Are our laws keeping pace with the new digital age?

Lola Waczkow, Year 11, Anderson House

Introduction

Over the centuries technology has evolved. Innovation dates back 2 million years ago, from the first inventions of tools made from stone, ranging to the Ancient Greeks of the invention of mathematics, along with the Romans’ underfloor heating systems, to the first steam train being invented and, to the first antibiotic, penicillin. Technology can be seen in many different forms and it is how we as humans have adapted to our surroundings and the reason for which we have revolutionized. Technology has developed over time as we have developed and it has changed the way we think. Innovation has been the major reason for the advancement of humanity, especially in the medical and mechanical industry and it has always been beneficial for society. Technology has always been seen as something good for humanity. However, over the past couple of years technology has developed rapidly to lead to a new digital revolution known as the information age. The information age has led to mechanisation, and therefore the increase of demand in the tertiary and quaternary industry, stated in the Clark-Fisher model, due to the lack of use of human labour in these industries from the advancement of machinery. But most importantly, the information age has led to the construction of technological devices, online companies and social media. These platforms have introduced new concepts; ones that the human race has never dealt with or seen before. Therefore it is the laws duties to make sure these concepts are being regulated strictly and ethically enough.

Ethical Usage of Companies

Online, e-commerce companies have been a major problem for the law to keep pace with due to its rapid and ever-changing new concepts. Multi-million dollar companies expand rapidly and as they do so, laws need to be created or changed in order to compensate for this growth. As a result, these online and ecommerce companies can be hard to regulate. The upcoming constant new changes that occur so often, make laws often irrelevant and legislation needs to be made rapidly to respond to and contain changes. A source from the BBC states that Amazon, an e-commerce giant, “only paid £293 million in tax in the UK while its sales surged 26% to £13.73 billion” . This, therefore, represents how little these online companies, from the large profits being made, give back to the government compared to what they extract and make a profit off of in society. This is largely due to the weak legislation that allows multimillion dollar companies to pay 0% of federal tax. In addition to this, online companies that are founded online are furthermore hard to regulate as to who and where they are held accountable for, for example, which country to whom they owe tax. So how do you regulate these companies? Internet companies should have clear transparency about who their customers are; for example, what are the controls to make sure you do not invest in illegal or terrorist financing. Furthermore, online companies should invest in society more to make the balance fairer between what these companies extract and give back to society, especially in tax rates in which the law should promote.

A key issue here is also in data privacy and data security. The selling of data between companies, specifically customer data, is still permitted. However, it is only allowed if the customers have been informed but customers usually do not realise they are agreeing to such terms as the consent forms are incredibly long and most only read the terms and conditions briefly, if at all, so this subject is very easily missed. Therefore, customers are providing consent to the selling of their data without them being aware. Companies store and keep personal user data to personalize and tailor experiences in order to target specific individuals to keep them attentive and in turn increase the addiction and time consumed on these platforms regardless if this addiction is healthy or not for the user. The company in turn makes

a profit from the increased time consumed by the user from advertisements. However, this can be quite dangerous for users, as their data is being sold without the awareness of where their data is going and the fact that it is even being sold. Users cannot determine the market value of their own data and that their data is being shared and sold multiple times. The user has no control over their data and private details and in turn, their data is being used against them to target a customer's weaknesses. For example, if a user has a gambling problem, if the data being sold involves their gambling addiction, then that user would be targeted by gambling apps and games, especially advertisements for these gambling companies. This is unethical as companies use users’ data to target the users’ potential compulsions that make them more prone to addiction. Effectively, online companies use data to target a user's weakness. Data security is a major issue. Adobe had experienced the largest ever data breach of 152 million records. The idea of sustainability plays a key concept in whether the data that is shared is being used ethically or for the sole purposes of a company and its success of making the user in turn more addicted. To prevent unethical uses, there should be stronger, more relevant legislation to make sure the user is aware they have provided consent for the selling of their data. This could be done by providing a specific consent form just on the usage of data. Furthermore, better legislation should be applied to monitor the usage of data better and that it cannot be used to apply personal experience to a user. Laws are crucial to ensure that data is being used ethically and the user is aware of where and how their data is being shared. In turn, laws should be made more relevant to support the new issues in data security as many regulations are in fact older than the online technology businesses it regulates. A customer should feel secure and have the right to know what happens to their data and how it is being used, to ensure security. Ideally, customer data should not be stored at all. This is key in terms of data privacy and security before further advancing forward into technology.

