to our national debt. Bush came into office when we were PAYING OFF our national debt. He left office with unemployment at terrible levels, economy poor, one of our most despised presidents. The U. S. will never be the same.
No lesson learned. So many people voted for a man with no political understanding. We can see how that is turning out. We expect professional people to learn, understand, have experience in their craft; doctors, lawyers, dentists, et al but NOT a president?
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Bob Shepherd May 9, 2020 at 11:18 am
Dear Melinda:
Please let Bill know that there are many hobbies that he can take up that don’t hurt other people’s children. The Common Coring and testing and depersonalized education software and VAM and LMSs and student “data”bases have been terribly destructive and keep me and a lot of others awake at night. Here are a few suggestions: ceramics, macrame, paint-by-numbers, stamp collecting. Our experience with his education initiatives shows that he isn’t willing to invest time into actually learning something about his education hobby, so I hesitate to suggest baking or instrument making, which also involve significant learning curves.
Oh, and by the way, it was very thoughtful of you to remember that I was working on a mystery novel and looking for the perfect deadly potion for my villain to use. The Gates Cocktail you’ve recommended is PERFECT: Two parts money, two parts arrogance, two parts ignorance. A lethal combination.
Thanks again,
Bob S.
P.S. I know that Bill is really fond of numerology generally (e.g., Student “Data” Walls), so he might try Tarot card reading and casting astrological readings. These other pseudosciences are far, far less dangerous than the invalid testing and VAM and LMSs and remote learning software and student “data”bases he’s so crazy about. as you surely know, “remote learning” is a purported educational environment in which there is only a remote chance that any learning is taking place. Thanks.
https://bobshepherdonline.wordpress.com/2020/01/06/stopping-by-school-on-a-disruptive-afternoon/
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SomeDAM Poet May 9, 2020 at 11:44 am
Dear Melinda
Goat wet Bill two Hail
Dun stopper laundry wrote
Dun stopper long entrail
Ax apt do risky coat
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Bob Shepherd May 9, 2020 at 11:50 am
Yes. She will understand this just as well. Love the Hail/entrail rhyme, btw, and your use of sprung rhythm puts Hopkins to shame. Does this mean that you are entering your SomeDADAist phase?
SomeDAM Poet May 9, 2020 at 11:55 am
Inspired by Ladle Rat Rotten Hut, Up cures
SomeDAM Poet May 9, 2020 at 11:57 am
Did you just call me SomeDAM Sadist?
SomeDAM Poet May 9, 2020 at 12:17 pm
Hint to anyone who does not get the last line “ax apt” has nothing to do with axes.
SomeDAM Poet May 9, 2020 at 12:20 pm
And I’d like to see an AI program that can decode something like this.
Then I might start to believe some of the hype. Might.
SomeDAM Poet May 9, 2020 at 12:22 pm
If Bill is a bot, he probably won’t be able to decode that
SomeDAM Poet May 9, 2020 at 12:29 pm
Actually, even if he’s a human, he probably won’t be able to.
His partner Paul Allen was the smart one behind Microsoft.
Bob Shepherd May 9, 2020 at 1:02 pm
Dadaist. As Ludwig Van said, DaDa Da Dum. Speaking of Dada, Salvador Dali once gave a press conference dressed in a Bugs Bunny suit covered in mayonnaise. But this was in Florida, and it was so hot inside the suit that he collapsed and had to be cut out of it. And all this made about as much sense as Trump’s cornavirus response has.
I am still working on translating the Anguish. Two hail. To hell. Dun stopper. Don’t stop her. Ax ap. Except or Accept. Hmmmm.
dianeravitch May 9, 2020 at 1:35 pm
When you figure it out, please share.
Bob Shepherd May 9, 2020 at 4:17 pm
Go with Bill to hell.
Don’t stop along the road.
Don’t stop along a trail
Except to. . . .
to be continued
Bob Shepherd May 9, 2020 at 5:19 pm
Perhaps:
Go with Bill to hell.
