Korea should not import the West’s “techlash”.

Author: Robert D. Atkinson

Technological innovation and manufacturing are the most important factors determining Korea’s economic future. Only technology can provide the necessary growth, productivity and scale to enable the Korean economy to compete with the rest of the world, especially China.

The recipe for innovation is not a secret. History has shown that the key ingredients are: scientific and engineering research, STEM skills and entrepreneurship, effective mass education, modern infrastructure, and the success of technology companies of all sizes, including large, dominant ones. Innovation also requires intelligent, supportive government policies that place accelerating the pace of progress at the heart of economic thinking.

However, both innovation and innovation policy must be built on a foundation of aspiration and optimism. If society sees innovation as a necessary force for good, there will be more innovation and better innovation policy. However, if the dominant narrative is that technology is getting out of control and causing harm, harmful policies and less innovation will be introduced. The United States, Europe and the Commonwealth of Nations countries (e.g. the West) find themselves in the latter situation today. Technology, especially digital technology and the corporations that produce it, are often viewed as inherently suspect and problematic. Like Gulliver, they are giants who need to be tied down, not necessary pillars of an advanced technological society.

This approach reduces both enthusiasm for innovation and the government efforts needed to stimulate it. Although Korea is allied with the West, it also competes with Western economies. And greater techlash in these places compared to Korea will make it easier for Korea to gain global market share in technology industries, provided Korea does not continue down the Western path of techlash.

Too often, the West has shifted its focus from delivering the wonders of technology to preventing “harmful” change. This attitude has led to technology bans, counterproductive taxes, overly stringent regulations, excessive approval cycles, and a general fear of the future. Technology, once widely seen as the savior of humanity, is increasingly seen as an oppressor. Athena’s knowledge is treated more like the curse of Eris, the goddess of discord.

These overly negative attitudes are causing the West to increasingly retreat from the future, at the risk of ceding important areas of innovation to its global rivals. While Chinese leader Xi Jinping proclaims: “The Internet age will promote the development of human life, production and productivity,” US President Biden, reflecting the view of many Western leaders, recently wrote regarding artificial intelligence: “We must make it clear: vigilant and vigilant against threats ” If such fear-based narratives are not discarded and replaced with the hopeful narratives that have allowed the West to become the most developed region in the world, the West can expect a slower pace of progress and an eventual loss of global leadership.

Such a loss threatens to transform the West into a different place: fearful, static, and increasingly angry. In this sense, technological pessimism and opposition are like dry rot destroying the foundations of the West. It is now most advanced in Europe, but has also spread widely throughout the United States and Commonwealth countries. The West must cleanse itself of the rot and return to its optimistic, dynamic and respectful technological roots.

What keeps this narrative and worldview alive and powerful is a set of techno-economic myths that are now widely perceived as truth. These techno-mythologies are deeply ingrained in popular consciousness, constantly repeated by pro-tech groups, elites and the mainstream media, which often use scaremongering to attract “eyeballs”.

We hear them regularly: AI will destroy jobs, technology is destroying privacy, social media is causing political polarization, productivity is no longer helping the average worker, the pace of technological change is too fast, profits are too high, digital technologies are addictive, AI is inherently biased and of course artificial intelligence will become sentient and destroy humanity. In Technology Fears and Capgoats: 40 Myths About Privacy, Jobs, AI and Today’s Innovation Economy, my co-author and I analyze 40 major myths about technology and technology companies and find that they are all either wrong or greatly exaggerated.

Korea fortunately lags behind the West in terms of techlash “thinking” and the adoption of the myths that support it, but it is by no means immune to this corrosive force. Korea saw this in the Luddite-inspired backlash against ride-sharing apps. Korean civil society groups have advocated for the Korean legislature to adopt EU-style AI regulations, which would certainly slow down AI innovation in Korea. Similarly, groups have called for a ban on facial recognition technology.

This is not to say that tech companies and their innovations are a panacea and that regulators have no problems or role. Many of the promises of the information age, such as the transformation of health care, education and transportation, have yet to be fulfilled, so criticism of the shortcomings of technology companies and business practices is sometimes warranted. But when critics are so blinded by hostility that they exaggerate flaws and ignore the many things these companies do right, their criticism ceases to be part of productive debate and takes on the nature of an angry mob.

Both the West and Korea need a more positive and balanced perspective that does not make technology the source of today’s social problems. More broadly, the West must rediscover, and Korea must not abandon, its deep-seated optimism about technology, progress and the future. Because if the West and Korea stray too far from their roots, global technological leadership will more easily shift to China, a country where technology is welcomed rather than feared.

Dr. Robert D. Atkinson (@RobAtkinsonITIF) is president of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF), an independent, nonpartisan research and education institute focused on the intersection of technology innovation and public policy. The views expressed in the above article are those of the author and do not reflect the editorial guidelines of The Korea Times.