Addiction

Many of us spend a lot of our time online. The average person spends up to 3 hours and 15minutes a day on their phone. That’s 1186 hours and 15 minutes a year which is 49 full days each year and 3558.75 days in an average lifetime just being spent looking at a tiny square screen. Now, if you told this information to someone, they most likely wouldn't believe you. Why is this? Well, it's the art of technology. The digital era is unlike any era because it does not trigger the user's awareness. As a result, we often do not realise how much time we consume on our phones because it does not trigger the user’s awareness. Instead, it uses our psychology against us to make us more and more addicted. This addiction is what provides a source of profit for the technology companies, specifically social media companies, through advertisement. The longer you spend on your phone the more advertisements are able to be advertised and the more money online companies can make. So as long as these companies are making money this addiction will not stop. This is because this addiction has already been leashed into the world and it is so very hard to control. Even technology companies who solely had good purposes for technology could not control the addiction that came with it. If companies who are the source of technology are not in control, the same goes for the government. Therefore it is up to the law to rouse down the troubles of technology. If 3558.75 days per lifetime is the average person’s amount of time spent on devices, what is the amount of time a highly addictive person spends online? Although consuming a certain amount of time on technology is perfectly fine, it comes to a certain point where spending too much time on your phone per day can actually be damaging for your health. Mobile phones are not conducive to an active lifestyle and they can lead to poor heart health. Devices are a major cause of sleep deprivation and can lead to physical illness, memory loss and impact on learning skills. Not only do mobile phones contribute to bad physical health it also leads to a negative impact on mental health. Many people choose to use their phone to avoid negative emotions or to suppress downcast emotions. Devices are a major cause for the increase of stress and loneliness as interacting through cyberspace and not interacting in real life can cause depression and loneliness especially when withdrawing from technology. Research from MIT discovered that students who were asked to give up their

phone for 24 hours had anxiety and confusion without their phone. This proves just how reliant we have become as humans on these devices, too dependent. In addition to this, devices can be a huge distraction, especially for students or people at work, 67% of teachers have seen students that are distracted by their phone. A study from the Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication found that many young people suffer from withdrawal symptoms; for example, increased blood pressure and heart rate, and can become very irritable and put at unease when separated from their phones. Many people cannot resist the impulse to use their phone. 47% of people have tried to limit their phone use however 30% have succeeded. It is addicting. And the worst part is that most times we pick up our phones we are unaware that we even picked them up in the first place. Unaware of the addiction our phones are causing us. Like an addiction, smartphones lead to unhealthy habits. The google definition of addiction is “the fact or condition of being addicted to a particular substance or activity” . So why are there laws and consequences over drug addiction, alcohol addiction, cigarette addiction and gambling addiction but no laws for technological device addiction if this addiction to a device fits perfectly well into the definition of addiction? Furthermore, all these addictions appear in a book used by psychologists called the diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders apart from smartphone addiction that does not appear even though it contributes to severe mental health issues.It comes to a certain point to ask how ethical and natural this is for society? How will it change in the next decades? The problem is if it will not. It is therefore up to the law and legislation to regulate unhealthy addictions for the betterment of human health both physically and mentally. For instance, the law could create legislation for these online companies of the restrictions of what is being sent to you, ideally less targeted and personalized information that is being tailored to target specific groups of people in order to ‘hook them on’ . This in turn would make device usage less addictive. Furthermore, legislation should also be put in place for a maximum amount of time a person could spend on their phone if not needed for work purposes if they are addicted and spending a very significant amount of time affecting their lifestyle that is regarded as unhealthy.

Using addiction to an online app’s advantage. Lots of apps have been making the majority of their money off not only advertisements but off users buying in-game bundles in a non entirely ethical manner. Many users are addicted to these apps, specifically gaming apps, where people spend a vast majority of their time and money on these virtual apps or games which these apps make money off. In a recent survey, the average American spends $205.15 in gaming. The app developers use physiologists to personalise and target specific people to increase the addictive nature of these apps, for example using personalized experience. For instance, there is a millionaires club on certain game apps where only players who have spent $1million can join. This proves the vast amount spent on these apps and the addiction tools used by game developers to encourage and promote users to spend money. In turn, many users in the game are prone to buying the in-app bundles which are normally quite expensive. A proportion of app revenues should be taxed according to each country that app users are based in. Overall, legislation should be put in place that a proportion of tax revenues should be spent towards gaming addiction programmes.

Artificial Intelligence - AI

A newly developed characteristic of intelligence machinery that imitates human intelligence into working and thinking like human beings. It has been found useful in many advancements in the medical field, helping healthcare workers to understand the day to day patterns and understand the needs of the people they care for better. AI also oversees any similarities in patients' conditions as well as any anomalies to provide predictive analysis and identify patients most at risk of developing a condition which helps prioritise patients and also improves preparation and insight of a potential condition. AI also uses pattern recognition to oversee what type of factors make a condition worse from a stored group of data. Robots have been used in the medical industry for over 30 years and can range from being a laboratory robot to a surgical robot performing highly complex tasks, like aiding a human surgeon or performing a surgery themselves. This can range from performing a gallbladder removal surgery to coronary artery bypass to hip replacement and kidney transplant. AI is a very powerful tool and with the development of

AI, a high majority of tasks in the medical industry can be performed by these robots. However, with the many benefits that come with AI, also comes many risks where law is needed to control and overlook. Thinking into the future. When AI becomes more advanced and machinery starts replacing human labour in the medical field to perform surgeries independently, a set of rules and regulations would be needed to be enforced for people to abide and use this machinery ethically and responsibly. For example, machinery would need health and safety regulations and would need to be tested several times until used in the public to make sure machinery does not malfunction. Laws would also need to be enforced to make sure this machinery is used by professionals in order to make sure that it is being used by the right people and on the right patients.

