Technological Revolutions and Social Challenges

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Table of Contents

Introduction
Technological Changes and Their Influence on the Contemporary Legal Principles
In Regards to Wheel’s Position
Conclusions

Introduction

The development of technology and humanity as a species, historically, had always been hand in hand. With the invention of new ways of production, communication, transportation, and medicine, society had to adapt in order to respond not only to the benefits but also to various challenges posed by the invention of new technology. Any kind of revolutionary technology with the potential of significantly altering the existing status quo was traditionally met with a mix of enthusiasm from those who would benefit, versus the rejection of individuals that, for one reason or another, refused to adapt.

Modernity sees the 4th technological revolution up to date, which lies in the area of Internet communication, robotization, and artificial intelligence. The book by Wheeler, titled “From Gutenberg to Google: The History of Our Future,” claims that the latest advances in technology do not provide any societal challenges drastically different from those faced in the past. Indeed, in all previous technological revolutions, the existing legal and societal structure managed to adapt to the changes affiliated with the new reality of communication, transportation, and production. This paper argues that the fourth technological revolution will bring about the elimination of the human component from most industries and set about social changes previously unseen in the history of humankind.

Technological Changes and Their Influence on the Contemporary Legal Principles

Wheeler highlights the invention of several mechanisms that have gradually revolutionized the world into what we know today. These machines include the printing press, the steam engine, the telephone, and the wireless communication/Internet. All of these instruments improved the lives of the people significantly while transforming the legal principles in order to accommodate them. The following sections will explore the influence of technological changes on contemporary legal practices.

The Printing Press

Before the invention of the printing press, the transition and transformation of knowledge was an extremely cumbersome process. Books had to be copied by hand, meaning that the speed of book-writing was very slow, whereas the quality varied from one copier to another. Because of that, all written knowledge was extremely valuable and essentially inaccessible to the majority of the world’s population. Such restrictions were incredibly restraining for the law, as all legal disputes had to be solved using the local code as remembered by those who practiced it. The uniformity of legal practices and procedures was impossible under such circumstances. All of this changed when Johannes Gutenberg invented the first printing press that allowed for relatively quick and uniform copying of all and any texts onto paper, significantly cheapening and increasing the volume of production.

For the legal system, it meant several important changes. The first and the most important one was that now every locality, no matter how big or small, could afford to have a copy of the uniform code of law. Such a development meant that the avenues for interpretation of the law by various rulers and local leaders were significantly minimized, leading to overall stability and effectiveness of legal practice in individual countries. The second influence on the contemporary practices was the enabling of certain individuals to practice as lawyers, by relying on said uniformity of law no matter the location. Although the history of the legal profession dates back from ancient Greece and Rome, it truly became a widely recognized practice only after the invention of the printing press. Lastly, the existence of the printing press created the notion of copyright, as it became possible to print other people’s works and receive money for spreading their ideas.

The Steam Engine

If the invention of the printing press solved the problem regarding the spread of knowledge, the steam engine created a revolution of a different kind – an industrial revolution. Steam engines placed in factories powered up machines that could produce goods more effectively than hundreds of craftsmen. At the same time, when attached to ships or trains, they enabled the quick, easy, and economically efficient movement of goods, people, and materials in bulk. The Luddite movement tried to fight the introduction of new technology by raiding factories and destroying them. Progress, however, could not be stopped, and the economy of Europe and the US benefitted greatly from distances being made shorter.

In terms of legality, however, the steam engine brought about a venue of new challenges. New machines could easily hurt and maim workers, cause accidents, and result in the loss of life and property. These challenges had to be managed on a legal level, in order to ensure appropriate efficiency, safety, and protection for all parties involved. The first ideas of safety regulation and codes of vehicle conduct were developed at that time, in order to ensure that ships and trains travel safely without hitting people and colliding with one another. The standards of quality for the production of such machines were also established. Overall, the legal code added a few important chapters to its already wide list of regulations.

The Telephone

The invention of the telephone launched the first wave of communicational revolution, enabling people to talk to one another while separated by large distances, and conducting certain operations that, beforehand, were impossible to do without sending letters by mail – a traditionally rather slow and cumbersome process. It is interesting to see the invention from a patent perspective, as Bell was famous for registering the invention in the US and becoming the sole monopolist, effectively enforcing it for quite some time, before other models were invented. Such a trend shows that, both in the case of the printing press and with the telephone, the inventors want to be the sole proprietors of the invention, prevent others from replicating it, and potentially monopolizing production. Ultimately, all of these issues fail. In terms of legal and regulatory terms, the widespread use of the telephone resulted in the need for safety regulation, electrical supply, and the privacy of calls. The latter was equated to the privacy of letter communication.

