Modulation Harms and The Google Home
Article Sidebar
Main Article Content
Abstract
Deleuze’s (1992) modulation is frequently invoked to explain power relations in hyper-connected, sensorised environments. However, attempts to articulate the harmful implications of modulation—a critical step in the process of considering the need for legal intervention—have been modest. In this paper, we theorise four harms arising from the exercise of modulatory power: subsumption, amplification, vibration, and alienation. To do so, we outline the core features of Deleuzean modulatory power (Deleuze 1992), illustrated through contrasts with Foucauldian discipline (Foucault 1995, 1988). Then, drawing on Julie Cohen’s (2013, 2015, 2018, 2019) modulation as a two-way flow of predicted and prescripted modes of governance and knowledge production, we explore and situate our harms in the sensorised and smart home, employing Google’s patented vision as a concrete example (Fadell et al. 2020). We contend that modulation harms arise from the continuous flow and constant agitation of insistent modification (D’Amato 2019) enabled by sensorisation. The core power act that gives rise to modulation harm is the ability to harness, direct, and provide “frequency” to flows of sensor data to achieve continual behavioural modification and shape social norms about the purposes and benefits of such modification. The overarching harm we identify is subsumption, the infrastructural enclosure of all sensorised environments that enables social shaping to take place anywhere, which gives rise to the other modulation harms. Amplification harms regard auto-regulatory norms as an unquestioned facet of an automated human life. Vibration harms arise from the automated ability to prescribe changes in affect. Alienation harms regard subtle denials of access to informational networks. We show that the Google sensorised home both modulates and disciplines occupants concurrently, but more importantly, these concurrent power acts can take place wherever an individual is tethered to the modulation infrastructure and sensor data can be harnessed.
Article Details
Surveillance & Society uses a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
- The author. The author licenses the article to the Surveillance Studies Network (SSN) for inclusion in Surveillance & Society (S&S), right of first publication. The copyright to the article remains with the author and any subsequent commercial reuse must be agreed by both parties.
- Non-commercial Users. SSN authorises all persons to use material published in S&S in any manner that is not primarily intended for or directed to commerical advantage or private monetary compensation, also provided that it is not modified and retains all attribution notices.
- Commercial Users. SSN retains the right to benefit from commerical reuse, in each specific case subject to the agreement of the author, and payment to SSN of a standard per-page fee (set by a vote of the Network and Editorial Board) by the Commercial User.
- Surveillance & Society supports open access archives and the free distribution of the results of academic work. Authors are encouraged to place copies of the final published version of their article in their university and / or other open access archives. We only ask that you make sure to include a link to the original published version on the Surveillance & Society website.
References
Aldrich, Francis K. 2003. Smart Homes: Past and Present. In Inside the Smart Home, edited by Richard Harper, 17–36. London: Springer.
Andrejevic, Mark. 2011. Surveillance and Alienation in the Online Economy. Surveillance & Society 8 (3): 278–287.
———. 2013. Infoglut. New York: Routledge.
———. 2019. Automating Surveillance. Surveillance & Society 17 (1/2): 7–13.
———. 2020. Automated Media. New York: Routledge.
Andrejevic, Mark, and Mark Burdon. 2015. Defining the Sensor Society. Television & New Media 16 (1): 19–36.
Bentham, Jeremy. 1787. Panopticon or the Inspection House. Dublin, IE: Thomas Byrne.
Bogard, William. 2009. Deleuze and Machines: A Politics of Technology? In Deleuze and New Technology, edited by Mark Poster and David Savat, 15–31. Edinburgh, UK: Edinburgh University Press.
———. 2012. Simulation and Post-Panopticism. In Routledge Handbook of Surveillance Studies, edited by Kirsty Ball, Kevin D. Haggerty, and David Lyon, 30–37. London: Taylor and Francis.
Burdon, Mark. 2020. Digital Data Collection and Information Privacy Law. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Burroughs, William S. 1978. The Limits of Control. Semiotexte 3 (2): 38–41.
Castells, Manuel. 2009. The Rise of the Network Society. Oxford, UK: Wiley-Blackwell.
Cheney-Lippold, John. 2011. A New Algorithmic Identity: Soft Biopolitics and the Modulation of Control. Theory, Culture & Society 28 (6): 164–181.
Cohen, Julie E. 2013. What Privacy is For. Harvard Law Review 126: 1904–1933.
———. 2015. The Networked Self in the Modulated Society. In Crossroads in New Media, Identity and Law: The Shape of Diversity to Come, editied Wouter de Been, Payal Arora, and Mireille Hildebrandt, 67–79. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
———. 2018. The Biopolitical Public Domain: The Legal Construction of the Surveillance Economy. Philosophy & Technology 31 (2): 213–233.
———. 2019. Turning Privacy Inside Out. Theoretical Inquiries in Law 20 (1): 1–31.
D'Amato, Pierluca. 2019. Simondon and the Technologies of Control: On the Individuation of the Dividual. Culture, Theory and Critique 60 (3–4): 300–314.
