Digital economy labour impact starts to concern the The Economist

In a recent Economist one of its Leader articles was called Wealth without workers, workers without wealth: The digital revolution is bringing sweeping change to labour markets in both rich and poor worlds. 

It read in part

Nonetheless, the growing wedge between a skilled elite and ordinary workers is worrying. Angry voters whose wages are stagnant will seek scapegoats: witness the rise of xenophobia and protectionism in the rich world. In poor countries dashed expectations and armies of underemployed people are a recipe for extremism and unrest. Governments across the globe therefore have a huge interest in helping remove the obstacles that keep workers from wealth.

The answer is not regulation or a larger state. High minimum wages will simply accelerate the replacement of workers by machines. Punitive tax rates will deter entrepreneurship and scare off the skilled on whom prosperity in the digital era depends. The best thing governments can do is to raise the productivity and employability of less-skilled workers. That means getting rid of daft rules that discourage hiring, like protections which make it difficult to sack poor performers. It means better housing policy and more investment in transport, to help people work in productive cities such as London and Mumbai. It means revamping education. Not every worker can or should complete an advanced degree, but too many people in poor countries still cannot read and too many in rich ones fail to complete secondary school. In future, education should not be just for the young: adults will need lifetime learning if they are to keep up with technological change.

Yet although governments can mitigate the problem, they cannot solve it. As technology progresses and disrupts more jobs, more workers will be employable only at lower wages. The modest earnings of the generation that technology leaves behind will need to be topped up with tax credits or wage subsidies. That need not mean imposing higher tax rates on the affluent, but it does mean closing the loopholes and cutting the giveaways from which they benefit.

In the 19th century, it took the best part of 100 years for governments to make the investment in education that enabled workers to benefit from the industrial revolution. The digital revolution demands a similarly bold, but swifter, response.

Given The Economist usually prefers an optimist tone, encourages technological innovation and generally is negative towards government this is increasingly bold analysis of the situation should be noted.

Drone (over) Regulation

This is excerpted from the Washington Post 8 Oct 2014 by Larry Downes . 
There is much more to the original piece so go read it, I recommend it.

(a commentary is included at the bottom)

America can’t lead the world in innovation if the FAA keeps dragging its feet on drone rules.

As the latest revolutionary digital technology takes off, entrepreneurs are finding themselves battling federal regulators for permission just to experiment with new applications. This time, it’s not the FCC (smartphone apps), the FTC (the Internet of Things), the FDA (genetic testing), the Department of Transportation (driverless cars), the Federal Reserve (bitcoin), state and local utility commissions (the sharing economy) or the SEC (crowdfunding). This time it’s the Federal Aviation Administration, which has been struggling since 2012 to develop rules for safely integrating unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), aka drones, into U.S. airspace.

To be clear, we’re not talking here about the lethal, multi-million dollar military aircraft that are changing the nature of warfare. We’re talking about small, consumer-friendly devices that sell today to hobbyists and others for less than $300. That’s about the same as the price of a smartphone, and the similarity is no coincidence. Most of the parts used in today’s fast-growing drone market come from smartphone component suppliers. The CPUs, GPS hardware, sensors, cameras, accelerometers, gyroscopes and even software are the same. And drones often use phones and tablets as their remote control. UAVs are basically flying smartphones.....UAVs have already proven themselves ready to disrupt everything from agriculture and natural resource management to law enforcement, delivery services, photography and mapping. 
...The FAA conservatively estimates that, within a decade, private drones will constitute a $90 billion industry. Already, according to the Consumer Electronic Association, 2014 sales of UAVs are forecast at $84 million and 250,000 units. ... Pretty impressive, especially for a technology that is technically illegal. That’s right: for now, consumers may only operate UAVs below 400 feet, and only for noncommercial uses. All other uses are prohibited. (After a small drone crashed in New York, the FAA has argued inconsistently that drones may not be operated anywhere near major airports.)...That could soon change. In 2012, Congress ordered the FAA to develop rules that would allow commercial UAVs to operate safely in U.S. airspace by 2015. (Safety, obviously, is key.) But we’re still waiting for the rules. The agency has already missed several self-imposed deadlines, and in June a government audit concluded the agency will miss Congress’s deadline. Rules for small drones were promised three years ago, with the FAA now saying they will come later this year. That delay could prove disastrous. ....Some communities have been motivated by obvious safety concerns, but more often the proscriptions are motivated by unease about privacy. So far, the privacy concerns have mostly been speculative. UAVs, like nearly every other mobile device, have high-definition cameras that continue to improve exponentially in both quality and capacity. So, like Google Glass and other new video technologies, UAVs tend to invoke a visceral “creepy” response in consumers, who imagine the worst possible uses such technologies might be put to against unsuspecting victims. They imagine drones hovering at their windows, back yards, or public protests....With the launch of the drone economy, the FAA has now joined the list of federal, state, and local agencies whose core markets are or are likely to be transformed by better and cheaper technologies. But so far, the agency hasn’t displayed much urgency in responding to the challenge and opportunity.

