The Epic Struggle of the Internet of Things by Bruce Sterling Page B
Authors: Bruce Sterling
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and Facebook, are colossal enterprises today. They can dominate by virtue of their sheer bulk. They are global, gargantuan entities with the power and the revenue to dwarf most national governments.
Much the same goes for their lesser-known feudal dukes and earls, such as Intel, Cisco, IBM, Samsung – and even their historical enemies, AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, Nokia – as well as the entirety of the Japanese electronics business.
What’s new about this entity called the “Internet of Things” is the demonstrated willingness of entirely alien enterprises to recognise the supremacy of this new power, and swear fealty to it. It’s not much like the scientific, military, anti-commercial “internet” was. Instead, it’s much like a Holy Roman Empire. It’s full of obscure but powerful leagues and consortia, and baronies and dukedoms, and even some Free Cities. It’s about entities like General Electric, which has joined AT&T, Cisco, IBM and Intel in the all-American “Industrial Internet Consortium”. It means the Europeanised “Smart Cities Council” of Mastercard, Bechtel, Alstom, Enel and Qualcomm, an alliance of actors who might seem completely alien to one another, but who suddenly see the chance to conquer whole towns.
These grand, world-scale alliances did not form in order to sell the reader a smart refrigerator. Most of them would really like the reader to dwell in a “Smart City” where they supply the “smartness” on their own terms – and they’re not much concerned about the reader’s consent as a citizen.
The Internet of Things is not about a talking refrigerator, because that is the old-fashioned consumer retail world of electrical white goods. It’s an archaic concept, like software bought in a plastic-wrapped box from a shelf. The genuine Internet of Things wants to invade that refrigerator, measure it, instrument it, monitor any interactions with it; it would cheerfully give away a fridge at cost. Amazon dominates shopping by selling at almost no profit, while deftly seizing digital control of the entire logistics of retail.
Consumer electronics is well understood and easy to promote and publicise, but personal gadgetry is just one battlefield. For the Internet of Things is an across-the-board modernisation effort. It attempts to use the Big Data, network-centric methods pioneered by Apple, Microsoft, Facebook, Google and Amazon, to seize control over as much of the planet’s industrial terrain as possible. That means power grids, water systems, transport systems, police networks, fire and disaster-response networks, heating, air conditioning, factory production, storage and logistics. Basically: anything with a barcode, a knob, a lever, a faucet, a dial or an off-switch. They want it all. They want to become modernity.
That doesn’t mean that the Internet of Things will triumph, because, in some ways, it can’t win. It’s too broad and vague to win; it’s a huge, looming infrastructural phenomenon, much like “electrification” or “automation” once were. People never voted to become electrical or automated. Those processes came from a rough consensus among the political and managerial classes of the developed nations: “we must electrify, we must automate”. Those who disagreed were reduced to the state of the Amish; they were just routed-around.
The Internet of Things doesn’t want to electrify or automate because that work, for better or worse, is mostly done now. Basically, it wants to “electronically automate through digital surveillance by wireless broadband”. There’s a pretty good chance that a civilisation that went for 1 and 2 will be willing to go for 3. It might even exult in it, take pleasure in it, embrace the Internet of Things and take it to its heart.
The IoT (as its friends like to call it) has one distinct advantage: everyone already has a smartphone in their hands. The smartphone is the basic pass-ticket, the voucher, the proof of existence.
Much the same goes for their lesser-known feudal dukes and earls, such as Intel, Cisco, IBM, Samsung – and even their historical enemies, AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, Nokia – as well as the entirety of the Japanese electronics business.
What’s new about this entity called the “Internet of Things” is the demonstrated willingness of entirely alien enterprises to recognise the supremacy of this new power, and swear fealty to it. It’s not much like the scientific, military, anti-commercial “internet” was. Instead, it’s much like a Holy Roman Empire. It’s full of obscure but powerful leagues and consortia, and baronies and dukedoms, and even some Free Cities. It’s about entities like General Electric, which has joined AT&T, Cisco, IBM and Intel in the all-American “Industrial Internet Consortium”. It means the Europeanised “Smart Cities Council” of Mastercard, Bechtel, Alstom, Enel and Qualcomm, an alliance of actors who might seem completely alien to one another, but who suddenly see the chance to conquer whole towns.
These grand, world-scale alliances did not form in order to sell the reader a smart refrigerator. Most of them would really like the reader to dwell in a “Smart City” where they supply the “smartness” on their own terms – and they’re not much concerned about the reader’s consent as a citizen.
The Internet of Things is not about a talking refrigerator, because that is the old-fashioned consumer retail world of electrical white goods. It’s an archaic concept, like software bought in a plastic-wrapped box from a shelf. The genuine Internet of Things wants to invade that refrigerator, measure it, instrument it, monitor any interactions with it; it would cheerfully give away a fridge at cost. Amazon dominates shopping by selling at almost no profit, while deftly seizing digital control of the entire logistics of retail.
Consumer electronics is well understood and easy to promote and publicise, but personal gadgetry is just one battlefield. For the Internet of Things is an across-the-board modernisation effort. It attempts to use the Big Data, network-centric methods pioneered by Apple, Microsoft, Facebook, Google and Amazon, to seize control over as much of the planet’s industrial terrain as possible. That means power grids, water systems, transport systems, police networks, fire and disaster-response networks, heating, air conditioning, factory production, storage and logistics. Basically: anything with a barcode, a knob, a lever, a faucet, a dial or an off-switch. They want it all. They want to become modernity.
That doesn’t mean that the Internet of Things will triumph, because, in some ways, it can’t win. It’s too broad and vague to win; it’s a huge, looming infrastructural phenomenon, much like “electrification” or “automation” once were. People never voted to become electrical or automated. Those processes came from a rough consensus among the political and managerial classes of the developed nations: “we must electrify, we must automate”. Those who disagreed were reduced to the state of the Amish; they were just routed-around.
The Internet of Things doesn’t want to electrify or automate because that work, for better or worse, is mostly done now. Basically, it wants to “electronically automate through digital surveillance by wireless broadband”. There’s a pretty good chance that a civilisation that went for 1 and 2 will be willing to go for 3. It might even exult in it, take pleasure in it, embrace the Internet of Things and take it to its heart.
The IoT (as its friends like to call it) has one distinct advantage: everyone already has a smartphone in their hands. The smartphone is the basic pass-ticket, the voucher, the proof of existence.
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