Today's surveillance economy is not inevitable. Data can become a public resource instead of a tool of control.

The difference in 2126 isn’t technological, it’s political — a revolution in how people choose to use the tools in their hands. People see data differently now: not as the raw material of automated systems but as a collective resource leading to transparent, community-led decisions. Data no longer automatically equals power. Once a tool of inequality, it has become the ground where fairness is contested and defended.

This shift did not come from better machines. It came from people’s decisions, renewed each generation, because they refused to give up the future. Their actions remade the world and clarified a simple truth:

Technology never decided anything on its own. Humans did.

Data has always been more than numbers: the clay of memory, the account of tribute, the ledger of conquest — a currency of control and, sometimes, a language of solidarity. Over and over, its history has shown that how it is interpreted shapes how we live. Data itself has never been the threat; the danger has always come from the hands that bend it toward their own purposes and from the political and economic structures that grant those actors that power.

For too long, too many of us have treated data as fate — a resource to be mined, raw material for surveillance that we just accept, a colossus beyond human control. But history shows that no data regime lasts forever. Each one carries the marks of its builders and collapses under new crises, new demands, new claims to power. The corporate data regime that spans the globe today — and the states that make it possible — holds onto power only until we take that power back.

Data’s future is not set in stone. It does not hinge on the size of networks, the brilliance of code, or even the mountains of personal and public information that feed them. It never did. Human choices decide how these technologies work — and who they serve.

The next chapter for data and power will not be written by the algorithms. It will be written by us.

  • XLE@piefed.socialEnglish
    3·
    1 day ago

    Why does the text content of this post look so AI-generated? If this is from the book, I’m sure not reading it.

    And if it’s handwritten, what does the second sentence in it even mean? Who ever defined “data” as “raw material of automated systems,” and when did they start seeing it differently?

    Edit: out of morbid curiosity, I checked. The whole book is like this.

  • metermatic26@lemmy.worldEnglish
    5·
    2 days ago

    Personal data is highly sensitive. There is a very real need for people to keep their data private.

    But data is also capital. And we’re locked in a very real struggle between corporate powers trying to secure ownership over our personal data and civil society trying to protect their privacy.

    I can’t stress enough just how dangerous it is, especially given current world events, that big tech seems to appropriate personal data about people’s social networks, jobs, daily commutes, shopping habits, sexual preferences, political views etc.

    • Basic Glitch@sh.itjust.worksOPEnglish
      2·
      1 day ago

      Exactly, so why not demand ownership of our data?

      When you look at data sovereignty in indigenous communities people are already establishing ways to do this.

      What’s even more concerning than social networks, jobs, daily commutes, shopping habits, sexual preferences, political views etc. is health data. Not only is that extremely private, corporations recognize the monetary value is incredibly high.

      https://www.statnews.com/2025/01/16/health-ai-electronic-health-records-hipaa-deidentified-data-market/

      Artificial intelligence models are ever-hungry black boxes that need boatloads of bits and bytes from a wide stream of real-world data in order to produce insights about patients and their care. To satisfy this need, a trove of companies have popped up to buy patient data from hospitals and sell it to those wanting to train AI or do research.

      https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2667321525001775

      In today’s digital era, data has evolved into an invaluable asset often described as the new oil making its governance especially consequential for Indigenous communities. Indigenous Data Sovereignty (IDSov) affirms the rights of Indigenous peoples to govern, control, access, and benefit from data that derive from their peoples, lands, and knowledge systems (Carroll et al., 2020). This principle has direct implications for population health because data governance influences how priorities are defined, how prevention and care strategies are implemented, and how health outcomes are assessed across communities (Rhodes et al., 2023). A long history of exclusion from decisions about data collection and use has produced exploitation, misrepresentation, and persistent mistrust in data-driven health initiatives (Fox, 2020; Mello and Wolf, 2010).

      There are some models of data sovereignty where people are being given direct control of their health data, and it cannot be legally used for anything without their permission. Even if it’s granted permission to be used once for a certain piece of research, it’s then locked away again afterwards.

      There’s also examples where people are paid directly/individually for allowing access to their data.

      Imagine the value to be leveraged by people if all data (civic, digital, health) was locked away from corporations. And not sold, temporarily leased to whoever individuals or communities choose to lease if to.

  • Basic Glitch@sh.itjust.worksOPEnglish
    3·
    2 days ago

    I’m head over heels in love with the idea of communities taking back control of their data and using it to leverage power.

    But I also think we should be thinking in terms of how do we achieve this before 2126 bc we need to establish and gain control before it can be used to train anymore shitty oligarchy controlled AI that keeps failing to perform in the real world.

    Even if this is just step one of a marathon, it seems like something most cities should be aiming to catch up with sooner rather than later:

    https://debeaumont.org/programs/made-for-health-justice/

    About MADE for Health Justice Modernized Anti-racist Data Ecosystems (MADE) for Health Justice partners with communities who are creating, using, and governing civic data on their own terms to advance health equity and more just decision making.