Don’t stop along the road.
Don’t stop along a trail
except to rest the goat. (Billy)
SomeDAM Poet May 9, 2020 at 1:55 pm
Dun stopper laundry wrote” was stolen directly from Ladle Rat Rotten Hut
SomeDAM Poet May 9, 2020 at 2:08 pm
SomeDAM Poet May 10, 2020 at 8:07 am
Bob
You got all but the last part of the last line.
It was supposed to be “Except to this de code”
But that is not really standard English and I think ” except to rest the goat” is much better, at at rate.
So, you win.
The checks in the mail from Trump.
dianeravitch May 10, 2020 at 10:02 am
What rhymes with Trump? Chump.
SomeDAM Poet May 10, 2020 at 10:29 am
Incidentally, I think this sort of stuff reveals a lot about language.
Among other things, it tells us that absent context, language loses much of its meaning.
Something for David Coleman to chew on.
SomeDAM Poet May 10, 2020 at 10:46 am
Conman Corp
Coleman met eh conman corp
Redding clothes, an mulch mulch moor
Coleman’s ding worse jest infest
Inner “vixen” up detest
SomeDAM Poet May 10, 2020 at 10:49 am
Oops should be
“Conman corps”
SomeDAM Poet May 10, 2020 at 11:06 am
Gates infested lost up dawdlers
Jest fur nutting, butt sum “scowlers”
Gates well nabber gibbet hup
Grid ass watt hee’s god an gut
SomeDAM Poet May 10, 2020 at 11:20 am
Grid ass watt ease god an gut
dianeravitch May 9, 2020 at 12:25 pm
Bob,
I had to laugh out loud at your suggestion that Billy Gates could keep himself busy with macrame!
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SomeDAM Poet May 9, 2020 at 12:35 pm
With our luck he will take up macabreme
retired teacher May 9, 2020 at 12:44 pm
Thanks, Bob, for all the hilarious images in your Gates’ letter.
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LisaM May 9, 2020 at 2:22 pm
I’ve been privy to some dreadful screeds put out by the REOPEN/FREEDOM/LIBERATE movement and they clearly DO NOT like Bill Gates. These fringe groups think Bill has something to do with the manufacture of the virus. I’d bet that they are looking into the rest of these tech giants, also. The techies should be fearful of their lives….because the fringe is truly a dangerous crowd and we are in a desperate situation.
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retiredbutmissthekids May 9, 2020 at 3:32 pm
LisaM: are fringe groups confusing “viruses” (you know, like computer viruses w/airborne/bodily viruses?!)–??
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LisaM May 9, 2020 at 5:04 pm
They are linking Gates to the lab in Wuhan, to the World Bank and to WHO. They clearly don’t like WHO either. They have some pretty interesting thoughts. SCARY!
dianeravitch May 9, 2020 at 5:49 pm
The conspiracy theorists are nuts.
Have they linked Gates to the international Jewish cabal yet, even though he is not Jewish?
LisaM May 9, 2020 at 8:57 pm
I haven’t seen that one, but they don’t like Dr. Fauci either. Marc Cyborg used to be on their good side, but lately FB is taking down their toxic, untruthful postings….and so they are getting a little frustrated with him. Where is the Cyborg lately? Maybe he got smart and headed to an underground bunker in New Zealand or SD? Usually a vulture like him would be circling the dead meat. Sorry, but I have NO love for the tech giants.
Laura H. Chapman May 9, 2020 at 4:13 pm
This is a brilliant summary of the forces at work to undermine democracy while also engaging in PR about being of huge importance and benefit to the national defense.
Back in 2016, major tech companies actually formed the “Partnership on Artificial Intelligence to Benefit People and Society.” The stated mission was to “Harness AI for solutions to some of humanity’s most challenging problems: education, climate change, food, health and wellbeing, transportation, and inequality.”
