III. Digitalisation and Biotechnology:
Chances and Challenges for Future Societies

The innovative power of digital networking and advances in biological science are developing revolutionary impact. This will globally change present forms of work, communication, entertainment, education, business, leisure time, and health. Digitalisation and biotechnology will not only become sources of new value creation, but will also aid in solving current ecological and economic problems. Scenarios for development of both areas call for social means of coming to terms with this upheaval.


Digitalisation

Digitalisation enables the optimising of various technological information systems. It marks the connection of telecommunications with computer and satellite technology, and with consumer electronics. In conjunction with the construction of comprehensive data connections and the development of new storage media, digitalisation enables communication to overcome borders and span the entire world. According to some estimates, by the year 2020 it will be possible for people in all corners of the earth to attain all publicly accessible information and contact any other person, if they so desire. As a result, a global market will arise, a virtual continent so to speak, which will broaden the materialism of the real world with a new dimension. In the next qualitative development phase, quantum and DNA computers will overcome capacity and transmission deficiencies in digital methods by combining molecular and optical technologies.

Digitalisation opens up new concepts and solutions in all data-intense areas, i.e. employment, education, and infrastructure. Thanks to digitalisation, homes will become interactive systems capable of determining the residents' needs via sensors and adapting accordingly. Automobiles, aeroplanes, and railways will become increasingly more intelligent with digital control methods and will be able to steer themselves over long distances via autopilot, seek out the best routes, and offer their own communication possibilities. In medicine 'shrinking' technology will play an increasingly prominent role. Nanorobots may be able to mill through plugged arteries, implanted biochips to monitor oneís health, and minicomputers to partially replace lost senses in the blind and deaf.

The basic framework of a networked and digital world is the internet with its commercial subsystems and the growing number of intranet set-ups in firms and institutions. Furthermore, world-wide communication is developing in leaps and bounds. Since 1959, 3000 communication satellites have been put into orbit. With our multimedia world, the requirements for communication capable of overcoming boundaries in time and space have fully developed. In doing so, digitalisation has considerable impact on the production of goods and services, understanding among people, execution of political power, and lastly on essential organisational aspects of everyday life.

In 1993, only ten million people were internet users. At present, the number is doubling every 100 days. Estimates show that by the end of 2001 nearly 225 million people world wide will use the internet. If one projects this development, then by the year 2010 three billion people will be using the net. While the innovations of radio, telephone, and television required decades to become integrated into society, the internet has asserted itself in only a few years.



Source: Nua Ltd.


With its growing density, the internet is becoming a medium that requires regulation and orientation. Data protection and the guarding of intellectual property require effective international decisions regarding general legal conditions. The distribution of child pornography or political extremist content demonstrates that the freedom of the data network must be regulated by a responsible society.

The internet's freedom undercuts all possibilities for authoritarian political systems to monitor economic, cultural, and political communication. Countries like China or Singapore, where the government is seeking to control internet usage, will test whether open communication promotes social stability or political conflict. At present however, internet use is still quite limited and is therefore less threatening for the authoritarian state. Sooner or later the internet will undoubtedly become a powerful factor that, along with economic modernisation, will influence Chinaís political and social development.


The Development Differential of the Digital Revolution

The transition to a global communication society, the access to information and knowledge will split the international community. There is a gap between the highly developed information societies and the emerging markets on one side, and developing nations on the other. If nothing changes, only a fraction of humankind will profit from the opportunities communication has to offer. To illustrate: there are just as many telephones in Tokyo as in all of sub-Saharan Africa; world-wide, approximately four billion people live more than two hours from the nearest telephone; a mere 0.1% of Africans have internet hook-up; one could provide for an entire family for one year in Bangladesh for the cost of internet access.

Emerging markets like India, Malaysia, or South Korea are becoming high-tech islands, offering competitive information and service products world-wide. The Indian Silicon Valley, Bangalore, as well as the Korean high-tech centre Anmyon, prove that the high-calibre education of many Asian natural and engineering scientists is producing a new group of pioneers and top performers familiar with modern high technology, and who are able to produce innovative products and services. Global digitalisation allows emerging economies to progress without having to pass through all the classical steps of industrial and infrastructural development. With access to specialised literature, media, television, and advanced communication, including world-spanning networks, the ability to use global information, and the opportunities provided by a comprehensive education consequently decide who wins and who loses in the new economy.


