The Brookings Institute is a large and influential DC public policy think tank. They recently released a report with their 2019 Trends to Watch.
The report is targeted at government policy makers and lists the issues Brookings experts "expect will shape the world this year and the solutions to address them."
Although targeted at policy makers, many of the trends are on technology, trade and other issues related to business.
And one trend and related analysis really jumped out at us.
The trend is Emerging Technologies and the trend description is written by John R. Allen, who is the president of Brookings. The trend is listed first in the Biggest Policy Trends in 2019 section of the report.
Here's what Allen said about emerging technologies:
Emerging and new technologies—to include artificial intelligence, supercomputing, biotechnology, and many more—represent some of the greatest policy opportunities and challenges of 2019 and will, in no uncertain terms, define the remainder of the 21st century. Unlike anything that has come before, these technologies represent a true revolution in human affairs and will redefine our current understanding of society, governance, and even the human condition.
Unfortunately, I fear liberal democracies are too slow to adapt, and are not currently equipped to grapple with the implications of these technologies. Meanwhile, near-peer and other illiberal competitors like Russia and China are already pursuing them with little regard for the ethical, legal, and societal implications they will introduce. In an environment of truly breathtaking technological advances, perhaps the greatest policy issue of our generation will be how the principled, values-based community of nations embraces technology for the benefit of humankind, making this a major priority in 2019.
This is a scary assessment.
And unfortunately we agree. In our work we regularly see examples of how our policy makers and government agencies can't keep up with the speed of technological change.
We don't have any answers to this problem. But we think Allen is correct that this should be a major priority in 2019.
See the report for the other trends.
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