The Fourth Industrial Revolution has created complexity in the international power model of state sovereignty.
This article is part of the series — Raisina Files 2021.
State sovereignty has been a foundational pillar of international law dating back to the Peace of Westphalia in 1648. It has played a critical role in the rules-based order the world has come to operate under and determines how nation-states interact with each other in times of peace or in conflict. Our modern understanding of state sovereignty can be traced back to the Charter of the United Nations (UN) from 1945, which stated: “nothing <...> shall authorise the United Nations to intervene in matters which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any state.”
Over the first two decades of the twenty-first century, state sovereignty in the digital space has been shared with technology companies as they maintain digital sovereignty in their platforms across borders by providing critical digital infrastructure to citizens and businesses. Additionally, the non-state portion of digital sovereignty, where technology companies arbitrate the rules, requires a reimagined and more nuanced revision of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Nation-states retain their sovereign authority to legislate and conduct statecraft in the interest of their citizenry. However, this authority needs to be wielded with more urgency and in a co-creative manner involving the sovereign state, its citizens and technology companies. Sovereign states can work with technology companies to shape a stable future with equity for all by:
• Building equitable, transparent and accountable smart infrastructure; and
• Mitigating and managing technological unemployment and industry disruption
The traditional legislation format (complex bureaucratic processes and lengthy deliberations) is not suitable for the pace with which technologies rapidly reach critical mass and transform industries. The traditional understanding of “foreign” or “state” affairs as one that involves other nation-states is outdated when big technology companies like Microsoft, Facebook and Google serve billions of people.
When social media services can de-platform a democratically elected sitting leader without consulting elected representatives
In this de facto shared digital sovereignty space, nation-states must revisit what statecraft — particularly non-state statecraft — should look like in what is expected to be a decade of the most accelerated growth in human history, and one that will have implications for centuries to come.
Many of the most successful and prominent cities owe a large degree of their success to the infrastructure that was naturally available to mobilise people, goods and services. Coastal cities flourished quicker, and the trade of goods, ideas and tools accelerated their advancement. Urban spaces with the ability to develop physical infrastructure thrived amid the previous industrial revolutions. The Fourth Industrial Revolution, on the other hand, is dependent on digital infrastructure. The digital revolution builds on existing internet infrastructure and will realise its potential with the convergence of several technologies — artificial intelligence (AI), sensors, internet of things (IoT), bioinformatics, robotics and quantum computing. The competitive advantage lies in harnessing digital infrastructure to create value at scale, more efficiently and at lower costs. However, unlike previous industrial revolutions that were grounded in physical reality and space, the digital revolution is, for the most part, ubiquitous and in the cloud, operating on proprietary corporate algorithms and software. Big Tech companies such as Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Apple and social media giants have created digital infrastructure that has become a public utility and a corporate necessity. As such, they have become sovereigns of a large part of digital territory operating across state borders. The sovereignty over digital territory by private companies will only expand as smart infrastructure becomes prevalent in smart cities, smart ports and smart agriculture.
Nation-states have the sovereign authority to create and uphold legislation to ensure that users’ privacy and rights are respected and that digital infrastructure is designed with incentives that benefit society at large and encourage individual growth at all stages of life and opportunities for small business to flourish. For the Fourth Industrial Revolution to create opportunity and equity for all, governments must proactively co-create that future with Big Tech. There are three ways this can be done:
i. Financing the infrastructure of tomorrow: The infrastructure of the future must be built today. Our present-day economies benefit from the infrastructure that was built by previous generations who bore the costs. In her special address to the World Economic Forum (WEF) Davos Agenda Week, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said that “public funding alone will not be enough”
The COVID-19 pandemic has strained economies around the world and governments have had to spend money for relief and support to citizens and small businesses and for vaccines, all large previously unanticipated expenses. In the meantime, many large technology companies have seen tremendous growth in revenue, valuations and demand for their services and products. Public funding alone will not be enough to posture the infrastructure against climate risk, nor will it be enough to build all the smart infrastructure needed for societies to reap the benefits of the advancements of technologies. Smart hospitals, smart grids, smart ports, electric vehicle charging stations, upgraded public transportation are some of the infrastructures that are needed. The private sector, particularly Big Tech, should subsidise the costs to build this infrastructure with government oversight. Just as the government acquires revenue from people’s taxes, Big Tech acquires (a significant portion of) revenue from people’s data. Part of that revenue should contribute to infrastructure-wide advancement. Governments can develop a tax programme with Big Tech to utilise tech tax revenue for the modernisation of public infrastructure.
