The end of digital history

Mains Paper: 3 | Science and Technology 
Prelims level: Indigenization of technology
Mains level: Indigenization of technology and developing new technology. Awareness in the fields of IT, Space, Computers, robotics, nanotechnology, biotechnology 

Introduction 

• One of the digital planet’s many pleasures is that it has many distinct mountaintops.
• Different locations have offered different advantages: The US, Europe, China and India. 
• But that era might be coming to an end. 
• We may be en route to digital unipolarity as all the others cede the high ground to China. 
• Chances are, we are witnessing a phenomenon I shall call the end of digital history. 
• If digital history were the process by which we converge towards a technological utopia of algorithmic efficiency, social order and productivity, then we might be approaching this end as well. 
• This time the end-state might be one exemplified by an emerging China.

Analysing the situation 

• The world’s digital topography thus far. 
• The US, of course, is the pinnacle of digital innovation.
• In addition to its free-wheeling spirit, it is abundant in dorm rooms and garages, and college dropouts who abandon the former for the latter. 
• It also has many venture capitalists eager to throw money at a college dropout as long as every other venture capitalist is doing the same. 
• Europe, on the other hand, has always been the place where people have a healthy respect for history: Cathedrals and cobblestones over “smart” streetlights and self-driving cars. 
• The Europeans could be relied on to ensure that we didn’t let all this delirium about innovation overtake an old-fashioned concern for privacy and placing controls on the wanton generation, consolidation and harvesting of data. 
• By making the early move with a data protection framework, Europe had claimed the privacy mountaintop. 
• At the other end of the planet, China has people, and lots of them. 
• With 800 million of its citizens on the internet, the Chinese are wantonly generating, consolidating and harvesting data. 
• In turn, this data is digital fuel for the artificial intelligence machine that will power China’s ride up to its own mountaintop.

From India’s perspective 

• India’s hill climb has always been a more complex one to describe. It has people, poverty and phones resident in a noisy democracy. 
• While its e-commerce potential may be mouthwatering for investors, its true contribution may well be a framework that balances digital empowerment and digital productivity; this is a balance that has proven elusive elsewhere. 
• As the country’s top tech visionary, Nandan Nilekani, has written recently in Foreign Affairs, India’s intent is to give its citizens “technical and legal tools required to take back control of their data”.

The empowerment toolbox components  

• A digital infrastructure designed as a public good; users with ownership of their data; “data fiduciaries” who are consent managers acting in the users’ interest; a “stack”,
• The world’s largest applications programming interface that would allow developers and entrepreneurs, public and private, to build products and services.
• Aadhaar, a foundation enabling efficient verification of each user’s identity. 
• With 1.2 billion people signed up to this biometric identity system, India seemed poised to climb its mountain. 
• The other grand nationwide initiatives, however, the execution fell shy of the vision. 
• The identity database has not proven to be secure and has raised fears of abuse by those in power or exploited for commercial use. 
• It has already failed in several instances, for a host of reasons from technical difficulties to the biometrics being hard to read.

Way forward 

• India is not alone in ceding its digital high ground. 
• China may set new standards in privacy protection as long as you overlook the notion that the state knows everything. 
• Beijing is reportedly reproducing aspects of Europe’s data protection rules, but it is going further by requiring that its citizens’ data be held within China.
• Europe, in the meantime, will focus on compliance and regulation and continue to struggle to re-establish an innovative mindset, one it has lost for two decades. 
• China is laying the groundwork for beating the US at its own game. 
• The US; it produces 4.7 million STEM graduates versus 5,68,000 in the US each year.
• Chinese-origin authors produce anywhere between a quarter to a third of all scientific papers; and, most importantly, it has a government that plans two steps ahead and a president who has a job for life without the annoying disorderliness of democracy. 
• The US, in the meantime, is struggling to deal with its growing angst about its digital companies and their many foibles while its government has all but abandoned investing in innovation for the long term.
• The digital planet’s high points US, Europe, India  are losing ground to China. 
• Unless governments, visionaries and entrepreneurs in each of these locations wake up and smell the coffee.
• A digital planet with a mountaintop in a single location doesn’t seem like a particularly exciting place, especially one that works with clockwork precision under the watchful eyes of a central planner. 
• It would be the end of digital history. Francis Fukuyama, the end-of-history progn

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UPSC Prelims Questions: 

Q.1) With reference to Bitcoins, consider the following statements:
1. The value of the Bitcoins is based on a basket of currencies.
2. In India, only the entities approved by the Reserve Bank of India can transact in Bitcoins.
Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
(a) 1 only
(b) 2 only
(c) Both 1 and 2
(d) Neither 1 nor 2
Answer: D

UPSC Mains Questions:
Q.1)  Increasing protectionism in the West and the rise of new digital technologies pose challenges and opportunities for India’s IT services industry. How should India weather these challenges? Examine.