Irresponsible Tech and the Lack of Policies

How the unchecked power of technology can aggravate social inequalities.

We stand on the brink of a technological revolution, which is fundamentally reshaping our life, yet, the social, political, and economic implications of such pervasive and fast-evolving technology remain unaddressed. Concentration of power, insufficient public awareness, and lack of up-to-date technology policies are the contributing factors to inequitable implementation of technology in society.

The dominance of a few large players controlling the high-tech industry has led to many social issues, such as lack of transparency, privacy, fairness, inclusion, and equality. Without appropriate regulations and enhanced public awareness, those with unchecked power continue to control many social, political, environmental, and economic aspects of society.

Few dominant players in high-tech industry provide most of the commonly used online services around the world. Concentration of power destroys healthy competition and results in services optimized for profit rather than for societal benefits. For example, targeted advertising is not necessarily in the best interest of the user in terms of privacy, rather maximizes the advertiser and internet intermediary’s benefits. Although the behavior of Big Tech has been recently scrutinized, e.g. lawsuits against Google and Facebook, more often than not, their unchecked power leads to unjust behavior, for example, on content moderation, spread of misinformation, or anti-competition acquisitions.

Even more concerning is the potential dominance of Big Tech in industries beyond IT, where artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly replacing traditional methods. For example, although automated farming can improve food production and land use, the unchecked power of tech giants may lead to oligopoly in this $5 trillion industry, controlling the food supply of the world. Similarly in finance, Big Tech has a massive advantage over legacy financial institutions due to superior access to users' personal data and spending behavior.

Irresponsible Tech and uniformed usage have disastrous environmental impacts as well. For example, carbon emission from training Neural Networks fueling the modern AI is comparable to the amount a car emits over its entire lifetime [source]. Similarly, Bitcoin, the popular cryptocurrency, generates about 22 megatons in CO2 emissions per year [source], roughly the amount produced by the nation of Jordan. Lack of public awareness and governing regulations result in such undiscerning practices and irresponsible use of technology, with long-lasting impacts on our planet.

Well-informed policies and regulations are required to address part of the current issues. Stronger antitrust and pro-competition policies are required to take the control from corporations and put it back in the hands of the people. Responsible technology must be promoted and incentivized among researchers, investors, politicians, and citizens. For example, steeper carbon pricing can help incentivize industries towards zero or negative carbon emission. At the same time, mandates and innovation policies can promote investment and research in innovative methods.

Decentralization goes beyond banking and can impact many other sectors in which currently there are few big players. For example, in ridesharing, often a centralized corporation connects drivers and riders. In a decentralized solution, professional drivers, who would rather build up their own transportation businesses than being controlled by a corporate headquarter can set their own rates, build their own recurring customer base, and offer additional services like deliveries or roadside assistance [source]. Similar solutions have been implemented for community-led decentralized social media [source].

Public awareness is interlinked with policymaking. Many policies, acts, and business decisions have been motivated by public movements. For example, the data rights movement resulted in the California Consumer Privacy Act to go into effect in 2020. Transparency and public oversight can help hold corporations accountable for their actions and decisions that harm society.