By Ben Joseph
There is no shortage of descriptions to understand the ongoing radical technological makeover of Asian society, which is also called the fourth industrial revolution. Algorithmic economy, cognitive economy, communicative economy, data economy, digital economy, frictionless economy, informational economy, and virtual economy, to name but a few, are constantly used.
Swedish audio streaming provider, Spotify, has over 456 million monthly active users, more than the 225.2 million people in cash-strapped Pakistan.
Spotify, which produces personalised playlists by observing the listening habits of its users, has 195 million paying subscribers, much more than the 166.3 million population of Bangladesh which last month reached out to the International Monetary Fund [IMF], seeking economic assistance worth US$4.5 billion [$35.1 billion].
The total earnings of Alphabet, Google’s parent company, were US$41 billion in 2020 while Nepal, which was once compared with bankrupt Sri Lanka, had to manage to feed its entire population of 30 million in the same period with $33.43 billion [$320.25 billion].
What makes Google and other tech majors insanely profitable? Just like Spotify with its non-paying users, Google presents its search commodity for free, which helps the tech giant to sell another profitable commodity—access to its users’ screens and attention—among its advertisers.
Users have to be glued to their gadgets or stay connected so that these corporations can convert vast troves of personal data, surreptitiously extracted, to add to their bottom line
Yes, eyes and attention matter while an algorithmic economy is preaching mechanised perfection for humanity.
If workers were the backbone of the old-fashioned economy, in the digital economy it is the non-productive reinters, due to their network dominance, hold over algorithms and data sets.
Users have to be glued to their gadgets or stay connected so that these corporations can convert vast troves of personal data, surreptitiously extracted, to add to their bottom line.
This is what Pope Francis had in mind when he urged young people to look away from mobile phones to make eye contact with the people and things around them.
“Our eyes are meant to look into the eyes of others. They were not made to look down at a virtual world that we hold in our hands, but to look up to heaven, to God, and to look into the eyes of those who live next to us,” he told young members of Catholic Action on 15 December 2022 at the Vatican.
With their control of data [information], big-ticket tech firms are in a position to reshape the entire physical economy. Amazon and Walmart have sufficient global clout as digital platforms to have eradicated the marketplace. It is via innovation that they accumulate profit. Why else do Alphabet and Amazon pump in tens of billions in R&D?
Our eyes are meant to look into the eyes of others. They were not made to look down at a virtual world that we hold in our hands, but to look up to heaven, to God, and to look into the eyes of those who live next to us
Pope Francis
“In a world that tends to isolate us, divide us, and that pits us against each other … the secret is precisely to take care of others,” the pope said.
The pope was asking the youth to reduce inequality, consume less, and lead less energy-intensive lives.
Hundreds of millions of Asians have currently become reliant on digital platforms like broadband internet networks for their employment, healthcare, education, and social interactions, which are controlled by a small oligopoly of telecommunications and digital corporations.
The digital economy in Asia is extracting wealth on behalf of those at the top, facilitated by governments through e-commerce platforms to control the entire value chain.
These e-commerce firms control not only data on consumption but control data on logistics, production, who needs what, when they need it, what needs to be manufactured and in what quantities, who should produce it, and when it should be transported.
The digital economy in Asia is extracting wealth on behalf of those at the top, facilitated by governments through e-commerce platforms to control the entire value chain.
The Covid-19 pandemic, which originated in Asia, is having a profound and long-lasting influence on otherwise traditional Asian society, its economy, and politics.
Filipinos, who are mainly Catholics, spend an average of nearly 11 hours online per day, which is 60 per cent more than the global average. Next in line among the Asian nations is Malaysia, whose citizens spend more than nine hours a day, with Indonesians and Thais not far behind.
Among the South East Asian nations, Vietnam trails below the global average with Vietnamese people spending an average of six hours and 47 minutes online per day.
Across South East and South Asia, people aged 16 to 24 are leading the pack and spend an average of more than 10 hours daily online, which means close to three full days in a week dedicated to the Internet.
In fact, young women in the region spend even longer online than their male counterparts, as per research data available.
Digitisation has become the growth engine for economies for Asians, especially for younger generations. The Philippines and Malaysia have become the top two nations in the world in e-commerce retail growth, posting 25 per cent and 23 per cent per year growth, respectively.
Asia is now home to nearly 60 per cent of global online retail sales, which will become a US$2 trillion market in the largest and most populated continent by 2025, according to Euromonitor International, a leading independent provider of strategic market research.
From ride-sharing services to exporting online labour, nations like India, Bangladesh, and Pakistan are tapping new opportunities. This is allowing hitherto excluded sections to find new pastures. So, the rush of new users is unusually high.
Asians have moved to social media for their social interactions and the penetration rate is higher in Southeast Asia compared with South Asia. Malaysia leads the pack with the highest social media penetration rate [81 per cent] in Southeast Asia, followed by Singapore [79 per cent], the Philippines [67 per cent] and Indonesia [59 per cent].
In South Asia, India and Bangladesh, with a penetration rate of 29 per cent and 22 per cent, respectively, are the highest-ranking nations.
Asian governments see the radical digital makeover of its citizens as not just desirable, but a necessity. Vietnam has set a target to hike the gross domestic product [GDP] share of the digital economy to 20 per cent by 2025.
Asian governments believe that by creating a robust digital society, people will become happier, can take part in social activities in a more comprehensive way, can enjoy social security policies favourably, and can make them safer and more humane.
If the pope chided neoliberalism, which advocates the digital economy, for its throwaway culture, this time the supreme pontiff has turned his attention to transhumanism and its digital ecosystems, which aims to radically alter human nature with super-intelligence and better emotional wellbeing by means of technological advancement while challenging physical boundaries and organic biological limitations.
To make it happen and to make society more abstract, people have to be placed behind computer screens and cell phones, looking for information [conceived as data]. From Apple and Google to Facebook, giant tech firms with budgets as high as many Asian nations are doing exactly that.
It promises to alleviate afflictions and sufferings and to make humanity stronger, more intelligent, and godlike—an eternal existence of life through the insemination of machine intelligence into human bodies.
The pope knows that this fusion with technology comes with a lot of strings attached. Because to transcend human limitations, humanity has to give up the essence of being human.
As the machine world spreads its wings, it will be hard for humans to be present in their own bodies and lift their eyes to look at others.
Everything is a game on this altar of transcendence, which is a culture that worships youthhood. With a gospel of machine supremacy preaching perfection, the great tragedy will be humanity’s free will, which is a prerequisite to developing a conscience.
Pastoral care in Asia, as Pope Francis says, should help Asians lift up their eyes to see others. It needs to be a balancing act because it is practically impossible to undo or arrest the cyber tech development projecting its pitfalls.
The new mission is Asia also should develop effective ways to fight the sins and crimes developing among the younger generation, making them realize how the new economy makes them its victims and how their productive time, and therefore their future, is sinfully wasted. UCAN
*The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official editorial position of UCAN
