Funding skew blinds world to ‘hidden bomb’ technologies

Industry’s increasing share of research funding leaves the world vulnerable to “hidden bomb” technologies, according to entrepreneur and researcher Zara Zamani.

The Sweden-based technologist said that while industry-funded research could be extremely impactful, there were significant downsides. “The focus [is] too much on technology and less on the human elements,” she told the THE Campus Live SE Asia event hosted by Universiti Teknologi Petronas.

“[There is] a very big risk in pushing the funding towards industry. Making more money is the priority, rather than making a sustainable environment or society. Where does the funding come from for social studies or…ethical [or] human studies?”

Dr Zamani cited her specialty area of blockchain technology. “I am yet to see a single research [project] that…focuses on the ethical risks of decentralised applications,” she said. “Blockchain…research is very, very young. It’s always driven by industry. And industry wants to make more money.”

Blockchains are tamper-proof digital ledgers housed across computer networks. They enable secure and transparent record-keeping without the need for centralised authorities. They offer huge cost and efficiency savings along with integrity and trust dividends, because transactions cannot be altered without the network’s consent.

But the technology also carries enormous ethical risks. Infiltration of blockchains by hackers could facilitate data theft, covert surveillance, vote-rigging and any number of other criminal activities. Some worry that blockchain could exacerbate inequality by concentrating more wealth in the hands of the technologically literate. There are also concerns about blockchain’s scalability.

Dr Zamani said technologies such as blockchain were “like a hidden bomb. They can revolutionise the world, but they can also destroy the world,” she told Times Higher Education.

“Blockchain…gives control back to people and [the] public, which is a great thing, but also a very dangerous thing. [Navigating] the perfect line of how much control…to let go and how much decentralisation to make happen requires very educated regulators and policymakers, which we don’t have, unfortunately, because the education is very limited. All the research is about applications of this technology in different industries. The ethical…social and governance aspects [are] not being researched because industry is not interested.”

Dr Zamani, who teaches part-time at Halmstad University, said the risks of blockchain went largely unacknowledged even in information technology faculties. Funding to research the topic proved elusive, notwithstanding Scandinavia’s “huge” support for the social sciences.

“Academia doesn’t see the necessity because the funding of [blockchain] research comes from industry. We [need] marketers, engineers, social scientists to sit together and look at the problem from different perspectives – and then find the right funding.”

The risks of artificial intelligence (AI), unlike blockchain, are widely recognised. Dr Zamani said the two were inextricably linked because AI consumed “ridiculously” massive volumes of data.

“If we…think [the] current set-ups of centralised databases are going to manage all of these data, we are very naive. That [will require] decentralised ledger technologies. The more [AI] advances, the more blockchain will advance.”

john.ross@timeshighereducation.com