Trump’s win not only reminds Europe that it must be able to stand on its own feet in digital tech. It also illustrates the collateral damage unguided digitalisation can do to societies, writes Daniel Mügge.
Daniel Mügge is a professor of political arithmetic at the political science department of the University of Amsterdam.
Trump’s win is a wake-up call for EU politicians to steer digital tech forcefully so that it strengthens democracy, citizen and economic security, societal cohesion, and human flourishing – the opposite of what we have witnessed in the US. Just chasing US tech prowess in a ‘competitiveness race’ will do more damage than good.
For years now, Europe has suffered from a kind of digital Fear of Missing Out (FOMO). The innovative US dynamically powers into the digital age, so the idea goes, while an ossified and prevaricating Europe withers in the ruins of bygone industrial glory. The Draghi Report holds up America as the shining example to follow.
But take a sober look at Trump’s country, and you arrive at a rather different conclusion. Beyond GDP statistics, where the US leads, there are sundry ways in which the country is not enviable at all. Public health is abysmal, polarisation is extreme, inequality is sky-high, working conditions (job security, hours worked, etc.) are systematically tough, and sustainability remains out of reach.
These ills are not direct results of digitalisation gone wrong. But think them through one by one, and the way in which tech has been developed and rolled out has made each of them worse.
The perils of digitalisation
Mounting scientific evidence shows how addictive social media has damaged young people’s mental health. It feeds feelings of inadequacy and depression, but also frustration and anger – emotions that Trump has been able to tap into, not least among young men.
Digital communication channels have been stuffed with misinformation and disinformation that no army of fact-checkers could possibly counter. In the meantime, big platforms slashed their content moderation teams – a trend that will only continue under the next administration.
If many people ask themselves how such a vitriolic and serially lying candidate could still win, unrestrained digital communication channels are clearly part of the answer.
In the meantime, economic worries were top issues for US voters, next to immigration. Again, digital tech is not the only culprit. But just about any economist these days sees digital automation, boosted by AI, as a potential job killer and driver of inequality. At the bottom end of the labour market, digital platforms have spread precarity through the so-called gig economy, which sees workers living from hand to mouth.
And if that was not enough, where interaction with screens and algorithms has replaced genuine human contact in our working days, it has contributed to anomy and alienation – ingredients for that ‘unease’ in the belly that breeds a sense of ‘things moving in the wrong direction,’ and needing drastic change.
At the other end of the wealth distribution, unleashed tech creates phenomenal riches for some, who then get to play an outsized role in politics where election rules allow that. Elon Musk’s cash cows go beyond digital tech only, especially with Tesla.
But he does stand for an unsavoury mix of extreme affluence and direct meddling in politics, both through his money and through more than 200 million followers on his own platform. In any other country, he would be decried as a dangerous tech oligarch.
The US is the prime example of rapid digitalisation led by profit-oriented companies. Despite all the conveniences digital technologies offer, the country has paid a dear price through digitalisation’s deleterious side effects. Many of them have fed directly into Wednesday’s (6 November) election result.
Europe’s path
If Europe wants digitalisation to bring genuine societal progress, the lodestar should not be a competitive race with the US. Take in the whole picture, and it is far from obvious that the American model of digitalisation is worth emulating.
Genuinely innovative digitalisation is not just that which earns the most money, the most quickly. It is bringing tech into the world so that it becomes a better place, which makes us happier people, brings us together, frees up time to do meaningful things, and heals the planet. Right now, that is not the direction of travel.
In the coming years, the Commission and entities like the AI Office will put flesh on the bones of EU digital legislation. Many of these regulations are dynamic: they leave space for fine-tuning and adaptation as we accumulate experience with tech, its goods and bads, and what works and what does not.
As we speak, several working groups draft the Codes of Practice for powerful AI models. There still is a lot of room for manoeuvre, and it should be used well.
The new Commission, once properly installed, should read Trump’s win as a cautionary tale in digital tech. It should also use its mandate across digital files to insert public preferences into the tech landscape even more forcefully than it has done in the past few years. No one can seriously want a digitalisation catch-up hoping to bring us, if we succeed, to where the US is right now.
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