Disruptive Technologies: Questions That Go beyond the Economy

As consumers, workers, entrepreneurs or members of a government, we all have the impression that we are living in the midst of technological upheaval due to the speed and sheer number of developments. We don’t know where to look, how to act or where to start to benefit from these advances. Then there are the challenges involved in assessing what these new technologies contribute to the economy and understanding how they change it. Although discoveries and applications are proliferating almost exponentially, we have to take the time to better understand what’s coming. The outlook is primarily favourable in terms of their impacts on the economy and the well-being of populations. Analysis quickly reveals that the economic aspects of these technologies link back to human beings and to questions surrounding the redistribution of wealth, of privacy, security and intellectual property.