Davies, William. 2015. The Chronic Social: Relations of Control Within and Without Neoliberalism. New Formations (84/85): 40–57.
Deleuze, Giles. 1992. Postscript on Control Societies.October 59: 3–7.
———. 2003. Francis Bacon The Logic of Sensation. London: Bloomsbury.
Doty, Philip. 2020. Oxymorons of Privacy and Surveillance in “Smart Homes.” Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology 57 (1): 1–11.
Elmer, Greg. 2003. A Diagram of Panoptic Surveillance. New Media & Society 5 (2): 231–247.
———. 2012. Panopticon—Discipline—Control. In Routledge Handbook of Surveillance Studies, edited by Kirstie Ball, Kevin D. Haggerty and David Lyon, 21–45: London: Routledge.
Fadell, Anthony, Yoki Matsuoka, David Sloo, and Maxime Veron. 2020. Smart-Home Automation System That Suggests or Automatically Implements Selected Household Policies Based on Sensed Observations. US Patent No. US 2020/0012242 A1, filed Septmber 17, 2019, and issued January 9, 2020.
Foucault, Michel. 1995. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. New York: Vintage.
———. 1988. The History of Sexuality. New York: Vintage.
Galič, Masa, Tjerk Timan, and Bart-Jaap Koops. 2017. Bentham, Deleuze and Beyond: An Overview of Surveillance Theories from the Panopticon to Participation. Philosophy & Technology 30 (1): 9–37.
Huafeng, Jin, and Shuo Wang. 2017. Voice-Based Determination of Physical and Emotional Characteristics of Users. US Patent No. US 10096319 B1, filed March 13, 2017, and issued October 9, 2018.
Hui, Yuk. 2015. Modulation After Control. New Formations (84/85): 74¬–91.
Iveson, Kurt, and Sophia Maalsen. 2019. Social Control in the Networked City: Datafied Dividuals, Disciplined Individuals and Powers of Assembly. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 37 (2): 331–349.
Lewis, Simon C. 2011. Energy in the Smart Home. In The Connected Home: The Future of Domestic Life, edited by Richard Harper, 281–300. London: Springer.
LG Smart ThinQ. 2019. LG TWIN Wash. http://www.lg.com/us/lg-thinq-appliances/products/lg-twinwash-thinq/index.html [accessed January 6, 2021].
Maalsen, Sophia, and Robyn Dowling. 2020. Covid-19 and the Accelerating Smart Home. Big Data & Society 7 (2): 1–5.
Maalsen, Sophia, and Jathan Sadowski. 2019. The Smart Home on Fire: Amplifying and Accelerating Domestic Surveillance. Surveillance & Society 17 (1/2): 118–124.
Marx, Karl. 2009. The Economic & Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844. Translated by Martin Milligan. http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/manuscripts/preface.htm [accessed January 6, 2021].
Nemorin, Selena. 2017. Affective Capture in Digital School Spaces and the Modulation of Student Subjectivities. Emotion, Space and Society 24: 11–18.
Nygren, Katarina G., and Katarina Gidlund. 2012. The Pastoral Power of Technology. Rethinking Alienation in Digital Culture. tripleC: Communication, Capitalism & Critique 10 (2): 509–517.
Pierce, James. 2019. Smart Home Security Cameras and Shifting Lines of Creepiness: A Design-Led Inquiry. In Proceedings of the 2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, Glascow, UK, May 2019, Paper 45. Glasgow, UK: Association for Computing Machinery.
Rouvroy, Antoinette. 2013. The End(s) of Critique: Data Behaviourism versus Due Process. In Privacy Due Process and the Computational Turn: The Philosophy of Law Meets the Philosophy of Technology, edited by Mireille Hildebrandt, 143–167. London: Taylor and Francis.
Savat, David. 2009. Deleuze's Objectile: From Discipline to Modulation. In Deleuze and New Technology, edited by Mark Poster and David Savat, 45–62. Edinburgh, UK: Edinburgh University Press.
———. 2013. Uncoding the Digital Technology: Subjectivity and Action in the Control Society. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Simondon, Gilbert. 2005. L’Individuation à la lumière des notions de forme et d’information. Grenoble, FR: Millon
Warren, Christina. 2015. With iOS 9, Homekit Will Get Smarter and More Powerful. Mashable, June 10. http://mashable.com/2015/06/10/ios-9-homekit-wwdc/#HbBcFkW23qqZ [accessed January 6, 2021].
Wilson, Charlie, Tom Hargreaves, and Richard Hauxwell-Baldwin. 2017. Benefits and Risks of Smart Home Technologies. Energy Policy 103: 72–83.
———. 2015. Smart Homes and Their Users: A Systematic Analysis and Key Challenges. Personal and Ubiquitous Computing 19 (2): 463–476.
Xiao, Bo. 2018. How Alexa Can Use Song-Playback Duration to Learn Customers’ Preferences. Amazon Science (blog), July 16. https://www.amazon.science/blog/how-alexa-can-use-song-playback-duration-to-learn-customers-preferences [accessed January 6, 2021].