Regulation of Tech Forces-Technological Backlash: The Luddite Perspective

In this chapter, we explore the regulatory environment engendered by recent developments in the tech space. Many people would consider such regulations a Luddite view, putting one’s head in the sand, trying to hold back innovation, and stifling progress. Many people also consider a Luddite to be reactionary, one who is anti-technology, but the real Luddites were highly skilled artisans in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century who destroyed the newly invented Jacquard loom machines that put them out of work. In recent years robots have already displaced many workers in highly paid blue-collar jobs. What will happen to them and now to white-collar jobs in banking, accounting, and financial planning when the job can now be done by AI assistants? Is regulation the answer? Or is it a knee-jerk reaction to a wave change in technology that only delays the inevitable? The emerging areas of Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and Robotics technologies have ramifications and affect our entire society, including labor market disruptions and job replacement effects, the chapter fleshes out the potential threats these developments bring with policy and regulatory insights for a smooth techno-economic landing. The topics in this chapter navigate through the downsides of Artificial Intelligence by focusing on the implementation and operational concerns including ethics, the Black Box problem, dataset and algorithm bias, privacy, safety, security and re-enforcement of malicious user behaviors, job displacement, and economic impacts. Building on these, it further explores the implications of autonomous production models by taking the cases of Autonomous Weapon Systems and Self-Driving Cars.