Digital Employment and Society

The creation of virtual worlds revolutionises the education systems from elementary school right up the universities. In the next century, humans will be able to speak with computers; a telephone call with a foreigner will probably no longer require an interpreter, thanks to connected artificial intelligence. An interpreting telephone the size of a wristwatch will be able to perform this service.

Subject matters and research results can be communicated globally and connectively without any great loss of time. Mutual adoption of best practices will be made easier. By reducing costs and subsidising access, the disadvantaged can be aided. For those with physically limited mobility, the interactive elements of the internet open up easy access to the world.

Volunteer employment is finding both offers and inquiries in the internet. Civilian society is supported by physical as well as virtual neighbourhoods. The necessary flexibility of the future working world can be enhanced by internet utilisation. The economic, ecological, and social costs of this mobility are sinking. Increases in knowledge and project work, whose raw material is information, can be carried out via the decentralised set-up of networked employment places. The digitalisation of work routines will increase productivity by 20% and in doing so improve the competitiveness of companies. As a result, digitalisation opens up organisation potential corresponding to the needs of a flexible working world, but does not have to stand in the way of individual desires of self-realisation.

Digitalisation restructures future societies according to the intensity of participation and the shaping role of social groups. On the other hand, digitalisation can also contribute to moderating the division lines of globalisation within society, i.e. sectors of society that presently hold a small share in this process, and whose life and working world are particularly regional and locally influenced, will be balanced against the transnational acting elite in the economy, administration, and society. The experiences of global interaction will only open up to this circle indirectly. Politically, the dividing lines could lead to opposition between elitist and populist representation of interests. The digitalisation of civil society and networking over borders and experience scopes can fill at least a gap in experience by opening to the wider world personal and professional circles that had been limited to a local outlook. For example, a plumber whose market was and is local may order spare parts from international suppliers over the internet, or a member of a local citizens' initiative may exchange ideas and experiences with other local activists in distant locations.


Motor of a New Economy

Together with the life sciences and other highly productive digital sectors, the information business is laying the corner-stone of a new economy. Information will take first place among the production factors of the future economy. Concepts, content, and assessment services for the national and international financial, goods, and service markets, as well as consulting firms for companies, offers for continuing education, and the strengthening of individual and social competence are all shifting to the center of the new economy. The world of material goods exists beside that of digital products.

The digitalisation of information urges the integration of once separate industrial sectors. The value-creation chains of telecommunication, media and information technology are growing together in complex relations. The borders between media firms as information providers as well as telecommunication and internet ventures as technical service providers are merging. Large telecommunication or media groups have either founded or bought internet service provider firms, or are in co-operation with online services, through which more and more people enter the internet daily. Using digital technology, television pictures, radio programmes, web pages, and telephone calls can be transmitted within converged formats and be used interactively in increasing amounts.


Ecological Prospects

Digital expansion in the economy is growth without limits. That is to say, without the limits defined to date by energy and raw material consumption. Digitalisation will re-shape economic growth to be more ecologically tolerable, i.e. a decentralised internationally networked information society reduces transport costs and traffic flow, and digital waste does not require disposal sites. Optimising electronic control of production facilities will diminish both the energy input and the pollutant output of industrial manufacturing. In this way, digitalisation will become a pillar of ecological sustainability.

Technological solutions alone, however, are not sufficient guarantees of sustainability. Savings on resource consumption are offset by feedback effects. An increase in resource productivity can create new needs and trigger greater consumption by sinking prices, raising product quality, or creating follow-up products. The original limited use of natural resources is thereby surpassed.


Potential in Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering

Biotechnology and genetic engineering make it possible not only to heal disease, but also to act preventively before an outbreak occurs with an early diagnosis, thus possibly enabling many risks to be eliminated. In fifty years, it will be possible to identify and delay physical wear and tear and life expectancy will rise to over 90 years of age. By the year 2005, the three billion genetic material components will be deciphered, and in 25 years it will be possible to specifically correct the genotype. By the year 2010, cell and tissue cultures are to be used in the production of transplant organs. Donor and receiver can be one and the same, so as to bypass rejection reactions and the moral problems of organ donations. Already at present a specific cloning of animals is emerging, enabling the production of valuable performance animals that could be used to produce vaccines, to name but one example.

