Title: Surveillance Capitalism and Unexpected Challenges: Implications for Business Ethics
Author(s) : Mark Mitschow, Charles J. Coate
Surveillance Capitalism is the paradigm created when advanced technology allows for excessive control of human behavior by governments and businesses. The ethical implications are readily understood. Many observers believed that the digital economy would homogenize society and stifle individual creativity and autonomy; in short reduce the humanity of society creating robotic culture. However, the impacts of Covid-19, such as isolation and fear, suggest that another danger might be a more “atomized” society, where people retreat into tribal groups with their own beliefs, worldviews, and fact patterns. The same AI type engines that help person shop of select movies will guide them to websites that may promote tribalization. Such an environment would create entirely different (though equally) serious challenges for business ethics in the 21st century. The purpose of this manuscript is to examine some of those unexpected challenges and speculate as to the question they raise.