124 l THE CONVERGING TECHNOLOGY REVOLUTION AND HUMAN CAPITAL
TABLE A.3 Metatrend 3: Complex and Dynamic Innovation Ecosystems (continued) Metatrend 3: Potential Implications for Development Positive
Negative
5. The mobilization of whole-of-government and whole-of-society responses will require long-term investments in social and political capital, including through community participation, an agile response capacity, and accountability mechanisms. 6. Governments are taking a renewed interest in steering innovation to tackle societal challenges.
5. The broader development benefits from using digital innovations have fallen short of being inclusive and are unevenly distributed. Most of the population lacks the capital needed for innovation. 6. Converging technologies raise many challenges in terms of increasing inequality, loss of privacy, loss of agency, and loss of freedom (see metatrend 4).
Source: World Bank study team. Note: AI = artificial intelligence; R&D = research and development.
TABLE A.4 Metatrend 4: Governance of Dual-Use Technologies 1. COVID-19 is leading to a rapid expansion of executive powers, including through the deployment of data-driven technologies, with potential implications for democratic spaces (such as freedom of movement, states of emergency, and postponement of elections). 2. The development of integrated digital and biometric identification (ID) systems will accelerate the expansion of civil registries to access public services and activities (such as social welfare, health coverage, education, mobile phone, digital finance, internet access, and voting). 3. The capacity for using citizens’ personal data for bio-surveillance and behavioral monitoring (such as contact tracing and social media use) will continue to expand. The combination of digital surveillance and behavioral manipulation may lead to new demands for data privacy protection. 4. Nonstate actors who benefit from control technology, data pools, and the accumulation of new digital wealth will exert growing influence over the daily lives of citizens, the cohesion of societies, and the economic prospects of countries. 5. As all activities in a society become digital, the accumulation, control, and use of data will remain a contentious issue at the national and international levels between state and nonstate actors. 6. Universal connectivity of devices and convergence of technologies will expose new cybersecurity risks and vulnerabilities to cybercrime. The potential of data wars becomes a primary concern for national and international security.
7. As technology leaders race ahead, the risk of deepening divides and power shifts between groups with technological capabilities and those without is growing. 8. The convergence of AI and biotech holds the distinct prospect for changing how genomes of humans and other species are computed, designed, and programmed. 9. The concept of governance continues to evolve. With AI deployment (and its built-in biases), regulation can take the form of codes, ethical commitments, or corporate principles. Reliance on algorithms for decision-making without appropriate safeguards (such as human-centric design and oversight) will raise new questions of human accountability. 10. As technologies continue to evolve and generate new forms of knowledge and decisions, human capabilities do not necessarily stretch as far, with unknown consequences for the adoption, use, and outcomes of technologies. Unless humancentric design and oversight are ensured, human accountability for machine-based decisions will be in doubt. 11. The collaboration (and, in some cases, mutual dependence) between big government and big tech may put individual rights at risk and expose citizens to manipulation and targeted misinformation. The growing presence of social media platforms and the ability of national ID systems to track every citizen concentrate data and power in the hands of a small elite. (Table continues on next page)
