A lot is said about the benefits of artificial intelligence and digital disruption, but it is equally important to bring light to its risks and how they can be mitigated.
It is undeniable that digital disruption has transformed entire industries since the Web 1.0 around 1989. It offered new opportunities for growth and efficiency while opening new markets. However, with these advances and mass adoption, also significant risks are unintendedly created, from privacy concerns to cybersecurity threats, and need to be addressed by companies and societies.
Cybersecurity Threats
Companies are adopting digital technologies in order to increase efficiency, but as a collateral effect, they expose themselves to greater cyber risks. The Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack in 2021, for example, showed how vulnerable critical infrastructure systems can be. Businesses rely each time more on new technologies, but are often unprepared, generally underestimating the importance of more robust cybersecurity strategies (Alotaibi, 2020). In the rush to innovate, companies might be sacrificing security for speed.
Social and Economic Impacts
One important feature of digital disruption is automation. This advance that increases efficiency while decreasing margin for human error, also tend to displace jobs in sectors like manufacturing and retail. AI and machine learning are unstoppably replacing human labor at an unprecedented rate, increasing inequality. For workers without digital skills, the opportunities and perspectives are each time fewer (Autor & Salomons, 2018). Businesses and society should have a responsibility to reskill workers and counter this inevitable consequence of progress.
Loss of Privacy
Another major concern is that privacy may be threatened as digital platforms collect vast amounts of personal data. A strong example of such risk is the Cambridge Analytica scandal, which showed how data misuse potentially have relevant impacts on democracy and trust in technology (Zuboff, 2019). Privacy regulations should be more strictly enforced globally as companies use data more than ever to fuel targeted advertising and personalized services.
Monopolization and Market Domination
Digital evolution is somehow an exponential process, which means that the more technologically advanced a company is, more successful it tends to be, leading to even greater investments in technology. This leads to monopolization, with tech giants like Google and Amazon being able control entire markets and making it extremely hard for new players to solidify their businesses. This raises concerns about competition, innovation, and consumer choice (Furman et al., 2019). Smaller and younger digital businesses have a hostile market to perform into.
These are few risks amongst several others. Technology must be praised, incentivized and rewarded as they impact positively entire societies. However, it is of great importance to also have the responsibility to assess its emerging collateral risks as they have the potential to impact negatively in the same magnitude. What measures do you think governments and businesses take in order to tackle those risks while continuing to innovate?
References
Alotaibi, S. (2020). The impact of digital transformation on cybersecurity: A case study of the Saudi Arabian banking industry. International Journal of Advanced Computer Science and Applications, 11(5), 238-244.
Autor, D. H., & Salomons, A. (2018). Is automation labor-displacing? Productivity growth, employment, and the labor share. Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, 2018(1), 1-87.
Zuboff, S. (2019). The age of surveillance capitalism: The fight for a human future at the new frontier of power. PublicAffairs.
Furman, J., Coyle, D., Fletcher, A., McAuley, D., & Marsden, P. (2019). Unlocking digital competition: Report of the Digital Competition Expert Panel.
You make some very good points! Technology can help us get a long way if we can manage to handle it responsibly. I think cybersecurity is a big issue like you mentioned, especially with almost every company hoarding a lot of data about their customers. This still seems to go wrong quite a lot.
I do wonder however how big of an issue the current social impacts of digital technologies are, as many labor intensive industries suffer from an employee shortage at the moment, at least in the Netherlands. Perhaps the shift from certain industries where AI takes over will make people move into other job markets, as has happened before in history as well whenever a disruptive innovation caused a new industry or market to emerge. I expect that this could balance out.
I also agree that regulation is important when it comes to the big tech firms, as they grow so fast they will become monopolies if left unchecked. I think that in this case the bigger markets like the EU and US do have a responsibility, as their regulations on this area have often had quite some big effects. When done correctly however, it shows that there is great potential for technology as you describe. I personally think the many positives outweigh the risks.