What are technological advances?  Technological advances can be defined as is the invention, advancement, or improvement of new products or processes.  Technological advances impacts almost every aspect of our life, from communication, transportation, to things as simple as seeing or hearing.  Technology impacts the entire global community both positively and negatively. We should care about this issue because the world relies on technology in many regards, now more than  than ever.

One aspect of global society that is very influenced by technological advancements is the economy.  New technology can do everything from make someone rich beyond belief or cause a entire industry to go bankrupt.  Some examples of how technological innovation affects the economy is automated factory robots which can cost large amounts of manufacturing workers to lose their jobs.  Another way in which technological advancements can impact the global economy is online shopping websites such as Amazon which cause retail stores to close down. This causes many people who would be working in these stores to have less employment oppourtunity.  Also newly created apps, Airbnb to be specific, cause rents to rise greatly in cities because so much of the residential apartments are being rented on Airbnb rather than to a year round resident.

China is well known worldwide for being the leading exporter of manufactured goods.  Many of their jobs in their thriving manufacturing economy are being taken over by automated factory robots.  As you can see in the photos on the screen technology is taking over jobs which were traditionally done by people such as working on assembly lines and working on a farm.   In the year 2016 China was the number one country in the world in terms of “hiring” robot workers. This has, not surprisingly, led to many thousands of Chinese factory workers losing their jobs.  One of Chinas largest manufacturing companies, Foxxcon, which manufactures cell phones for Apple and Samsung, has fired 60,000 of their factory workers. The reason for this was none other than the cheaper alternative for labor, robots.  China has plans to do more of this in the future as well, they are implementing a seven year pilot program which if successful could replace 250 million chinese farming jobs if successful. This is a global example of technological innovations negatively impacting the global economy.  

Another global example of technological innovations negatively impacting the economy is in Spain, where the app Airbnb is causing problems for several major cities.  Landlords in Barcelona has realized how much of a profit they can make by listing their properties on the app Airbnb rather than renting them to a year round resident.  This means that there is a shortage of apartments which naturally raises rent prices for year round residents up by twenty percent, which makes it unaffordable for many residents.  Airbnb is an app which allows people to list their properties online to be rented for short term, similar to hotels. The app has taken off and its growth is substantially greater than that of its largest competetor the hotel industry.

An example of technological innovation local to me harming the economy is the large growth of the online retail sales market and the effect is has on the retail stores across America.  Online sales are growing at a much more rapid rate than brick and mortar stores. As you can see from the photo here, online retailers such as amazon have innovative new ways to deliver packages, which is one reason why they are outperforming traditional retail stores.  Sales in stores only grew 1.4% from the 2016-17 holiday season, compared to the 14% growth experienced by the online sales industry. This results in many stores closing up shop all across America as you can see in this photo here, due to the inability to compete with online retailers.  The closing down of brick and mortar stores not only hurts the people who lose their jobs, but it hurts the profits of other smaller businesses which would previously gain customers from the foot traffic created by people leaving their houses to shop in stores.

My proposed solution as to how we may fix this economic problem is to have all the major countries of the world join together to create the World Technological Control Organization (WTCO) which would review and regulate any new technological advancements that could be harmful to the global economy.  The way in which this proposed organization would work is that all new technological creations would be submitted to the WTCO before they are released to the public so that the WTCO can ensure that the new technology would have no negative implications on the economy. The WTCO would gather economic and technological experts from all around the world to do the job of reviewing and regulating the technology.  All companies would have to submit their tech for review. If they failed to do so they would be punished with large fines and potentially jail time. An example of a successful organization such as this locally is the Food and Drug Administration or FDA. An example of a successful organization such as this globally is the United Nations.

To conclude this presentation, technological innovations affect many aspects of our lives, especially our economy.  The economy can be impacted by factory workers and farmers losing their jobs to robots in China. Technological innovations also impact the economy in Spain by the app Airbnb causing rents to raise drastically.  Also my local economy is affected by online retailers putting stores out of business. My proposed solution to this problem is to create the WTCO to regulate new technological innovations so to ensure that there are no negative effects on the global economy.