122 l THE CONVERGING TECHNOLOGY REVOLUTION AND HUMAN CAPITAL
TABLE A.2 Metatrend 2: Data-Driven and Hybrid Human-Machine Technologies for Productive Activities (continued) Metatrend 2: Potential Implications for Development Positive
Negative
1. Increase in entrepreneurship. 2. Digitalization, upskilling, and increased human-machine interaction may accelerate innovation (see metatrend 3). 3. A young labor force enables a faster adoption of digital technologies and transition to new production processes. 4. Growing awareness about societies’ fragility may have a long-term effect on values and consumer preferences (such as a switch to green energy, mobility solutions, and local food production). 5. Digitalization of the economy may accelerate the transition from predominantly informal activities, allowing people to access markets for services and goods and to participate in new digital activities in the gig economy. 6. New opportunities emerge for home-based work, including for women (although this may reinforce socioeconomic exclusion).
1. Risk of growing economic divergence and rising inequality at the level of nations, firms, and individuals may give rise to economic nationalism and societal polarization. 2. Big tech companies solidify their dominant monopoly positions, which may slow down (local) innovation and intensify a winner-take-all dynamic. 3. The gig economy may increase the economic fragility of workers and impose additional social stress on families. 4. The loss of personal data may not enter most people’s awareness, raising fears of a permanent loss of data privacy. 5. Responsible oversight and meaningful accountability in complex technological supply chains will fragment. 6. As automation continues to displace human labor, digital have-nots will find it harder to adapt. Unless new jobs are created in large numbers, growing unemployment and unrest may erode social cohesion. 7. Global trade continues to shrink. The traditional prescription for development through economic growth could come to a halt, limiting the shift of production and jobs to emerging economies and reducing the volume of migration and remittance flows for the region.
Source: World Bank study team. Note: AI = artificial intelligence.
TABLE A.3 Metatrend 3: Complex and Dynamic Innovation Ecosystems 1. Conventional R&D approaches and metrics remain out of reach for most developing countries. 2. The alternative—fostering innovation ecosystems—is viewed increasingly as offering access to diverse stakeholders, expertise networks, funding, and global knowledge as part of a long-term engagement. 3. The world over, governments and firms alike are grappling with how to connect with emerging innovation systems to unlock future drivers of productivity, employment, and competitiveness. Along the way, new forms of collaboration, skill deployment, incentives, organizational capabilities, regulatory approaches, and policies are being tested.
4. The value of a tech-enabled civic culture that relies on bottom-up information sharing, public-private partnerships, “hacktivism” and grand challenges for quick solution testing, and participatory collective action is attracting interest from key stakeholder groups seeking to emulate these approaches. 5. Specialized knowledge institutions, especially in scientific and innovation communities, are being sought out for expert advice in anticipating, preparing for, and responding effectively to crises. 6. South Asian countries are seeking to build their domestic capabilities to participate in the global knowledge system, take advantage of opportunities offered by available technologies, adapt them to relevant domestic needs, and offset some of the risks. (Table continues on next page)
