Digitalization: potential risks for civil society

Abstract

Transition to the digital economy involves the restructuring of industries, transport and agriculture and gives new opportunities for work with Big Data and optimization the processes in the economy via smart environments, cryptocurrencies and hybrid forms of interaction between human beings and artificial intelligence. Such global transformations could not but cause a massive change in both consciousness at the socio-anthropological level and traditional forms of management at the civilizational level. Speaking about the civil society in the era of digitalization, it should be understood that this is, first of all, a network society, and without understanding this type of society it is pointless to talk about new forms of civil society. The network society was considered a well-studied object of research by the early 2000s, however today the radical acceleration of ICT and other processes are connected with digital information-network revolution involving artificial intelligence, the possibility of which was not even thought about 20 years ago. Therefore, the main purpose of our paper is an attempt to conceptualize potential risks for civil society connected with the development, testing and implementation of digital services and technologies in the global economy. To achieve this, we used system and synergistic philosophical and methodological approaches developed by the modern post-non-classical science and applied for self-developing systems. To reveal the global trends in the economy and related social problems, we undertook comparative and interdisciplinary analyses based on sources available. Sociological, philosophical and methodological reflections about radical changes in the anthropotechnosphere during the COVID-19 pandemic have revealed a number of serious problems that threaten the well-being of civil society, such as the aggravation of economic inequality, the collapse of many small businesses due to the quarantine and the introduction of remote forms of work, mass layoffs of qualified specialists, job cuts including the area of intellectual work, transport and service, as well as a significant decrease in the income of the population, decline in the quality of education, a sharp reduction in tourist flows, the ban on mass demonstrations and gatherings, which is an integral basis of the life of civil society. Thus, during the period of pandemic lockdowns, there is a significant change in the economic and socio-cultural environment of modern civilization. At the same time, the crisis situation provides means not only for the development of civil society, but also for the maintenance of enforcing and regulating functions of the state, which can upset the harmonious balance of interaction between society and any state (capitalist, socialist) or the global state of TNCs. An analysis of the world economic development in the 21st century has revealed some signs of a systemic crisis of civilization, along with the processes of digitalization as a catalyst for the shift of the paradigm of civilizational development and a catalyst for civil movements. The most striking Umwelts («perceptual environment») of civil society emerging in the digital realm are described in the paper.