5.1 Frontier technologies present both opportunities and risks.

How can governments maximize their benefit for people and societies?

Frontier technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) can be deployed for the benefit of societies and can contribute to the public good if the right policies are in place.

Greater public investment and guidance is needed to encourage the development of socially and environmentally beneficial applications and outcomes since most of these new technologies are general purpose technologies without any automatic link to equitable or sustainable outcomes.

A hammer, for example, is an instrument that can be used to either harm someone or to build a house; this analogy applies to algorithms and technologies and serves to emphasize that the impact of technologies depends on how they are applied and with what guidance, intentions or motivations. Therefore, it is critical to pay attention to both progress and the drawbacks of technologies and ensure that the benefits of technological progress are evenly spread throughout society.

The World Economic and Social Survey 2018: Frontier Technologies for Sustainable Development include automation, robotics, electric vehicles, renewable energy technologies, biotechnologies and artificial intelligence.

The role of governments and the public sector in guiding and regulating frontier technologies deserves attention.

The development of many technologies, the Internet for example, were government funded, but since their development they have not necessarily been governed for public-interest purposes. With the widespread use of digital technologies, public officials have an obligation to put public interest front and centre such as by encouraging green policies that drive ICT technologies toward sustainability-enhancing applications and outcomes, by protecting people’s privacy, and by ensuring that human rights are respected.

Today, while there is much attention being paid to the rate of change and pace of technological advances, there is too little attention to directionality – the direction of innovation and whether algorithms are being created to extract value or create value (algorithmic rents).

Governments have a certain obligation to provide the framing of problems and the remit of technology organizations to fill them, as for example in the field of health care. There is also a need to define what types of technology companies require regulatory measures; many companies are considered part of the media or other sectors and fall outside what might be considered technology.

Photo/Julia Roesler

5.2 What has been the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the use and advancement of technologies?

What are the challenges of these technologies?

For many, the COVID-19 pandemic is an inflection point, and it may be a huge impetus for structural change facilitated by advances and uptake in technologies.

The status quo has been disrupted in ways that have the potential to change lives dramatically and in degrees experienced only infrequently throughout history. During the pandemic, digital technologies enabled the continuation of socioeconomic life and some of these changes may permanently shift social and economic systems in new directions. At the same time, existing inequalities and emerging ones have been highlighted as societies and individuals that are digitally connected disproportionately reap the benefits of these technologies.

Existing inequalities and emerging ones have been highlighted as societies and individuals that are digitally connected disproportionately reap the benefits of these technologies.

There remain, however, opportunities for disadvantaged groups to benefit from some of these technologies.

Thanks to digital technologies, many people have been able to work remotely and maintain their incomes in the last two years, while also enjoying various applications of technologies to improve lives spent largely at home.

These new ways of working and socializing, while seen as temporary with the onset of the pandemic, have led to a rethink about where people live and work. Companies are now discussing where to open offices and how many days per week staff need to be at those offices. These decisions could have huge implications on employment as we know it, and the geographical distribution of technological know-how.

The education sector has seen similar changes with similar implications as the world moves forward post-pandemic. Governments are also recognizing the potential for reducing the costs of service provision in terms of both time and money with the potential for greater efficiency and universality of service provision.

By transitioning to remote service provision where possible during the pandemic, the time people spent accessing and receiving social benefits was significantly reduced while services could be expanded to reach across regions without investing in new physical facilities or staff (those in rural areas or without access to transportation could have greater access to services). But even in developed parts of the world, the public sector has lacked basic technologies to provide targeted assistance to people, and people have lacked the tools and skills necessary to use these technologies to receive benefits.

Digital divides between and within countries are a barrier to leveraging the full potential of technologies.

Globally, digital divides between and within countries are a barrier to leveraging the full potential of technologies. Universality, which is a principle of the 2030 Agenda, requires technology access for everyone as a prerequisite for ensuring access to services that require a digital platform. Health monitoring using digital technologies was an important tool as COVID-19 spread. However, many countries were not well prepared to collect and share health-related data to support response efforts when the pandemic hit. There were heroic efforts, but institutional and technological infrastructures were not adequate for gathering, sharing and monitoring health data in real time to support rapid decision-making.

UN Photo/Harandane Dicko

5.3 How are technologies going to affect issues of redistribution and employment?

Amidst concerns about the replacement of labour with robots, public interventions should ensure that new technologies such as AI are used to augment labour rather than replace it.

Graphic of a giant word AI with words Augmenting not Replacing Labour embedded into it

Without public interventions, technology develop-ment may be driven by the replacement of labour and perceived cost savings by private companies with few investments in augmentation. Even so, many human activities cannot be fully automated, and technologies will not be developed for this purpose any time soon. Technology enables people to do a better job with less knowledge. Support may come from a remote specialist allowing someone with a lower level of education or fewer skills to perform in a job with higher education or skill requirements.

The direction of technology change also needs to be evaluated from a global perspective in terms of labour replacement and augmentation opportunities. Because technology innovations are often concentrated in developed countries with a particular make-up of capital and labour resources, externalities from these developments have very different impacts globally and in developing countries where capital may be scarce, but low-wage labour plentiful.

It is important to look for opportunities to reorient incentives to complement developing country contexts that would benefit from augmentation rather than labour replacement.

More research is needed in this area in terms of what industrial policy should look like to support augmentation and where investments would be well placed.

Technologies can expand people’s skills or enable them to utilize time or resources they may have so they can take advantage of new opportunities that may not have been available to them before. For example, apps make it easy for a retired person to take care of pets or for a student to take a delivery job during their free time. These examples demonstrate how new technologies can provide people with new forms of freedom and flexibility.

However, people are entitled to a regular income and as the gig economy evolves, governments need to think about the source of that income. One source could be a tax on new technology companies that have not always contributed to the tax base in line with increasing profits.

Workers who are displaced by automation need re-training and support to transition to new forms of work including in sectors using frontier technologies. However, it is not always clear what advice or type of skill training should be provided, and training is not always efficiently provided or targeted. More research is needed, and attention given, to assessing what investments in capabilities will be most beneficial to people.

On technology transfer, the expansion of cloud computing and open-source software has led to increased participation around the globe and the inclusion of more small businesses.

Workers who are displaced by automation need re-training and support to transition to new forms of work.

Technology transfer is easier in practice now thanks to new technologies and the efficiency with which they can be deployed.

SECTION 5

WHAT IS THE ROLE OF TECHNOLOGY IN THE RECOVERY?

A path to a global digital compact – further division or more cooperation?

5.1

Frontier technologies present both opportunities and risks.