Big data: the society we want

To remain free in the face of voracious efforts at collecting data, Europe needs a new public debate, writes Martin Schulz

Martin Schulz

Compared to the conditions that existed under the unbridled capitalism of the 19th century, those experienced by most workers in Europe today resemble paradise: Child labor is prohibited, the working week usually ends after less than 40 hours and effective health and safety regulations as well as worker’s rights are in place.

Is social democracy compelled then, after a 150-year-long struggle, to shuffle off into retirement after having achieved everything it set out to do? I would argue no as new technologies such as digitalization and the mass collection of data present challenges just as monumental as those that arose during the Industrial Revolution.

The development of the steam engine was followed by the advent of modern factories and powerful businesses. This revolution brought prosperity to many and led to momentous change. It appeared at first that it was only the existing working world that was turned on its head. Yet the reality was that the new technology revolutionized the old social order profoundly.

Industrialization also led to a precarious existence for broad social strata, to new diseases and to the destruction of the environment. As mechanization and division of labor took effect, the result was a remarkable reversal in the subject-object relationship. Although brutal forms of slavery and dehumanizing work had previously existed throughout history, in the industrial age the worker standing on the factory floor had to adapt to the rules, the tempo, even the needs of the machinery, which dictated his work process and schedule in an unrelenting fashion.

PAUSE AND REFLECT

Just as the social movements of the late 19th and early 20th centuries set out to tame and humanize the emerging industrialized society, a similar job needs to be done today. While digitalization has the potential to boost prosperity and innovation, it also challenges our working world and, more fundamentally, our society and thinking. I am no cultural pessimist, yet my concern is that we spend too little time pausing and reflecting how such breathtaking technology can be integrated into society for the benefit of the many rather than the few.

Does it provide greater independence when more people can read their emails at any time? Is it a sign of flexibility when they are invited to a team meeting the next morning shortly before going to bed? Or does this lead to a blurring of the boundaries between work and home life? Does the storing of movement patterns and communications data really make our world safer or does it turn the state itself into a security risk for its citizens? Does permanent online voting create direct democracy or does it lead to the trivialization of complex problems?

Insurance companies are already promising lower premiums for “reasonable behavior” such as a smooth driving style. While this may help save money, it bears the risk that those who reject such offers find themselves paying surcharges, ultimately leading to a monitoring obligation due to a supposed benefit for both individual and society.

There is another depressing trend: if we are reduced to little more than the sum of our data, the consumer-citizen becomes the new archetypical human being. Even today, that concept is the foundation on which companies such as Facebook or Amazon rest their business model when they convert emotional impulses and social relationships into tradable commodities. Once real time data of human blink rates and accelerated heart rates upon observing a product flow into the databases of corporations, the new human being will be no more than the sum of its reflexes.

MEET THE DIGITAL TWIN

While this is little more than uncanny when it comes to retailers or service providers, it raises issues of free will in relation to applications for a mortgage, an education or a job. What will it mean if and when our actions are judged on the basis of a garbled replica, our “digital twin,” made up of past choices and preferences we are unaware of or may have long left behind?

In the future, this quantified mirror image of ourselves, composed of data we leave behind, will accompany us like a shadow. While bringing enormous benefits to individuals, it will also reduce them to an element in a calculation. Yet we cannot allow that calculation to be made without our knowledge, our input and an opportunity to intervene. Just as the “unseen hand” of a self-regulating market was an erroneous belief 150 years ago, today’s popular assumption that digitization will automatically improve quality of life is a naive misjudgment.

As things stand, we have to deal with an all-pervading technology, but not yet with a totalitarian political will. However, the connection between big data, the voracious appetite for collecting and analyzing data, and big government’s hysterical overblowing of security concerns, could result in an anti-liberal, anti-social and anti-democratic society. When citizens are reduced to mere economic commodities and the state regards them with general suspicion, the result is a dangerous mix of neo-liberal and authoritarian ideology.

That is why we continue to need a social movement that brings normative and historical influences to the discussion. Just like 150 years ago, a movement is needed that does not allow the human being to degenerate into a mere object. With a liberal, democratic and social understanding of the state, such a movement needs to stake out the legal guidelines for data collection, storage and dissemination based on the conviction that every human being’s privacy is a fundamental and inalienable right. What is at issue here is nothing less than the defense of our fundamental values in the 21st century. We have to make sure that the human being is not objectified.

Big data: the society we want

To remain free in the face of voracious efforts at collecting data, Europe needs a new public debate, writes Martin Schulz

Martin Schulz

Big data: the society we want

To remain free in the face of voracious efforts at collecting data, Europe needs a new public debate, writes Martin Schulz

Martin Schulz

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