The battle between technology and democracy is intensifying

In 2018, Pavel Durov, the founder of the messaging app Telegram, had dinner with Emmanuel Macron and was later given a French passport for his troubles. Durov should have known that as a French citizen, the state would come after you at some point in your life, so he was arrested in France last week. Durov’s history is full of intrigue, and it’s not immediately obvious what strategy is at play here.

At the same time, it is one of a growing number of stories illustrating what will be one of the biggest trends of the 21st century.^saint century, the tension between the power generated by technology and its impact on democracy. Other examples include disputes between Elon Musk and various governments (UK and Brazil), the difficult passage of California’s AI Bill, and the apparent antitrust investigation by the Department of Justice into Nvidia.

Technology now has an equally large impact on many public debates – for example, on access to mobile phones in schools, the demands data centres place on electricity grids, and TikTok’s role in politics.

Technology is a source of wealth, growth, and power. The historical outperformance of large US tech companies on the stock market is a manifestation of the former, while the ways in which governments that might be called less than democratic governments are seeking a means by which they can use technology (especially social media) to mobilize their citizens is troubling. The post-Arab Spring MENA countries are a case in point, and of course China is a case in point. Democracies at least have better instincts, and most are trying to limit the negative side effects of the power of tech companies and entrepreneurs.

However, many of them find the burden of supervision frustrating.

One of the striking debates I attended over the summer was the Rencontres Economiques, where there was great frustration among many European policymakers with the maxim “America innovates, China replicates, and Europe regulates.” In Europe in particular, there is frustration with the relatively shallow pool of capital available to scale technology companies, but it has to be said that few politicians are willing to do much to help.

Europeans are irritated by the view that their powers are limited to regulation rather than innovation, but I am starting to wonder whether Europe has actually taken the lead, especially with the EU’s Artificial Intelligence Act.

The EU AI Act is still in its infancy and has its flaws, but its strength is that it is based on a broad, clear framework. In the US, by contrast, it is starting to become clear that in the absence of legislation (Senator Chuck Schumer’s AI regulatory initiative is seen as a “roadmap”), efforts to curb the influence of large social media and AI companies on society will be fragmented and, as a result, much less efficient and more costly (it has lost close to $700 billion in value since the Nvidia antitrust investigation was reported).

For example, I suspect there will be many more civil and corporate cases to determine ownership of datasets and access to them for AI engines, as is the case with the dispute between the New York Times and OpenAI.

At the same time, the lack of a regulatory framework to guide the development of AI and social media risks creating tensions between different branches of government. In the US, the Justice Department is targeting a number of social media sites suspected of being influenced by Russia, and an antitrust investigation into Nvidia threatens to undercut the Biden administration’s security-oriented economic policies.

Many of these contradictions and challenges are outlined in an excellent new book called The Tech Coup by Marietje Schaake, which, although written in the US, has a decidedly European tone (the author was an MEP). She argues for a more cautious approach to the mass adoption of new technologies, with specific restrictions on technologies such as spyware, facial recognition systems and cryptocurrencies, and much greater transparency on the use and financing of AI. These are sensible proposals, but probably the exact opposite of what Donald Trump might initiate as a set of policies.

In this way, the tension between democracy and the power of technology will intensify—fueled by at least two factors. The first is the geostrategic importance of technology—especially data-consuming and content-producing technologies (which explains why the US has been so keen to curb the power of China’s TikTok).

The second, which many legal frameworks have great difficulty with, is the arrival of the “tech bros,” wealthy individuals who see themselves as above the law and, in some cases, beyond common decency. While some politicians seem dazzled by these “bros.”

Democratic states should not bend to their will. As a rule, democratic states will survive longer than the magnates.