AI has also been the foundation for autonomous operation and development for autonomous vehicles and the emergence of the possibility of lethal autonomous weapons systems about the concerns of the ethicality of AI and potential malicious use. Restrictions crucially need to be put in place on the use of lethal autonomous weapons with only Belgium pacing legal legislation to prevent the use or development of LAWS. Many autonomous vehicles have been allowed on the road however governments are in the critical and rapid urge of changing their traffic laws and other vehicle-relevant laws to make sure there are laws relevant and apply to the purposes of these autonomous vehicles on the road to make these vehicles ethical. This is critical because there are many risks and deadly consequences following autonomous vehicles on the basis that these selfdriving cars are different to normal, manually driven cars and therefore laws need to be updated in order to be relevant to these new self-driving cars as they are operated much more differently from manually controlled vehicles.

Although AI has its benefits, social media companies have begun using AI to their advantage in a somewhat malicious manner. Many companies have been experimenting and using AI to enhance personalized experience which in turn is dangerous for the user as it targets their weaknesses where learning what they are more prone to be attracted to and consume more of which leads to them spending more time on technological devices. This is not ethical or beneficial for the user and laws should be created to regulate the use of AI on users.

The basis of AI is fueled by data. Facial recognition cameras and computer vision are being used wherever you go, and in turn limits a person's democracy and liberty as citizens have not agreed for their face to be observed and tracked by a person behind a screen. The real issue here is privacy and how AI is being used and who it is being used for and for what purpose. Stronger laws need to be enforced to protect our data privacy to regulate our data and the use of AI to make it isn't being used for unethical purposes and supports privacy law and rights.

Generally, the issue here is that laws for AI can be hard to put into place as it is a newly developed concept and most governments are adopting a ‘wait and see’ approach towards AI regulations. Therefore not many regulations, if any, have been put into place for different areas of AI sectors, for example, there is no regulation on malicious AI with no discussion about the matter either. However, these laws need to be rapidly put into place to make sure AI is being used ethically and efficiently and remains a good purpose. Laws need to be put into place to prevent malicious AI from being used, protect data privacy, reduce the risks of autonomous vehicles and prevent the wrong use of autonomous weapons in order to make sure that AI is used ethically. These laws need to be implemented soon and rapidly in order to prevent any malicious events from occurring. In addition, discussions about putting laws around ethical and responsible use of AI in place need to begin. Regulations and laws need to be put into place, pertaining to the use of, creation or interaction with AI systems.

Supervision

There have been many social media accounts online that do not use technology ethically and in turn, are hard to be identified. Ideally, all online accounts should be identified and regularly supervised and all should be regulated and overlooked before they are officially put online for other people to view to make sure no inappropriate material is being used. If so, the company responsible for holding these online accounts, for example, Instagram, should immediately recognize inappropriate material and take the account down.

There should be stricter laws for online and social media companies that are responsible for hosting these accounts. Additionally, laws on how and what websites are allowed to be put onto the internet should be stricter and the proof that the online company is legitimate should be more secure to make sure it does not support illicit activities and hence websites and online communication and e-commerce businesses should be based on just how laws are like for businesses in real life. Online companies should be more responsible for what accounts are being put onto their apps. There should be stronger laws on regulating activity better to make sure online technology is being used ethically. Overall, ideally, there should be some sort of online police in the form of AI to navigate and supervise the uses of online activity recognized by the law.

Summary

In conclusion, the main idea behind technology is social responsibility and the way it is used ethically. In order for technology to be used ethically, relevant laws have to be implemented to govern and regulate technology. The overall trend of all the areas discussed is that stricter and new legislation needs to be implemented in order to govern online companies, AI ,and addiction due to the fact that many laws are not relevant to the technological era we are in today. However, many governments have adopted a ‘wait and see’ approach to laws and regulations, especially with AI, according to Forbes. Technology can be hard to govern and regulate as new concepts are made that have never been seen before. Therefore it is hard to predict just how this technology will be used and hence the current laws that apply to technology are not relevant and not regularly updated enough to keep pace with the information age. This means that technology potentially is still being used for unethical purposes. When technology is used, it should be used in a way that is not only ethical and beneficial for the company but for the user and society. For example, the use of personalized experience targets a user’s weaknesses in order to make them more addicted. This, therefore, does not seem like the most beneficial, moral and fair use of technology, however, the laws and regulations allow this to occur. In my opinion, although it is hard to keep pace with technology, I believe laws and legislations should be made more relevant and updated more frequently to prohibit the unethical use of technology. The information age expands rapidly, therefore laws have to be updated or changed rapidly too. In conclusion, there is a crisis in the information age and therefore change and justification must be made through the law.