人類往後面對的挑戰，是在數位化更加普及之後，國際公司集團將有能力預測並控制我們的行為，這種前所未有的權力形式稱為「監控資本主義」。

　　哈佛大學教授Shoshana Zuboff 擁有跨學科領域知識的廣度與深度，使她能夠透過社會、政治、商業和科技等不同面向中掌握我們時代所發生的變化。我們正處於一個急迫的關鍵時刻，夾身於高科技產業公司與政府的巨大力量之中，並受制於監視資本主義的隱藏型經濟邏輯，透過機器學習取得的知識，嘗試塑造並控制人類的生活。

　　這些早已處於進行式的發展，將改寫人類經濟運作的基本原理，財富不再來自商品服務的交換、不來自勞工被剝削的生產勞動剩餘價值；在監控資本主義世代中，價值來自隨著理解人類所有行為，因而取得的衍生知識Behavioral Surplus，讓企業得以建立模型，預測，引導我們的行為獲利。這種方式是否會威脅到個人自治與民主權利，並造成新的社會不平等模式？又或是，數位化時代可以承諾個人賦權和民主化？

　　在這個監督資本主義的時代既不是一個關於危險和衰弱的故事，也不是一個數位童話故事。相反的，它為資本主義的發展提供了深刻理性和令人回味的思考角度，這將決定二十一世紀資訊文明的意義。眼前的問題反而在於，我們究竟會是成為資訊和機器的主人，還是奴隸？（文 / 博客來編譯）

　　Shoshana Zuboff’s interdisciplinary breadth and depth enable her to come to grips with the social, political, business, and technological meaning of the changes taking place in our time. We are at a critical juncture no less important than the early twentiethcentury battle between the Progressive movement for fairer and broader economic distribution and the concentrated, narrow interests of the robber barons and the trusts.

　　Today, we confront the vast power of the giant high-tech companies and government, the hidden economic logic of surveillance capitalism, and the propaganda of machine supremacy that threaten to shape and control human life. Will the brazen new methods of social engineering and behavior modification threaten individual autonomy and democratic rights and introduce extreme new forms of social inequality? Or will the promise of the digital age be one of individual empowerment and democratization?

　　Master or Slave? is neither a hand-wringing narrative of danger and decline nor a digital fairytale. Rather, it offers a deeply reasoned and evocative examination of the contests over the next chapter of capitalism that will decide the meaning of information civilization in the twenty-first century. The stark issue at hand is whether we will be the masters of information and machines or its slaves.



Author

Shoshana Zuboff

　　Shoshana Zuboff is the Charles Edward Wilson Professor emerita at Harvard Business School and a faculty associate at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University. She joined HBS's faculty in 1981 and was one of the first tenured women at HBS and the youngest professor to receive an endowed chair. She received her PhD in social psychology from Harvard University and her BA in philosophy from the University of Chicago. Her previous book, In the Age of the Smart Machine, was characterized on the front page of the New York Times Book Review as a work of rare originality. She has been a columnist for Fast Company and BusinessWeek.com, and strategy+business magazine named Zuboff one of the eleven most original business thinkers in the world.