Eyes on the Road: Surveillance Logics in the Autonomous Vehicle Economy

Abstract

As emblematic products of a previous industrial era, cars are often tied to a sphere outside the digital economy and its ruling logics and are, therefore, governed by different ideas of privacy, agency, and sovereignty. However, as self-driving cars gain momentum, computerization, and automation, their platformization contributes to transforming the automobile as technology, industry, and cultural artifact. This creates new spaces of consumption within cars, around them, and between them—all of which are premised on highly detailed contextual information that is collected, processed, and transmitted in the process of navigation. Thus, the ads and entertainment delivered to passengers, the landscapes surrounding the vehicles, and the proprietary data networks that link self-driving car fleets are all redefined as revenue streams in the new auto economy. This paper explores the transformation of the existing auto economy in the context of the emergence of self-driving cars by following the transposition of surveillance logics that are central to the digital economy and by considering the implications of their adaptation to the arena of automated mobility.