Abstract
The chapter identifies the multiple ways in which the adoption of digital technologies is bringing forth the new digital economy, both directly and indirectly supporting and disrupting its constituent parts, i.e. households and businesses. Focusing on cutting-edge technologies of datafication, it differentiates them from the foundational information and communication technologies, such as the computer, the internet and the mobile phone, and defines them as technologies that allow businesses, public institutions and consumers to make economic, political and social use of the abundant data produced on the web and collected by smart devices. Specifically, technologies of datafication include cloud computing and the Internet of Things, and, most importantly, that group of technologies dubbed artificial intelligence.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Agrawal, A., Gans, J. S., & Goldfarb, A. (2019). Artificial Intelligence: The Ambiguous Labor Market Impact of Automating Prediction. Journal of Economic Perspectives. 33 (2): 31-50. https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/jep.33.2.31.
Arthur, W.B. (2009). The nature of technology: What it is and how it evolves. Free Press.
Autor, D., Levy, F. & Murnane, R. (2003). The skill content of recent technological change: An empirical investigation. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 118, 1279–1333. https://economics.mit.edu/files/11574.
Autor, D., & Dorn, D. (2013). The Growth of Low-Skill Service Jobs and the Polarization of the US Labor Market. American Economic Review, 103 (5): 1553-97. https://doi.org/10.1257/aer.103.5.1553.
Autor, D., Mindell, D., & Reynolds, E. (2020). The Work of the Future: Building Better Jobs in an Age of Intelligent Machines. https://workofthefuture.mit.edu/research-post/the-work-of-the-future-building-better-jobs-in-an-age-of-intelligent-machines/
Baldwin, R. (2019). The Globotics Upheaval: Globalization, Robotics, and the Future of Work. Oxford University Press.
Beck, U. (1992). Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity. Sage Publications.
Beck, U. & Beck-Gernsheim, E. (2002). Individualization: Institutionalized Individualism and its Social and Political Consequences. Sage Publications. https://doi.org/10.1177/000169930204500212.
Bell, D. (1989). The Third Technological Revolution and Its Possible Socioeconomic Consequences. Dissent. https://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/the-third-technological-revolution-and-its-possible-socioeconomic-consequences.
Brynjolfsson, E., McAffee, A. (2014). The Second Machine Age: Work, Progress, and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies. W. W. Norton & Company. https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2014-07087-000.
Carnoy, M. (1999). Globalization and educational reform: What planners need to know. UNESCO. http://unesco.amu.edu.pl/pdf/Carnoy.pdf.
Carr, N. (2008). How many computers does the world need? Fewer than you think. Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2008/feb/21/computing.supercomputers.
Castells, M. (1996). The Rise of the Network Society. Wiley. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/book/10.1002/9781444319514.
Chaudron, S., Di Gioia, R., & Gemo, M. (2018). Young Children (0-8) and Digital Technology – A qualitative study across Europe. EUR 29070 EN, Publications Office of the European Union. Luxembourg. https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC110359.
Cisco. (2020). Annual Internet Report (2018–2023) White Paper, https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/solutions/collateral/executive-perspectives/annual-internet-report/white-paper-c11-741490.html.
Couldry N., Mejias U. (2019). The Costs of Connection: How Data Is Colonizing Human Life and Appropriating It for Capitalism. Stanford University Press. https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=28816.
Couzin-Frankel, J. (2019). Artificial intelligence could revolutionize medical care. But don’t trust it to read your x-ray just yet. Science. https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/06/artificial-intelligence-could-revolutionize-medical-care-don-t-trust-it-read-your-x-ray.
Daugherty, P.R., Wilson, H.J. (2018). Human + Machine: Reimagining Work in the Age of AI. Harvard Business Review.
Eriksson, Y.U., Linde, M. (2014). “Being” or “Doing” a Profession: Work as a Matter of Social Identity, The International Journal of Interdisciplinary Cultural Studies, 8(1): 33–43, https://doi.org/10.18848/2327-008X/CGP/v08i01/53186.
European Commission. (2021). Commission proposals to improve the working conditions of people working through digital labour platforms. European Commission – Press release. https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_21_6605.
European Parliament. (2020). What is artificial intelligence and how is it used? https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/headlines/society/20200827STO85804/what-is-artificial-intelligence-and-how-is-it-used.
Ford, M. (2015). The Rise of the Robots: Technology and the Threat of a Jobless Future. Basic Books.
Gallino, L. (2006). Labour flexibility, organisation, workers – A three-dimensional matrix which needs simplification. Reconciling labour flexibility with social cohesion – Ideas for political action, Trends in social cohesion, No. 16, p. 37–46. https://www.coe.int/t/dg3/socialpolicies/socialcohesiondev/source/Trends/Trends-16_en.pdf.
Georgieff, A., Milanez A. (2021), What happened to jobs at high risk of automation? OECD Social, Employment and Migration Working Papers, No. 255. OECD Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1787/10bc97f4-en.
Green, A. (2019). What is happening to middle skill workers? OECD Social, Employment and Migration Working Papers, 230. OECD Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1787/a934f8fa-en.
Holslin, P. (2021). What Is 6G Internet and What Will It Look Like? HighSpeedInternet.com. https://www.highspeedinternet.com/resources/6g-internet.
Huws, U., Spencer, N. H., & Holts, K. (2017). Work in the European Gig Economy – Research Results from the UK, Sweden, Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Italy. Foundation for European Progressive Studies and UNI Europa. https://uhra.herts.ac.uk/bitstream/handle/2299/19922/Huws_U._Spencer_N.H._Syrdal_D.S._Holt_K._2017_.pdf?sequence=2.
