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There is a point where the rate of innovation is too fast for society to integrate and utilize its benefits — leading to systemic disruption and concentration of wealth among the very few.
This is known as the rate of change vs. adaptation capacity, which highlights how advancements can outstrip systems, institutions, and social structures.
Innovation policies in the US have long failed to address the age of acceleration (aka the Anthropocene). Even industry itself is failing to keep pace with innovation, and their own theories are outdated. Moore’s Law of semiconductors for instance has been obsolete since 2016 because of simple physics — with no new construct in place.
While innovation has led to advancements, the increased pace in 2024 has exceeded our ability to adapt, transforming this process into a liability rather than an asset for society.
The inability to manage innovation has had dire consequences: Infective regulations and inadequate policies have created widespread infrastructure crashes — directly leading to job displacement, increased inequity, industry destabilization, economic uncertainty, and a collapse of institutional confidence.
This erosion of trust in institutions (e.g. federal agencies, law enforcement, corporate business, as well as the entire industries of finance and media) has destabilized society both economically and socially.
This also explains why almost 30 percent of the GOP (some 29 million US citizens) now believe that, if they lose, violently overthrowing the results of a legal presidential election is actually a justified option.
It is essential to acknowledge that our failure to properly guide innovation has significantly undermined the infrastructure functions of society, the government, and even the economy. And that as a democracy, we are especially vulnerable to the social disruption caused by rapid unregulated innovation.
Since 1942 when Joseph Schumpeter coined the term “creative destruction,” market economists and businessmen have myopically proclaimed as fact that unfettered innovation is a predominantly positive force that makes democracy stronger because it drives economic growth by replacing outdated industries and technologies with new ones. However all the historical data since World War II shows a totally different reality.
Since the 1950s, unmanaged innovation has actually expanded the gap between its beneficiaries and the majority of the population. It has directly created profound instability, enormous job losses, massive irreversible environmental damage, and it facilitated the largest wealth gap in human history.
According to statistical evidence, the benefits of innovation have never been evenly distributed in society and, since 1980, all the economic data shows it has only served an increasingly smaller percent of the population:
- Globalization/Outsourcing (1980s-1990s): wealth concentration via employee displacement.
- Technology Boom (1990s-2000s): wealth concentration via digital technology.
- Financialization (1980s-Present): immense wealth concentration via short-term shareholder value and a 20 percent decline in the middle class.
- Automation and AI (2000s-Present): further wealth concentration via automated productivity.
In 2024 the top 10 percent of US households now own 67 percent of the nation’s wealth, a significant increase from the 45 percent they held in 1970.
Some consequential and even existential issues that need to be addressed in any stewardship of this matter besides the above concerns are: innovational interoperability, when these processes digitally integrate with each other, and the possibility of creating a technological singularity, a digital consciousness.
Addressing all these challenges requires a complete reevaluation of innovation policies and a deeper understanding of the standoff of progress: stability, growth, and sustainability.
Innovation has ruled society since well before World War II and yet there has never been a federal agency exclusively for administering this all-encompassing sector. It is past time for a Cabinet-level innovation position in the US government which is different from the permanent CTO (chief technology officer) that Obama created.
A Cabinet-level position for innovation would focus on overarching policy and strategy at the national level, coordinating efforts across various sectors, and addressing the broader societal implications of innovation. In contrast, the CTO is more tactical, ensuring that the administration is effectively leveraging technology for its goals.
America Needs a Cabinet-Level ‘Secretary of Digital’
The author writes, “As China fills the gap left by the collapsed Soviet Union and rises as a great power, America needs a holistic approach to combat the many threats posed by emerging technologies like artificial intelligence and powerful semiconductor chips. One place to start is by creating a formal Cabinet position with an expert charged solely with guiding America’s tech policy into the 21st century and beyond.”
The Tech Coup: A New Book Shows How the Unchecked Power of Companies Is Destabilizing Governance
From Stanford University’s Institute for Human-Centered AI: “In The Tech Coup: How to Save Democracy from Silicon Valley, Marietje Schaake, a Stanford HAI Policy Fellow, reveals how tech companies are encroaching on governmental roles, posing a threat to the democratic rule of law.”
