From the light bulb to mobile devices, from the advent of flight by the Wright brothers to Elon Musk’s plans to make humanity an interplanetary species, it would seem that many innovations that we depend on today, or that we will depend on in the future, were conceptualized and became famous for being ideas of private industry or individuals. If that is the case, what is the role of government?
Interestingly, the origins of the vast majority of innovations that shaped the history of our species can be traced to ecosystems created by governments, or a form of government, which provided fertile ground for such innovations to exist. “The only constant is change,” said Heraclitus of Ephesus. This statement is 2,500 years old, but it is still relevant today, especially within the context of innovation.
Governments that planned for the change brought about by innovation reaped its many benefits, while governments that resisted innovation and resulting change suffered greatly. Today, governments and authorities that were innovation-resistant are remembered for being on the wrong side of humanity’s history of progress.
Looking at innovative industries and cutting-edge fields such as space exploration and artificial intelligence (AI), it seems that the private sector is taking the lead. It is argued that this may be due to a vacuum created by the lack of government participation in those fields.
In the space exploration sector, a main example is Elon Musk and his company SpaceX, through which the billionaire’s short-term plans include launching the Falcon 9 rocket in a week or two. The company says it will be “the most powerful operational rocket in the world by a factor of two.” These short-term projects will allow SpaceX to gain much-needed knowledge and data for its long-term vision of sending 100 people to Mars in the coming decades.
Another example is Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon, who founded Blue Origin, a company that plans to send paying customers to space in early 2019 with its New Shepard rocket, and to establish a commercially viable and Amazon-like delivery service between Earth and the Moon.
The presence of innovators such as Musk and Bezos may prove to some that the space exploration industry is being led purely by private industry. But as early as last week, SpaceX could not perform the necessary pre-flight tests on its Falcon 9 rocket due to the shutdown of the US government.
In fact, in September 2014 NASA awarded Commercial Crew Transportation Capability contracts for a total of $6.8 billion to Boeing ($4.2 billion) and SpaceX ($2.6 billion) to continue their development of spacecraft capable of transporting NASA astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS).
As governments try to catch up to private industry, it is vital to ask how they will be able to set the right policies and governing strategies for new technology.
Saeed Al-Gergawi
In addition to the contracts, NASA will provide technical assistance to the companies, demonstrating the government’s role in developing private industry and allowing for the establishment of a long-term relationship between the government and private sector.
This will allow NASA, as the government, to focus its resources and talents into projects that can push the boundaries of space exploration, and allow private industry to grow confidently in a realm that has been mastered by governments for decades.
The same could not be said about AI. The interplay between government and private industry in leading this technology’s advances does not exist. “The forefront of Artificial Intelligence is not with governments today, it is actually with the private sector; it is with Google, Facebook and Amazon,” said Omar Al-Olama, the UAE’s minister of state for AI. This shows that governments are aware that they are behind when it comes to this technology.
As governments try to catch up to private industry, it is vital to ask how they will be able to set the right policies and governing strategies for this technology, without hindering its advances for the sake of controlling it.
Perhaps it is more important to ask how government and the private industry will collaborate in this field. Will it be similar to that of the space exploration sector, or will there be resistance from the private sector as it continues to lead development of this technology?
Nonetheless, with its increasing number of applications, AI will impact every person on earth and thrive in a manner that creates positive outcomes for all. Governments need to provide an appropriate ecosystem for this technology, as they do for other sectors.
• Saeed Al-Gergawi is a UAE-based researcher specializing in the fields of science, technology and the future. Twitter: @Saeed_algergawi