In 2016, the organization was nothing more than an effort to put a positive spin on AI in the face of increasing public and press disapproval of data mining and the use of algorithms to drive online behavior (e.g. Facebook’s profit-seeking from Russian operatives who interfered with our elections, China-like surveillance systems and social credit schemes).
The grandiose vision of artificial intelligence as a panacea for social problems is clearly betrayed by the overwhelming purpose of the founding companies, all seeking profits from the personal data of individuals. The “founding” the companies were:
–Amazon has customer reviews, 1-Click shopping, personalized recommendations, Prime, Fulfillment by Amazon, AWS, Kindle Direct Publishing, Kindle, Fire tablets, Fire TV, Amazon Echo, and Alexa.
–Apple sells iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch, and Apple TV, has software platforms — iOS, macOS, watchOS, and tvOS with services via the App Store, Apple Music, Apple Pay, and iCloud.
–DeepMind, based in London, acquired in 2014 by Google (part of Alphabet group) works on AI programs that can “learn to solve any complex problem without needing to be taught how.”
–Google is a subsidiary of Alphabet Inc. Google products/platforms include Search, Maps, Gmail, Android, Google Play, Chrome, and YouTube.
–Facebook. Facebook has AI Research (FAIR) and Applied Machine Learning.
–IBM’s Watson is. .”.the most advanced AI computing platform available today, deployed in more than 45 countries and across 20 different industries.”
–Microsoft says, “More than any other technology that has preceded it, AI has the potential to extend human capabilities, empowering us all to achieve more.”
This PR campaign is now up and running, fully staffed, and with a long list of “partners.” Of these, 21 are for-profit partners but 76 are non-profits. The meaning of “partner” is not clear, nor is the cost of a partnership, but the logos and lists of partners are worth a second look. https://www.partnershiponai.org/about/
For example, some of the non-profits listed as partners are promoters of AI. One is the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE.org). IEEE is building standards to legitimize and expand the scope and influence of AI decision-making. A recent example is a trademarked draft of an IEEE’s “Well-being Metrics Standard for Autonomous and Intelligent Systems” with this definition of well-being.
“Well-being, for the purposes of IEEE P7010, Well-being Metrics Standard for Autonomous and Intelligent Systems is defined broadly to encompass positive and negative affect (feelings), flourishing (also called eudaimonia), satisfaction with life and satisfaction with domains of happiness (also called conditions of life), and the state of the domains. Positive affect includes feelings of happiness, joy, contentment, calm, peace, and other positive feelings.
Negative affect includes feelings of sadness, stress, anxiety, unhappiness, anger, confusion and other negative feelings. Flourishing includes but is no limited to purpose, meaning, positivity, optimism, worthiness, mastery, self-esteem and other aspects of flourishing.
Satisfaction with the domains (also called conditions of life) and the state of the domains can be measured with objective and subjective indicators – the domains are: (1) Affect, (2) Community, (3) Culture, (4) Education, (5) Economy, (6) Environment, (7) Human Settlements, (8) Health, (9) Government, (10) Psychological Well-Being/Mental well-being, (11) Satisfaction with life and (12) Work.”
Just imagine this definition and set of standards being reduced to computer code based on AI training for social-emotional learning (SEL), now a hot topic in education, with Alexa or Siri programmed to detect moods and serve in lieu of a therapist.
Click to access IEEE-P7010_WellbeingMetricsforA_IS_ShortPaper_December272018For_Submission_reviewedbyIEEELegal-1.pdf
I think that more than one of the non-profit supporters of this Partnership for the Benefit of People and Society are interested in risk management for AI systems (reducing legal liabilities) or they have band-wagon enthusiasms for AI. For example, the American Psychological Association appears to be enthusiastic about AI https://www.apa.org (search Artificial Intelligence)
The ACLU has no formal positions on AI, but it is circulating papers from outside experts. Many of these papers are raising red flags, especially about privacy but also the use of AI in making “governmental” decisions. See these at https://www.aclu.org/issues/privacy-technology/will-artificial-intelligence-make-us-less-free
Also, if you have an interest in gender and other biases in AI, checkout the 2019 report of AI Now housed at New York University or their amazing study titled “Amazon’s Echo: An anatomical map of human labor, data and planetary resources” at https://anatomyof.ai
I am suspicious of organized tech and its rebranding efforts. The International Association for K-12 Online Learning (iNACOL) has rebranded its online competency-based agenda as the Aurora Institute. The rebranding is happening with some help from Chan/Zuckerberg and the New Profit grant program. Somehow the “Partnership for the Benefit of People and Society” has the ring of a Soviet-style propaganda operation.
