By 2022, digital technologies that are already transforming our lives, in many ways for the better, will expose new vulnerabilities in our societies.
Algorithms created with skewed data will make destructive decisions that will affect the way billions of people live and work. Online mobs will incite violence. Bad information will move stock exchanges. Conspiracy theories will distort the opinions of millions of people. Hackers will steal information about us. All of these threats will grow in the digital space, where the rules are set by the world’s biggest tech companies, not governments.
It’s a new situation. For nearly four centuries, nation-states have drawn the lines and implemented the rules that govern our societies and our lives. Today, however, the world’s largest technology firms are designing, building, and managing an entirely new dimension of geopolitics, economics, and social interaction. They’re writing the algorithms that decide what people see and hear, determine our opportunities, and influence how we think.
Increasingly, important parts of our daily lives and even some essential functions of the state function in the digital world, and the future is being shaped by technology companies that are unwilling and unable to effectively govern society.
By 2022 people will spend more time, both at work and at home, in the digital space and even in the so-called “metaverse” – an emerging and more immersive version of the web in which all digital governance issues will be amplified. Over time, the metaverse, in turn, will increasingly rely on economic systems based on decentralized blockchain platforms that governments are already having difficulty controlling.
Governments are trying to resist. In 2022, the European Union will pass new laws that impose limits on some big tech business practices. US regulators will move forward with antitrust lawsuits and begin the lengthy and contentious process of drafting new digital privacy rules. China will continue to pressure its technology companies to align with state-determined national priorities. Other governments will restrict the types of data that can cross borders.
But these are regulatory tactics, not strategies, and no government in the foreseeable future is going to challenge the huge profits and influence of big tech. And politicians are not going to limit the ability of the biggest platforms to invest profits in the digital sphere where those platforms, not governments, are still the main architects, actors and implementers.
This is not a challenge that affects just the US or the West. It’s also about the developing world, where governments face even tougher choices between accessing digital services needed to capture economic opportunities in the 21st century, and the risks posed by weak cybersecurity and viral misinformation.
China is not immune to the challenges of this brave new digital world. Yes, China has the world’s most sophisticated Internet surveillance and firewall engine, and leader Xi Jinping hasn’t hesitated to crack down on companies he thinks are getting too powerful. But the Chinese Communist Party needs robust and resilient economic growth to sustain its monopoly on domestic political power.
If Xi gets too hard on the country’s most enterprising and savvy tech pioneers and private-sector companies, China will not be able to develop the digital infrastructure it needs to raise its productivity and living standards in the long run. In many cases, the very companies that Beijing sees as potential threats to the regime are also indispensable pillars of the Chinese economy. It is a fundamental dilemma for any country, whether it is a democracy or a police state.
Global leadership in today’s world is already lacking. There is no single government or durable alliance of governments that is willing and able to manage the growing number of global problems we already have – pandemic response, climate change, conflict resolution and coordinated assistance to the world’s migrants and refugees. But the digital space is even more poorly governed.
The technology giants are like developing countries that do not have governing institutions that match their political power. As a country with rapid economic growth but still unable to educate its citizens or ensure their security, big tech companies lack the capacity or willingness to govern the new spaces and tools they are creating.
The ineffective governance of tech giants will impose costs on society and companies. Disinformation will escalate ahead of the 2022 parliamentary elections in the United States, further weakening Americans’ confidence in the democratic process.
As long as tech companies and governments do not unite around data privacy governance, the safe and ethical use of artificial intelligence, and cybersecurity, tensions between the US and China over these issues will mount and US efforts and Europe to find common ground on them will be insufficient.
Without countries – or companies – capable of designing effective solutions to global problems, the credibility of governments will be further eroded, further eroding the social contract. This is today’s technopolar world.
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