Prolongation of Life
Tech 63100: Global Perspectives on Emerging Technologies
Spring 2024
What Tech Calls Thinking
Question: How do we regulate disruption while still allowing innovation?
Introduction
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Silicon Valley is good at reframing questions, problems, and solutions to create a perception of something new and selling it under the banner of "innovation" when in reality the only change they're introducing is an exploitation of a regulatory gap that allows them to create profit faster (e.g., ride sharing exploitation of gaps in labor law to compete against taxi services). "A lot of tech companies make their home between the moment some new way to make money is discovered and the moment some government entity gets around to deciding if it's actually legal" (Daub, 2020). This becomes more problematic when that innovation is disruptive.
"Disruptive innovation is characterized by scientific discoveries that change the existing technological product paradigms and provide the foundation for more competitive technologies and products to emerge." Disruptive innovation presents significant regulatory challenges as it can bring with it sudden changes that increasingly impact consumer preferences and behavior, products, economy, industry practices, delivery channels, and possible regulatory responses. Disruptive innovative technology often does not fit into existing legal categories. A regulatory response to disruptive innovation requires policy makers to balance legitimate policy objectives such as consumer protection, privacy, and public welfare while avoiding regulatory capture and policies that predominantly protect incumbent firms. The anticipated level of innovation in the next thirty years makes it increasingly less likely that rule makers will be able to effectively protect the public while harnessing innovation for the benefit of society (Kaal & Vermeulen, 2017). A new approach to policy making must be considered to keep up with the rate of disruption, especially at the dawn of more compliex Artificial Intelligence (AI) capability that can learn, make individual decisions, and act without supervision. The idea of Dynamic Regulation presented by Kaal & Vermeulen (2017) or other similar ideas should be considered, applied, and matured.
Technology and Society
Question: Technology has helped people live longer, but what are the socioeconomic impacts of a prolonged life?
Prolongation of Life
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One of the greatest achievements of twentieth-century medicine in the United States was the raising of life expectancies. While many medical advances have increased the quality of life for older people, many have the opposite effect by prolonging only one aspect of life create an increase in dependency (e.g., dementia). Observations suggest that people can live happy and health lives until their 80s. As people hit their 80s, their capabilities decline and increasingly return to childlike dependency as the age beyond 80 (Fukuyama, 2021).
The Social Security Administration predicts that by 2034, the ratio of works-to-retirees will fall to just 2.1 workers for every 1 retiree. By 2035 older adults 65+ years of age will outnumber children under 18 years of age transitioning the United States from a youth-dependent to an elderly-dependent society. This results in a heavy financial burden on working-age adults needing to support both youth dependents and old-age dependents with a projection of 2 dependents for every 3 working adults by 2020 (Springer, 2023).
With these changing dynamics at home and in the office, prolongation of Life will affect:
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Politics
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Economy
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Workforce
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Household
References
Daub, A. (2020). What Tech Calls Thinking. New York: FSG Originals.
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Fukuyama, F. (2021). The Prolongation of Life. In D.G. Johnson, & J. M. Wetmore, Technology and Society: Building our Sociotechnical Future (pp. 33 - 43). Cambridge: The MIT Press.
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Kall, W.A., & Vermeulen, E.P. (2017). How to Regulate Disruptive Innovation - From Facts to Data. Jurimetrics, 57(2), pp. 169 - 209. Retrieved January 2024, from JSTOR: https://www.jstor.org/stable/26322665.
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Springer, M. L. (2023). Why Don't You Like Me? Unconscious Bias and the Changing Mosaic of our Nation. Niche Pressworks.