The Future of a Digital Society seen from a Human perspective
Join us at the third SingularityU Germany Summit conference in June 2018 and learn more about the impact of exponential technologies on Digital Society from a Human perspective.
Exponential technologies are already shaping our present and will increasingly change the world we live in tomorrow — How can we as humans protect ourselves from data misuse?
Leveraging on technologies such as VR, AI, automation and bioengineering will no doubt help the world become better, more connected and efficient. But all of these grand leaps in technology come with risks and ethical questions that need to be considered: What will be the repercussions on families, friendships and our careers, if we will be connected to smart devices most of our time and how can we as humans protect ourselves from companies, governments misusing our data and information?
Still in today’s world, where about 60 million people affected by the so-called refugee crisis, 172 million are affected by war and conflict, 780 million people still have no access to clean water and 830 million people live under extreme poverty (living of 2$ a day). Although there is a massive global industry trying to solve these grand challenges of our time, there is no coordinated effort against another huge problem the world is facing today — authoritarianism.
In countries like China, North Korea, Zimbabwe, Ethiopia or Eritrea freedom of information is very limited due to dictators or restrictive governments preventing their societies from access to the internet and denying them the right to freedom of speech.
Exponential technologies can be a used to do good but if in the wrongs hands quickly turn evil. China’s authorities for example are using WeChat, a Chinese multi-purpose social media mobile application software developed by Tencent, to control their citizens. Although it offers great convenience for the user, it also bears great risks — the Chinese government uses the data to actively censor and to stop and predict protests.
Additionally companies like Alibaba developed a Sesame Credit Score. It uses data from Alibaba’s services to compile its score. Customers receive a score based on a variety of factors based on social media interactions and purchases carried out on Alibaba Group websites or paid for using its affiliate Ant Financial’s Alipay mobile wallet. China’s proposed Social Credit System is a proposed is exactly that — a national reputation system, assign a “social credit” rating to every citizen based on government data regarding their economic and social status. It is basically a massive surveillance tool used to tie personal economical power tightly to the political obedience of a citizen.
In times where exponential technologies are on the rise one must not forget the human rights implications and ethics some of these may entail. Nevertheless there still remains great promise if these technologies are leveraged correctly: According to Alex Gladstein, 10 yrs from now projects like Google’s Project Loon (a network of balloons traveling on the edge of space, designed to extend Internet connectivity to people in rural and remote areas worldwide) or facebook’s internet.org (a partnership between social networking services company Facebook and six companies among them Nokia, Samsung plans to bring affordable access to selected internet services to less developed countries) will make it very hard for restrictive governments or dictators to keep information out.
The challenge of governance is and will be one of the biggest we have to face as exponential technologies will increasingly shape our lives. To avoid misuse of collected data people have to have free access to information and in a second instance need to be educated on what their collected data and information will be used for.
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Alex Gladstein is Chief Strategy Officer at Human Rights Foundation. He has served as Vice President of Strategy for the Oslo Freedom Forum since its inception in 2009. Alex’s writing and views on dissidents and dictators have appeared in ABC, The Atlantic, BBC News, CNN, Fast Company, Foreign Policy, The Guardian, NPR, TIME, The Wall Street Journal and WIRED. He will be speaking about Digital Society from a human perspective at the Summit on June 4 & 5 in Berlin!
