Digital self-surveillance
Luis Avena, CDMX.
Self-surveillance is an ancient practice that in our contemporary age is mediated by digital devices. But how does digital technology influence us to become better and better? Mark Coeckelbergh’s book Self-Improvement. Technologies of the Soul in the age of Artificial Intelligence, I share with you a text on how digital devices help us make more efficient decisions to live better lives. Of course, being better is the ethical and political issue at stake.
I Keeping an eye on one’s own time: enjoying the present
Pen, ink and paper at hand, Marcus Aurelius, Roman emperor and philosopher, wrote down his thoughts in the midst of war in the years 170 and 180. The emperor philosophised and wrote down his most memorable thoughts that should be reread whenever forgetfulness and passions obfuscated his mind. There is a particular note on time that is representative of Stoic philosophy:
“The present, indeed, is equal for all, what is lost is also equal, and what is separated is evidently a mere instant. Therefore neither the past nor the future can be lost, because what we do not have, how can anyone take away from us […] For we can only be deprived of the present, since you possess it alone, and what you do not possess, you cannot lose”. (Book 2, note 14)
The past is no more and the future is not yet, therefore the present is the only thing that is. Marcus Aurelius did not forget that the images of the past block our experiences of the present, they obfuscate us, they stick tenaciously to our memory and we suffer. The future, a mental image that temporarily projects an event, can generate longing and anxiety, depending on whether it is pleasurable or painful. One thing is certain: we forget the present. Marcus Aurelius concludes for himself that worries about what was and what will be are meaningless to the extent that the only thing we have is the present.
II Technology of the self: methods for becoming better every day
Michel Foucault would call two fundamental precepts of ancient ethics “technology of the self”: 1) know thyself and 2) take care of yourself. In other words, in order to take care of oneself, it is necessary to know oneself. Each era, each culture, each context has given it a different meaning, and this transvaluation will never cease. In this case, Marcus Aurelius used different criteria depending on the situation and the context. In some passages he speaks to himself seriously and becomes very strict. In other passages, he elevates his reflection to the harmony of the universe and the communion of beings. In other words, he deliberates wisely about what might be useful for him to reason about at certain times. What might “taking care of oneself” mean in our context?
The practices of self-care have been as diverse as the forms of life that the history of humanity has seen. Our era has had to coexist and be configured with digital and intelligent devices. The particularity, though not originality, is the ability to spatially represent an object, that is, to abstract, quantify and measure it in order to create a database of useful data to act efficiently in the future; devices such as smartphones and smartwatches record our movements, tastes and needs to help us act better.
Biosensors, typical of our digital and intelligent age, make it possible to collect data that are the result of monitoring bodily phenomena and the environment. For example, they are able to measure and make statistics of blood glucose levels, hormones, oxygen enzymes that are part of the body’s care; the well-known GPS, digital compasses, accelerometers in the field of movements and routes. Digital watches that record heart rate, breathing rate, calories burned, body temperature have left the medical field and moved into the field of sports performance.
III Self-monitoring as self-care
In classical theories of economics, maximisation is the making of decisions by a rational agent in such a way that his utility curve is optimal. This means that the decisions made will minimise costs and maximise benefits in any aspect of his life. One of the basic axioms is the axiom of completeness, which is the choice of the option that offers the highest utility compared to other options. While what is theorised is a model of economic behaviour in general, it seems to me to illustrate well the behaviour made possible by the aforementioned smart devices.
Devices and applications aim to optimise rational agents, not only in their economic behaviour, but in their healthy, productive, social and emotional habits and behaviours in a personalised way. The overarching norm in these practices is to be as efficient and rational as possible. Optimisation, rather than an ideal or a model, is a tangible practice thanks to current devices and applications.
All this technology allows us to have knowledge of ourselves in order to make comparisons and relationships between data in the past in a way that supports us in modifying our habits and behaviours in a sense of optimisation. Taking care of oneself means optimising oneself for our time. Or as we say colloquially: we seek to be the best version of ourselves.