The Internet

The Internet was the second step of the communicational revolution that was started by the telephone and continued by cellphones. It created an entire abstract field, within which people could not only communicate, but also store personal data, provide services and products, conduct trade, and transfer financial resources between the merchant and the buyer. The most critical pieces for contemporary law are the public/private storage of personal data and e-banking practices. The former is dismantling and altering the principles all modern privacy protection laws are based on. Personal assets and communications are protected by law, with the US constitution specifically having the 4th Amendment to ensure that the privacy of individuals is shielded from other people and the government. At the same time, the Internet breaches the gap between public and private space. Companies are openly trading private info in exchange for “free” services. The world’s legal system at large is only starting to adapt to these notions.

The other aspect of legal evolution involved the incorporation of the standards and laws of banking practice for online banking. For the first time in history, trade is being made without money being physically transferred between the provider and the customer. It created a myriad of issues regarding insurance, settlement of disputes, protections, and criminal activity on the Internet. At the same time, the emergence of Bitcoin – a type of cryptocurrency not supported by any individual government or gold reserve. The views of the law regarding bitcoin have not yet consolidated in the majority of the countries, meaning that there are many legal loopholes regarding its use. The last issue related to the Internet and cybernetics, in general, is the development of AI. While at this moment, the technology is not being actively used to generate profit by replacing individuals in critical aspects of labor, the future robotization of the workplace is becoming a reality. When that happens, the legal system will be forced to evolve again, in a direction that it had never considered before.

In Regards to Wheel’s Position

Wheels make a compelling argument that the technological revolution of the 21st century is not, in its essence, any different from the previous revolutions. Indeed, when it comes to the social and legal systems, changes are typically local and non-systematic – when an issue appears, an appropriate chapter in the legal code is created to accommodate it. Copyright, privacy, safety regulations – all of these quintessential parts of any legal systems have been created and integrated into the existing codes of law without too much hassle. It is understandably reasonable to suggest that the new challenges being brought about by the internet, global network, and cybernetics are going to be dealt with in a similar manner.

However, there are serious arguments against such a notion. The primary reasons lie in the inherent nature of robotization and AI development. Previous industrial revolutions have been focused largely on automation and improvement of the quality and quantity of the products. While the role of individual human workers was reduced to that of supervision and maintenance, it was impossible to completely eliminate the human factor for the process – machines could never repair or replicate themselves. The introduction of robotization and AI brings an intellectual revolution to machines, creating the potential of completely self-reliant systems that could perform not only the control and production of goods but also maintenance.

The implications of such motions are enormous – the majority of the world’s population could, in the future, lose their jobs. The mechanisms of capitalism, private property, and the free market, in general, would become null since most people will not have the means of earning money to purchase the goods and services provided by these machines. The legal system would have to be rethought and recreated from the ground-up rather than added and modified like it was during the previous revolutions in production or communication. Wheeler’s arguments are based only on the achievements of the technological revolution so far. Indeed, the new advantages and problems brought by the Internet can be solved by adding to the existing legal code by accommodating the new notions of privacy, establishing the groundwork for e-banking, and so forth. However, the technological revolution is nowhere near the end – it is just beginning.

Therefore, the challenges presented by the newest revolution and anticipated to become prominent in the next 20-30 years are not as mundane and rudimentary as Wheeler believes. The legal principle of private property supported by the monetary exchange system is the cornerstone of our society. In a society where machines owned by a small group of people have the capacity to produce the majority of services and products, most would not be able to participate in legal exchanges, which promises massive social turmoil. It does not require robots to penetrate the job market by more than 20-30% to significantly change the economic outcome for the vast majority of the people. Therefore, the society and the legal system would have to be fully transformed, built upon new notions and cornerstones, with human life having more value than money or property, both in word and in practice.

Conclusions

The invention of the printing press, the telephone, and the Internet caused information revolutions that solved different problems that humanity had while bringing about new onsets of legal challenges that were effectively resolved by the evolution of laws and regulations. The revolutions of the technological kind that increased the production values and the speed of transportation of goods to and from places caused significant social shifts, such as the transformation from the feudal system towards bourgeois republics. At the same time, while the significant changes to societies also caused changes in the legal code, the cornerstones of private property and its protection by the law remained absolute. The monetary systems supported the value of these products. The cybernetic revolution going on right now, however, has the potential to undermine these cornerstones and replace them with something else. Depending on the direction the society takes, it could be a harmonious transformation to a society where individuals no longer need to toil, or a society with great inequalities, perturbations, and violence.

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