Risky Concentration of Power in the Age of AI: Between Surveillance Capitalism and Digital Leviathan

Abstract

The paper is focused on a remarkable growth of the IT industry giants’ influence. The study describes specific features of platform architecture allowing the largest information market companies to increase their market power concentration. The Big Five (GAFAM) business model is interpreted in terms of the key source of the giants’ power. The author describes qualitative differences between the capitalism in the early 21^st century and the 20^th-century industrial capitalism. The author outlines approaches to digital capitalism criticism resting on the critical theories of the sociological classics. The author considers rules of the government - IT-industry relationship in terms of balance and concentration of power and touches upon authoritarian and democratic interaction patterns.