Reproduction in this scenario is not a foregone conclusion, and certainly no accident. Over 3,000 test-tube babies are born world-wide each year and their numbers are increasing steadily as a result of ever-increasing parental age. The possibility of genetic engineering via artificial insemination will further change attitudes towards reproduction. This will have distinct consequences:

• The generational change will be delayed even further.
  
  
• Gene analysis and reproductive medicine methods will allow for correction of genetic make-up and force us to redefine the ethical foundations of our future societies.
  
  
• Families will find new forms if people enter relationships for a limited time but have children for the long run.
  

Biotechnology also opens up possibilities for feeding a growing world population. A large part of agriculture is changing over to a capital intensive and research-oriented high-tech sector, as well as an industry in which DNA can be described, patented, and possessed. In 2025, more than 85% of humankind will live in developing nations and in order to guarantee adequate nutrition for all, agricultural production must increase by 75%.

Biotechnology presents itself as a basis for environmentally friendly foodstuff cultivation. The world-wide available space for agriculture is not decisively extendable and the present forms of intense cultivation are, to a great extent, exhausted. On this basis, biotechnology will become the key factor in foodstuff production for a world of 8 billion inhabitants. However, it will only be able to eliminate world hunger in connection with a more effective distribution system.


Socio-political and Medical Justice

Better nutrition, improved medical care, and the prospects of biotechnology and genetic engineering create new general conditions of social policy. Japan, Germany, and Sweden belong to the oldest countries, i.e. the percentage of those older than 60 years of age is over 20%. In China, this group is growing seven times faster than the entire population.

Source: United Nations


The number of elderly compared to young will sharply increase. This shift is caused by sinking birth rates, creating a decreasing number of potential contributors to national welfare systems. Rising life expectancy leads to higher service claims. The average length of time on pension will rise. Pressure to adapt is especially great in countries like Germany and Italy, whose old-age pension systems are financed by current budgets and not capital. If the percentage of elderly is still increasing at current rates in 2025, the old-age pension percentage share of the gross national product will increase and the additional burden will have to be carried by the employed generation in the form of higher contributions or taxes.

An additional problem is access to expensive medical treatment. The development of gene therapeutic procedures and medications results in costs. Although treatment costs can be reduced by using genetic engineering prevention, in the end the advances in technological medicine may consequently cause greater financial strain. This is relevant when considering the concept and type of medical and old-age security systems. Such systems must establish fairness concerning universal distribution and care protection. In addition, a growing senior population causes total social expenditures to rise for treatment of disease and other health care. Unless, of course, one wants to accept restrictions on health welfare for seniors.

New opportunities oppose these possible burdens; life expectancy, health situation, and the upheavals in the work world point towards a longer working life instead of a shorter one. The performance limits that are still predominantly physically defined are being measured anew. The active life span is extending. New medical procedures could prevent long-term disease, heal addictions, and drastically reduce care costs. In total, some costs will rise, but realisable savings have the potential to balance out the increase.


Ethics of Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering

The possibilities of reproductive medicine ask anew the question of the ethics of progress. The key task is to supplement medical or economic decisions to use genetically engineered intervention with ethical criteria. One can not sweepingly condemn all forms of genetic engineering on an ethical basis if they promise to conquer genetic defects endangering human life. The production of insulin with genetic engineering does not create an ethical problem. Furthermore, the use of genetic engineering, similar to digitalisation, allows for more consistent, and with that more sustainable, procedures. For example, by cultivating genetically altered plants the US has already saved using thousands of tonnes of pesticides.

At present, however, we are one not nearly in the position to ignore all the implications of genetic engineering - a control problem in view of the speed of developments in genetic research. The combination of reproductive medicine and human germline engineering seems to be especially problematic for society and is discussed with much controversy. American scientists have already successfully developed a procedure of allowing parents to choose the sex of their child. Children could be made better or fitter than the average. 'People made-to-measure' are a part of a scenario of possibilities which could sharpen future society's conflict potential.

Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4

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