The Din and Stealth of the Digital Revolution

The chapter identifies the multiple ways in which the adoption of digital technologies is bringing forth the new digital economy, both directly and indirectly supporting and disrupting its constituent parts, i.e. households and businesses. Focusing on cutting-edge technologies of datafication, it differentiates them from the foundational information and communication technologies, such as the computer, the internet and the mobile phone, and defines them as technologies that allow businesses, public institutions and consumers to make economic, political and social use of the abundant data produced on the web and collected by smart devices. Specifically, technologies of datafication include cloud computing and the Internet of Things, and, most importantly, that group of technologies dubbed artificial intelligence.