The Panoptic Sort: A Political Economy of Personal Information, Gandy Jr. Oscar H.

It argued that unlike Foucaults panoptic prison, which involved continual, all-encompassing surveillance, the panoptic systems being developed at that time were turning their attention toward the development of techniques for the identification and classification of disciplinary subjects into
distinct groups in ways that would increase the efficiency with which the techniques of correct training could be applied to those group members. While the first edition provided numerous examples from marketing, employment, insurance, credit management, and the provision of government and social
services, the second edition extends descriptions of the technologies that have been developed and incorporated into the panoptic sort in the nearly 30 years since its initial publication. In addition, it places these technological advances and systemic expansions into the context of quite
significant transformations in the nature of capitalism. In addition to the massive expansion in the amount of data and information being gathered, processed, and distributed for use by corporations, government agencies, and newly developing public-private partnerships, advances in artificial
intelligence and machine learning have placed the development of autonomous devices into positions of power that had barely been imagined in the past. Assessments of the implications for democracy that many associate with the possibility of an algorithmic Leviathan, invite a reconsideration of
Jacques Elluls distressing predictions about the future that ended the first edition of The Panoptic Sort.