7. Technology (start with BM)

Question 1

what is the business model for technology?

Answer 1

business models seek to explain how value is created, not just how it is captured

trying to address three phenomena: e-business and the use of information technology in organisations; strategic issues such as value creation, competitive advantage and firm performance and innovation and technology management

elements:

*the notion of value
*financial aspects
*aspects related to network between the firm and its exchange partners

attempt to model the complex responsive process of relationships between these elements in the ways people collaborate.

business models are representation of how companies do business

Question 2

Pathologies of Late Modernity

Answer 2

Identities traditionally given not chosen
Modernity: increasing responsibility of individual to shape own life
More open, experimental, fragmentary, changing identities
Lack of predictability
Indifference to social identity means more flexibility

Question 3

what do Surveillance capitalism & society have to do with each other?

Answer 3

Surveillance capitalism & society
* capture and co-modification of personal data for the core purpose of profit-making
* Discipline and power create knowledge but can also be very oppressive
* Discipline is done through spatial separation (prison) and training
→ bombarded with ideas of how we should look/behave, it implies that we are constantly surveilled

Question 4

how does technology relate to self improvement?

Answer 4

• neoliberal idea can lead to alienation
  
  • Focalut: taking something (process of exchange) and forming it into a relationship of the individual to himself, to those around (group/ family)
  • our relation to technology separates us from the social environment
  • it’s paradoxical because people are also strongly connected to each other through the Internet

Question 5

Polarization in SM? SS

Answer 5

Assumption
Filter bubbles, echo chapters, self-selection, algorithmic personalization
Exposes viewers to small amounts of information that fits their worldview
Leads to polarization, reinforces own ideas, creates clusters of people with same opinions, beliefs, values, attitudes
In reality
People are still exposed to a view variety of views, reduces polarization
Effect of filtered information is mild

Question 6

what impact does technology and science have? (on society) SS

Answer 6

Science is based on three pillars: matter, mind and life
* Four key norms organised scientific work: Universalism, communalism, disinterestedness and organised scepticism (suspend knowledge until facts are presented)

Question 7

what are the dangers of technology? SS

Answer 7

• advancement of technology can also be viewed as dangerous, given the military advancements
  social issues:
  
  • genetic modification: Predicting the health of an embryo before birth may lead to more abortions
  • genetically modified food
  • Conception and reproduction: cloning and in vitro fertilisation.
    -computer revolution and information society has impact on society
    → Digitalisation, pervasiveness, convergence
    -digital economies, politics, relationships or the creation of new cultures and social worlds on the Web
    -cyberworld is not safe:
  • information overload
  • cybercrimes
  • dysfunctionality of IT

→ scientific progress is highly beneficial, however it comes with ethical and sociological concerns

Question 8

what is the winner takes it all model? SS

Answer 8

• In AI society everyone can be replaced
  
  • society, secure and well paid jobs replace humans with robots
  • winner-takes-it-all model as the key economic conflict is between the 1% and the rest of 99%.
    → Highly educated get paid more than the lower educated
  • service sector is an industry that promises numerous paid jobs, but employment is not increasing, because AI-based companies can monopolise markets that serve millions of people.
    → profits are split amongst few employees → rich get richer
  • human workforce is losing its bargaining power
  • rise in unemployment → decline in life expectancy → unhappy

→ economy seemed to be doing well, but the workforce was not
* create jobs that put people to work doing useful things to improve the society’s quality of life and give people a sense of purpose and self- esteem
* BUT, improving the quality of life for society is opposed to the maximisation of corporate profit

Question 9

How does identity relate to social media? SS

Answer 9

• humans have a tendency to allow political identities to guide our opinions
  -look for membership in a social group to define identity, Self-worth and self-esteem
  → develop our concept of the self by watching how other people react to the different versions of ourselves that we present in social settings
  → allows one to have more time to carefully create an identity
  -sociological question: whether what is presented represents the truth?
• feed is a tool for monitoring the environment that leads a subconscious mark on the rewards system (likes, comments etc.)
  → leads to: polarisation and to a distorted sense of self and each other

Question 10

AI society SS

Answer 10

Produces high inequality for two reasons:
1:
Monopolies more likely to appear
Knowledge is cheap to duplicate and redistribute
Winner-takes-all economy
2:
Jobs replaced by AI, leaving few jobs at the top
Security declined especially among lower educated
Even with economic growth income remains stable or decreases
Insecurity mostly for lower educated, their jobs first at risk
Later effects higher educated
CEOs salaries much higher than average worker
High economic gains distributed over small workforce
Comparison to shifts in labor market:
Agriculture → industrialization → service sector
No large scale unemployment, people find other jobs in other fields
Worry about unemployment is unjustified
People now worry about there not being enough jobs bc of technology
Meaningless, consistent fear throughout generations
However, computer programs write themselves, and there had not been an increase in high-tech jobs
May require re-education, closing skill-gap
Social consequences
Meaningless
Decrease in life expectancy
Same with industrialization, people also worried about alienation
Only starting to understand consequences
Innovation comes before the ethics
Solutions
Universal basic income
New cultural politics, people identify with one another
Government needs to create jobs
Political representation and bargaining power for the workforce, building coalitions among the 99%