ii. Provide legal and legislative frameworks to protect against technological violations of human rights: The Universal Declaration of Human Rights needs to be collectively reimagined in the digital age where it is impossible to engage meaningfully and gainfully in society while opting out of algorithms and smart infrastructure. Governments need to step in and work with the firms providing this infrastructure and building these algorithms to ensure that they do not invertedly exclude segments of the population or marginalise small businesses. More importantly, governments need to leverage their sovereignty into the digital space. Discussing free speech, Big Tech regulation and the role of government, Google CEO Sundar Pichai said: “There are boundaries that as a society we need to agree on.… it is important for governments to debate this and give clear guidance. The answers are going to vary. There is no one size fits all. But I think we need clear rules of the road. There are a variety of approaches governments are looking at. Ensuring that policies are transparent, positions are explained, people have a way to appeal those decisions and overall companies issuing transparency reports. Like we have done with privacy and GDPR
iii. Aggressively work with industry to minimise, mitigate and stop cyberattacks: The digitisation of infrastructure creates a larger threat potential for cyberattacks, meaning more vulnerabilities and more attacks that in turn will further threaten critical infrastructure and the ability to provide services. In his reflection on the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, Yuval Harari astutely pointed out that humans have never been more powerful against pathogens.
Through the process of exponential growth (in what Singularity University Executive Founder and Director Peter Diamandis describes as the “Six Ds of Exponentials”
These types of first-order disruptions will be accelerated by technologies that automate parts of the value chain previously served by human expertise. For the most part, information technologies and robotics replaced or augmented “routine middle-skilled jobs such as machine operation, construction work or administrative work, they have also led to an increase in complementary, non-routine high-skilled jobs (such as managers and professionals) and in low-skilled jobs (like agriculture, cleaning and personal care services).”
According to the UN, “the global population of 65 and over is growing faster than all other age groups.”
In his special address at the WEF, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi emphasised humanity’s role amid technological advancement. He said, “The Corona crisis has reminded us again about humanity as a value. We have to remember that Industry 4.0 is not about robots but about human beings. We have to ensure that technology becomes a tool for ease of living and not some kind of trap. For this the entire world needs to act together, we all have to act together.”
Ultimately, society and governments, together with big technology companies and other industries, need to collectively reimagine what work is — the amount of time that is spent doing it, its connection to an individual’s identity and what fair compensation is. This requires an honest appraisal of changing times and the courage to think about imaginative solutions. Failure to do so and operate under the previous century’s paradigm will stifle progress for decades to come.
The Fourth Industrial Revolution has created complexity in the international power model of state sovereignty. The tension that exists is because the pre-digital revolution power asymmetry between Big Tech and the nation-state is decreasing. The companies who own the digital platforms used by billions of people regulate those spaces with their ‘terms of service.’ For instance, Google and Apple command 100 percent of the smartphone market with their Android or iOS operating systems, and can thus decide what apps are allowed and what apps violate their corporate terms of service. Anti-trust investigations are underway in the US to assess the app monopolies and identify equitable regulatory measures.
These examples tell a story of countries that are coming to terms with digital and technological value propositions and their nuanced needs for regulation. But there are many other complex issues currently (such as freedom of speech, algorithmic prominence and digital marketplace monopolies) and those that lie ahead (such as who gets access and how to life-saving medical algorithms derived from data from wearable devices or who owns digital clones).
This tension between technological human rights, marketplace equity and digital monopolies is more present in public debate now than ever before. While there have been some successes in governments championing the rights of their citizens, it is the tip of the iceberg of the regulatory challenges and needs ahead as social justice movements continue to gain momentum and economies struggle with increasing inequality and economic opportunity post-COVID-19.
As nations assert their sovereignty in the digital space, it is important to appreciate the current environment where the digital territory has been conquered and some corporate services such as Google Search, Google Maps, Facebook and Amazon have become forms of a public utility at various levels for different segments of society, challenging the sovereign. Nation-states have a place to reassert themselves. However, they must understand how the statecraft playbook is changing and how traditional forms of state power projection are not the best or most effective approach in this international digital ecosystem that operates ubiquitously across borders.
Speaking on rapid technological change and government regulation, Singapore Senior Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam advocates for a hybrid synergy approach. Using the example of digital currency, he said:
“
Statecraft is defined as the skill of governing a country
For nation-states to help their citizens reap the Fourth Industrial Revolution’s benefits and assist the national industrial base through disruption and technological change, they must step up as sovereigns to support and facilitate the co-development and co-creation of the future with its citizens and industry, including Big Tech. This must be done in a way where governments ensure safety and equity for all and uphold human rights inside and out of the digital spaces we inhabit.
Oxford Reference, “Westphalian state system,” Oxford Reference.
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