Why the United States Needs a National Advanced Industry and Technology Agency
From the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation: “With the rise of China, the U.S. economic and technology environment has fundamentally and inexorably changed. The most important step Congress and the Biden administration can take to meet the challenge is to create a dedicated national advanced industry and technology agency.”
We Need a US Secretary of Technology
The author writes, “We are living in a world where technology is inextricably tied to our identities, relationships and jobs — our very way of life. The ubiquity of cutting edge technologies has accelerated over the past decade and has become more integral to everything we do. Too often it feels as though the US government dramatically lags in understanding and adopting cutting edge technologies as well as crafting policy measures that take into account our current future technological world. Or, to put it more bluntly, the ‘gap’ between technology and the Executive Branch has eroded to a chasm.”
Three Priorities to Keep America’s Innovative Edge
From the US Chamber of Commerce: “In the U.S., government is no longer driving innovation priorities through R&D funding. Today, underpinned by a world-leading intellectual property system, many breakthroughs are instead driven by the private sector. And although the private sector’s share of R&D spending has nearly doubled since 1965, it is not a substitute for a robust basic and fundamental research ecosystem in the United States to effectively compete on the world stage. Congress must pass a balanced and bipartisan innovation and competition package this year to advance three imperatives.”
White House Cyber Czar Launches New Hiring Sprint
The author writes, “The White House’s Office of the National Cyber Director announced a new hiring sprint for the nearly half a million cyber jobs across the United States [in September]. The effort, dubbed Service to America, will last through October. ONCD is collaborating with the Office of Management and Budget and Office of Personnel Management on the sprint. ‘Throughout our history, generation after generation of Americans have stepped up to meet the challenges of their day, protecting and serving our nation in a variety of ways,’ Harry Coker, national cyber director, wrote in a blog. ‘Today, we face a new challenge and with it a new opportunity to serve: defending cyberspace.’”
DHS Innovation, Research & Development Strategic Plan
From the Department of Homeland Security: “This first-of-its-kind Strategic Plan identifies ways to coordinate IRD investments to maximize impacts across our components and missions. Carefully built through data collection and analysis, and crafted with stakeholders from across the Department, the Plan brings focus to our IRD portfolios by highlighting eight key, cross-cutting Strategic Priority Research Areas (SPRAs) that the Department will foster over the next seven fiscal years.”
TIP Roadmap 2024
From the Directorate for Technology, Innovation and Partnerships: “Today, global competitiveness hinges on a nation’s ability to harness the power of technology. Congress recognized this driver in the ‘CHIPS and Science Act of 2022,’ in which it established within the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) the Directorate for Technology, Innovation and Partnerships (TIP) to ‘advance research and development, technology development, and related solutions to address United States societal, national, and geostrategic challenges, for the benefit of all Americans.’ As part of that law, Congress charged the Director with producing a written report laying out the TIP directorate’s strategic vision that will guide its initial investment decisions; how it will increase funding for research and education for populations and geographic areas underrepresented in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics; and how the directorate will protect federally funded science and technology. This inaugural TIP Roadmap does just that.”
Information Technology Strategic Plan, Fiscal Year 2024-2026
From the US State Department: “Recently, the Department adopted a modern approach to IT to empower users to meet our mission. We have already begun to employ agile development methods, deploy cloud technologies, strengthen our cybersecurity, and use data in strategic decisionmaking. We have responded to the changing needs of our workforce by providing reliable and secure remote access to enterprise data, systems, and equipment, in addition to equipping users with advanced collaboration tools. But there is still more work to do. To build on the great work we have already accomplished, I am pleased to share the Department of State’s Information Technology Strategic Plan (ITSP) for Fiscal Years 2024-2026. The ITSP focuses on driving innovation with four goals.”
Eroding Trust in Government: What Games, Surveys, and Scenarios Reveal about Alternative Cyber Futures
The author writes, “Distrust in government will be further compounded as citizens struggle to understand cybersecurity strategy and the funding levels required to protect critical infrastructure. Governments will continue to face challenges in educating the public about evolving cyber threats and balancing the ways and means required to protect the ability to provide public goods online.”
