Shadowy knowledge infrastructures

Abstract

ABSTRACT Changes associated with Internet technologies, including mobile devices, ubiquitous computing, and big data, have altered the basic mechanics whereby human knowledge is produced and circulated. This article discusses newfangled data-driven knowledge agents which emerged in the wake of these major transformations and which are termed here ‘Shadowy Knowledge Infrastructural Platforms’ (SKI). SKI, are conceived as data-driven infrastructural platform firms that have attained the scale and social utility that renders them vitally important to millions of individuals and to major institutions that have become dependent on the epistemic products and services they provide. The focus is on two representative examples of such enterprises, Waze and Moovit, both of which have rapidly fledged out into major producers and disseminators of human knowledge in the field of transportation and cartography. The article identifies the distinctive characteristics of these entities, points out to their obscure practices, and reveals the mechanism that governs their meteoric growth. The analysis demonstrates the high stakes involved when Shadowy Knowledge Infrastructural Platforms, having accumulated individual and institutional data for commercial purposes, establish forms of sovereign power over the creation and distribution of knowledge, on which both individuals and institutions become dependent.