Iansiti, M., Lakhani, K. R. (2020). Competing in the Age of AI: Strategy and Leadership When Algorithms and Networks Run the World. Kindle Edition. Harvard Business Review Press. https://hbsp.harvard.edu/product/1054BC-PDF-ENG.
International Labour Organization. (2021). World Employment and Social Outlook – Trends 2021. https://www.ilo.org/global/about-the-ilo/newsroom/news/WCMS_794834/lang%2D%2Den/index.html.
LeCun, Y. (2022, March 15). # I never called what I was working on AI (AI was supposed to designate “symbolic” methods). [Tweet]. https://twitter.com/ylecun/status/1503719133506158596.
Levy, F., Murnane, R. (2004). The New Division of Labor: How Computers Are Creating the Next Job Market. Princeton University Press.
Marody, M., & Giza-Poleszczuk, A. (2004). Przemiany więzi społecznych. Wydawnictwo Naukowe Scholar.
Mayer-Schönberger, V., & Ramge, T. (2018). Reinventing Capitalism in the Age of Big Data. John Murray Publishers Ltd.
McKinsey. (2021). Defining the skills citizens will need in the future world of work. https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/public-and-social-sector/our-insights/defining-the-skills-citizens-will-need-in-the-future-world-of-work.
Mims, C. (2021). Why Artificial Intelligence Isn’t Intelligent. https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-artificial-intelligence-isnt-intelligent-11627704050.
Parker, G. G., van Alstyne, M. W., & Choudary, S. P. (2016). Platform Revolution. How Networked Markets Are Transforming the Economy and How to Make Them Work for You. W. W. Norton & Company. https://wwnorton.com/books/Platform-Revolution.
Polanyi, K. (2001). The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time 2nd edition. Beacon Press.
Royal Court of Justice. (2018). Uber B.V. and others versus Aslam and others. EWCA Civ 2748. no. A2.2017/3467. https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/uber-bv-ors-v-aslam-ors-judgment-19.12.18.pdf.
Russel, S., & Norvig, P. (2019). Artificial Intelligence – A Modern Approach. 4th edition. Pearson.
Salvatori, A., & Manfredi, T. (2019). Job polarisation and the middle class: New evidence on the changing relationship between skill levels and household income levels from 18 OECD countries. OECD Social, Employment and Migration Working Papers, 232. Paris: OECD Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1787/4bf722db-en.
Schwab, K. (2016). The Fourth Industrial Revolution. World Economic Forum. Geneva. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/01/the-fourth-industrial-revolution-what-it-means-and-how-to-respond/.
Schumpeter, J. (1960). Teoria rozwoju gospodarczego. PWN.
Sennet, R. (1998). The Corrosion of Character: The Personal Consequences of Work in the New. Capitalism. W. W. Norton & Company.
Standing, G. (2011). The Precariat: The New Dangerous Class (Bloomsbury Revelations). Bloomsbury Academic. https://www.hse.ru/data/2013/01/28/1304836059/Standing.%20The_Precariat__The_New_Dangerous_Class__-Bloomsbury_USA(2011).pdf.
Strohmeyer, R. (2008). The 7 Worst Tech Predictions of All Time. PCWorld. https://www.pcworld.com/article/532605/worst_tech_predictions.html.
Susskind, D. (2020). A World without Work: Technology, Automation, and How We Should Respond. London: Penguin Books.
Śledziewska, K., & Włoch, R. (2021). The Economics of Digital Transformation. Routledge.
The 5G IA. The 5G Infrastructure Association, Vision and Societal Challenges Work Group. (2021). European Vision for the 6G Network Ecosystem. https://5g-ppp.eu/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/WhitePaper-6G-Europe.pdf.
Toffler, A. (1970). Future shock. New York: Random House. https://doi.org/10.1177/019263657005434912.
Weise, M. R. (2020). Long Life Learning: Preparing for Jobs That Don’t Even Exist Yet. Wiley.
Wood, A., Graham, M., Lehdonvirta, V., Hjorth, I., (2019). Networked but Commodified: The (Dis)Embeddedness of Digital Labour in the Gig Economy. Sociology 1–20, https://doi.org/10.1177/0038038519828906.
WEF. World Economic Forum. (2018). The Future of Jobs Report 2018. Insight report Geneva. http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Future_of_Jobs_2018.pdf.
Varian, H. (2009). Hal Varian on how the Web challenges managers, McKinsey & Company High Tech. https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/technology-media-and-telecommunications/our-insights/hal-varian-on-how-the-web-challenges-managers.
Zhang, D., Mishra, S., Brynjolfsson, E., Etchemendy, J., Ganguli, D., Grosz, B., Lyons, T., Manyika, J., Niebles, J. C., Sellitto, M., Shoham, Y., Clark, J., & Perrault, R. (2022). The AI Index 2022 Annual Report. AI Index Steering Committee. Stanford Institute for Human-Centered AI. Stanford University. https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2103.06312.
Zuboff, S. (2019). The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power. Ingram Publisher Services.
Zysman, J. & Kenney M. (2018). The Next Phase in the Digital Revolution: Intelligent Tools, Platforms, Growth, Employment. Communications of the ACM, 61(2) p.54–63. https://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2018/2/224635-the-next-phase-in-the-digital-revolution/fulltext.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2024 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Włoch, R. (2024). The Din and Stealth of the Digital Revolution. In: Dunn, H.S., Ragnedda, M., Ruiu, M.L., Robinson, L. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Everyday Digital Life . Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-30438-5_8
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-30438-5_8
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-031-30437-8
Online ISBN: 978-3-031-30438-5
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media StudiesLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)