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speduktr May 9, 2020 at 7:41 pm
Somehow their solutions to problems seem to leave out much of a role for people.people
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GregB May 10, 2020 at 12:27 am
I really suck at math, but if my calculations are close to correct, Sweden, with a population of approximately 6 million is 1/55th of the US population. If that is correct, their incidence rate is slightly higher than ours, with a high death rate of people who are elderly or with underlying risk factors. I can already anticipate some naysayers out there saying, “see, it we had done nothing, we’d still be exactly where we are.” The real answer, if most of us were not responsible, is that the incidence and death rates would still be significantly higher here. But with quashing and ignoring CDC guidelines, we may well reach our potential.
LeftCoastTeacher May 9, 2020 at 7:41 pm
Disaster capitalism is a pandemic.
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speduktr May 9, 2020 at 7:43 pm
Where is the AI when I make obvious mistakes?
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bethree5 May 9, 2020 at 10:59 pm
Don’t be distracted by the specific business of tech moguls. IT automation/ surveillance is scary, but what’s key here is how its titans propose to enhance their global position.
“More than any other factor, however, the NSCAI points to China’s willingness to embrace public-private partnerships in mass surveillance and data collection as a reason for its competitive edge.”
“By late February, Schmidt was taking his campaign to the public… Schmidt called for ‘unprecedented partnerships between government and industry’ and, once again, sounding the yellow peril alarm”
Four decades’ incremental unravelling of democracy toward something that’s starting to resemble feudalism… The principal fief-holders, chafing at democratic limits to global dominance, now crab-walk us toward a bizarre version of Asia’s capitalist-modified socialism. Well-captured in the liberal scoff “socialize the risk and privatize the profits” (shorthand: “corporate welfare”).
Is US govt/ public so unschooled as to buy Schmidt’s disingenuous recommendation to adopt his faux version of Asian biz model? What he recommends is nothing like the tinkering with Chinese socialism [or with Japan’s age-old govt/ family-dynasty “nation-as-family” companies], adding less-govtlly-regulated capitalist elements to bolster social programs– where the overriding goal is to spread wealth more evenly. In our govtl context, it’s simply oligarchy. Russian– not Asian– a govtl model that’s bringing Russians no closer to equitable or even functional distribution of goods than they had under communism. Recommendations completely untethered to notions of social welfare. Schmidt says so himself: “”Ultimately, the Chinese are competing to become the world’s leading innovators, and the United States is not playing to win.”
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kzahedi May 10, 2020 at 8:24 am
Of course Cuomo’s “reimagining eduction” – with Gates on board- will imagine more tech in schools. I’m concerned about the health concerns around the radiation levels of 5G. School were already struggling with the impact of too much tech in schools. The incidence of depression and anxiety run parallel with increased tech connectivity. Of course much of it is the social/emotional impact of social media, but the physical concerns of kids not knowing (perhaps energetically) the difference between the impasse of their own thoughts and waves (in the air) seemed to be at play.
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gitapik May 10, 2020 at 8:49 pm
At first I thought it was Gates, Bloomberg, and that other guy…Schmidt. Then I checked out “that other guy”.
This is beyond serious. I’m sending this link and info out to my friends and will be posting it on FB, tomorrow.
The key here, in my mind, is to hop on it NOW, in terms of questions and resistance. Gates took us by surprise with the CCSS. By the time the public was made aware; the money was spent and the train had left the station.
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