We are going through a period of a worldwide economic crisis that was predicted long before it began. But the same forecasts say: the crisis will end someday and the markets will stop fevering. What will become the "locomotive" of the new world economy?
DIGITAL CAPITAL
Futurists trying to imagine the economy of the future agree on one thing: the era of shadow capital and offshore financial transactions is becoming a thing of the past. Banking secrecy becomes an anachronism, cash turnover is steadily decreasing, more and more purchases are made via the Internet, which allows you to instantly link a payment to a specific person or company. Of course, there will always be some loopholes for shady business dealers, but on the whole, control over the movement of funds and resources is acquiring a global scope, going beyond national borders. In parallel, the consolidation of international economic organizations is taking place, which claim to manage the stock, commodity and labor markets.
The transparency of activities in new markets will be ensured by the so-called “digital” economy. For example, at the recent St. Petersburg Economic Forum, representatives of the Russian government stated that building the digital economy is one of the priority tasks of strategic importance. This means, first of all, the transfer of state regulation and interaction between the authorities and business to the level of electronic communications, but much more important is support for the implementation of information technologies in all spheres of life.
What will the digital economy give to ordinary people? Experts assess the prospects for its development in different ways. For example, the financier David Burch, who is considered to be the largest specialist in business services, believes that it will become akin to the Neolithic, that is, the economy of direct commodity exchange. Today we are already actively using various discount and accumulative cards issued by large stores. Points on these cards are not money in the literal sense, but with the next purchases they perform exactly the functions of money. With the growth of the digital economy, the share of settlements in points will also grow, up to the point that the buyer will be able to pay for the goods he needs with his own goods or services. Birch says: “In a world where currencies are going digital, you can fit whatever conditions you want to match your company's values. The company may requirethat her goods were bought only for her own money … Such corporate money could even become a kind of barter deal. Imagine walking into StarBucks and saying, "Hey, I need coffee, and I have paint." StarBucks replies, "OK, we need paint to paint our coffee shops." It sounds crazy if such negotiations are conducted between people. But in this age of artificial intelligence, machines can negotiate in milliseconds. "But in this age of artificial intelligence, machines can negotiate in milliseconds. "But in this age of artificial intelligence, machines can negotiate in milliseconds."
Ultimately, anyone can issue their own “digital currency”. For example, a young student needs to pay for tuition. Today he takes a loan from a bank, but tomorrow he can issue his own tokens, which are both money and shares, and their acquirers will claim part of his income when the student becomes a specialist.
Promotional video:
NINE MARKETS
Analyzing the prospects of the digital economy, the Russian Agency for Strategic Initiatives has identified nine markets that will actively develop in the coming decades: EnergyNet (distributed energy), FoodNet (systems for personal production and delivery of food), SafeNet (personal security systems), HealthNet (personal medicine), AeroNet (unmanned aerial vehicle systems), MariNet (unmanned maritime transport systems), AutoNet (unmanned vehicle systems), FinNet (decentralized financial systems and currencies) and NeuroNet (distributed artificial components of consciousness and psyche).
It can be seen that all these markets are associated primarily with the further expansion of information networks and network management. Hence follows the trend towards the robotization of production and transport, which we are seeing today: if household robots and tourist drones remain toys, then the largest corporations are increasingly investing in the creation of an automated full-cycle production line: from loading raw materials to delivering products to the consumer.
However, a fundamentally new quality will be provided not by robotization, but by markets oriented towards human biology. Their appearance is facilitated by the obvious advances in the field of mechabiotronics, bionics, genomics and neurotechnology. A person will have access not only to medical services that, in a constant monitoring mode, will monitor his health, remotely prevent diseases and prescribe treatment, but also to technologies that will allow him to expand his capabilities through "artificial telepathy", that is, direct control of numerous network devices used in everyday life and at work. Of course, the NeuroNet market is focused primarily on seriously ill people and disabled people, whom it will help to remain full-fledged members of society,but the use of the brain-computer interface can give a lot to ordinary users. There will be new forms of communication, work, education, entertainment, which are difficult for us to imagine today.
At the same time, quantum technologies will be developed that will provide an increase in the speed and security of information channels. At this stage, projects related to artificial intelligence will gain particular importance. Today it is already obvious that the main direction here will be the digitization of consciousness, that is, the creation of specialized copies of the human brain in the network space, which, of course, will not work the same way as the original brain, but can serve as the basis for the formation of "machine intelligence".
SOMETHING FOR FREE
Experts point out that labor markets will inevitably follow the financial and commodity markets. The new economy will abandon the vast majority of blue-collar jobs. The service sector will also noticeably suffer, a significant part of the functions of which will be taken over by networks and neural networks. Only two niches will remain for a person: creative highly skilled labor and low-skilled work in servicing territories. A problem arises: what to do with the army of unemployed mid-level specialists? After all, they not only participate in production at its various stages, but are also the most massive part of the buyers of goods and consumers of services. If they cannot make money (even digital) and spend it for their own pleasure, then how will they ensure economic growth? May be,makes sense to turn them into civil servants? However, bureaucratization reduces competitiveness and again leads to slower growth. Give higher qualifications? But not everyone is capable of retraining.
Probably, at some stage, countries with developed economies will have to admit that part of the population should receive a guaranteed package of necessary goods and services only for the fact that it refuses productive labor. Of course, from the standpoint of classical capitalism, such a step looks like a savagery, but the world has long since moved away from pure capitalist relations towards socialism, and, as we can see, it did not get any worse from this.
However, there is another way that the Russian Agency for Strategic Initiatives offers. Its experts talk about the inevitability of the emergence of a "foresight fleet" - a network technology for organizing labor, which allows in a short time to unite groups of specialists of different qualifications to solve certain problems. In this case, all mid-level workers will become freelancers who can choose their occupation and company to their liking.
Anton Pervushin