Cyberpunk saw surveillance capitalism coming

Cyberpunk didn’t predict flying cars so much as a business model: corporations using networks, surveillance and quantification to turn human life into profit, before smartphones made it commonplace. Its omnipresent cameras and screens echo today’s ad tech, where brokers combine behavioral data and shadow profiles. Consumer and risk scores can shape opaque decisions about loans, housing, jobs and prison time; platform firms also operate as data infrastructure.

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