Rethinking governance: the need for global answers to global challenges

Given the recent scandals surrounding the legitimacy of Brexit and the US 2016 Presidential Elections, the discourse on the role of governance in technology and the emerging data-driven economy has received astounding public attention. Regardless of whether the fact-paced technological progress is viewed in a positive or negative light, it is now an unchallenged consensus that digital platforms and algorithms have significant social, political and economic implications and raise present a dilemma of accountability. These implications might not only make us question the effects of technology on democratic principles, but they also call for a serious re-examination of our current political agents and structures. Given the increasing concerns surrounding privacy and transparency, it is of outmost importance that not only the private sector, but also the public sector and academia take place in the shaping of these new mechanisms.

The internet has been painted as a force with the potential to strengthen democracy, trough providing non-state actors with an accessible platform to easily mobilise, allowing for e-government to improve state services and many other ways. However, it does not come without its drawbacks. Özdemir and Kehim have rightfully pointed out that the practice of networking may lead to the development of hegemonic power structures due to its exploitable vulnerabilities. First and foremost, the more integrated the network is in our society, the more vulnerable we are to the damage that would result from a potential collapse (2018). Certain acts of “hacktivism” has already exploited this vulnerability in an attempt to drive political change. Second of all, an extremely connected network carries with it the threat of unchecked power dynamics, due to the concentration of information and control (Özdemir and Kehim, 2018). More often than not, this influential political power belongs to private agents without the same obligation for accountability and transparency that would normally be required of our political agents. The structure in which “bitcoin” was developed is outside of the scope of traditional financial regulations, meaning that is has no obligations to for example, verify the lawfulness of the ongoing transaction (Böhme et al., 2015). The lines between state and non-state actors are becoming blurred, making the investigation on accountability and governance an extremely complex task.

The greatest challenge comes from the global implications of technology. In an interconnected world, these sociological and political consequences extend way beyond the borders of the nation state and as such, the lack of a normative and regulatory consensus makes addressing these global risks somewhat impossible. While there have been attempts to address them on a national level, the proposed solutions are local and therefore insufficient (Boyd and Wilson, 2017).

Towards a global answer

The European Union has already taken steps to address these risks by introducing the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and by taking steps towards the implementation of regulations on robotics (Boyd and Wilson, 2017). Through taking these steps, not only do they create laws with implications beyond the scope of the EU member states, but also set a regulatory standard that is now the key reference point for other regulatory bodies.

It is important to emphasise, that merely the introduction of GDPR took four years and once it came into effect in 2018, many businesses were still not prepared (Rakheja, 2018). When the speed of change is so accelerated, it is debatable whether regulatory bodies are able to stay up-to-date enough to implement sufficient regulatory frameworks, especially for an industry that is still in development stages. Furthermore, regulators will likely run into the issue of the lack of consensus on definitions. Yet even if the problem of terminologies no longer persisted, the issue of information asymmetries would have to be addressed. As seen at Mark Zuckerberg’s hearing, our politicians not only lack the understanding of the underlying functions of these technologies that only the experts possess, but sometimes lack even a basic overview of their workings.

Nevertheless, rather than seeing this as obstacles which are impossible to overcome, we should view this as an opportunity to revisit issues on a global scale. There is already a trend in calling for accelerating global efforts, such as for the development of an international framework on the limits of cyberwarfare (Almeida, Doneda & Abreau, 2017). As Boyd and Wilson have suggested, when thinking about an Artificial Intelligence- and Big Data-governance we should not restrict ourselves to thinking solely in the scope of an international government. Rather, we should first strive to deliver national and global norms and that we create regulation robust at international levels (2017). We would also need to think about the development of a cost-benefit model approach, “particularly where tradeoffs are involved in the design of AI systems” (Gasser and Almeida, 2017).

Gasser and Almeida summaries the tasks ahead of us best, when said that “taken together, these structural challenges and associated design requirements for a future governance model of AI point away from simple state-centric, command-and control regulatory schemes toward more complex approaches to governance emergent in fields as diverse as the Internet, nanotechnology governance, or gene driver governance” (pg. 60)

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Cited sources:

Almeida, V.A., Doneda, D. and de Souza Abreu, J., 2017. Cyberwarfare and digital governance. IEEE Internet Computing, 21(2), pp.68-71.

Boyd, M. and Wilson, N., 2017. Rapid developments in artificial intelligence: how might the New Zealand government respond?. Policy Quarterly, 13(4).

Böhme, R., Christin, N., Edelman, B. and Moore, T., 2015. Bitcoin: Economics, technology, and governance. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 29(2), pp.213-38.

Gasser, U. and Almeida, V.A., 2017. A layered model for AI governance. IEEE Internet Computing, 21(6), pp.58-62.

Özdemir, V. and Hekim, N., 2018. Birth of industry 5.0: Making sense of big data with artificial intelligence,“the internet of things” and next-generation technology policy. Omics: a journal of integrative biology, 22(1), pp.65-76.

Rakheja, J. (2018, May 25). GDPR - european union's new data privacy law. PCQuest, Retrieved from https://search.proquest.com/docview/2045206106?accountid=14511