The fate of a multi-billion dollar industry is hanging in the balance. And as history has amply demonstrated, regulators who move too slowly often wind up sidelined or obsolete. Which would prove especially dangerous here. There is, after all, quite a difference between the crash of a smartphone app and a drone.

Larry Downes is co-author with Paul Nunes of “Big Bang Disruption: Strategy in the Age of Devastating Innovation” (Portfolio 2014). He is a Project Director at the Georgetown Center for Business and Public Policy.

Commentary

The article is a very well written statement for a light touch regulatory approach that favours innovation in disruptive contexts. I am not sure that I entirely buy the its going to be okay and old rules apply scenario but this article is completely in alignment with the argument of this blog - innovation does not end with commercialisation and regulation in times of disruption is irrelevant. Aviation authorities do urgently need to wrap their heads around commercial and non-commercial use  of drones and work out the rules they want to apply. 

Manufactured nanomaterials regulations

From Frogheart

On September 16, 2014, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) published a document entitled Report of the Questionnaire on Regulatory Regimes for Manufactured Nanomaterials 2010-2011. … The Report summarizes responses to the Working Party on Manufactured Nanomaterials (WPMN) Questionnaire on Regulated Nanomaterials: 2010-2011, which was issued July 12, 2012. The Questionnaire contained four sections related to the oversight of nanomaterials in various OECD jurisdictions: regulatory updates; definitions and/or legal approaches for nanomaterials by jurisdiction; regulatory challenges; and opportunities for collaboration.

You can find all of the reports from the OECD’s WPMN here, including this latest report, which is no. 42, Report of the questionnaire on regulatory regimes for manufactured nanomaterials 2010-201, ENV/JM/MONO(2014)28. This is the third time there’s been a questionnaire and subsequent report.I have quickly skimmed through the report and found a few interesting items about Canada’s current activities and collaborations vis à vis manufactured nanomaterials and risk. From the REPORT OF THE QUESTIONNAIRE ON REGULATORY REGIMES FOR MANUFACTURED NANOMATERIALS 2010-2011 which appears to have been published Sept. 4, 2014. 

 Go to the original OECD documents or the frogheart website for extensive excerpts on Canadian regulations and policy issues.

Asteroid Mining - US considers legalisation

This has got some buzz recently. 

From Vox [ 11 September 2014]

The Outer Space Treaty of 1967 — a UN treaty signed by 102 countries, including the US — bans countries from appropriating any astronomical bodies. But there's a dispute over whether this would apply to private companies mining asteroids. Congress seems to be arguing that it does not. On Wednesday, a House subcommittee discussed a new law that would explicitly give companies ownership over any materials they extract from an asteroid. Still, experts disagree over whether this would be compatible with international law — and whether it'd actually legalize asteroid mining.  The Outer Space Treaty of 1967 is the foundation of most current international space law. It's crystal-clear on a few different things: it bars countries from putting nuclear weapons in space, using the moon as a military base, or otherwise claiming ownership over the moon or planets. But it's frustratingly vague — and a little self-contradictory — when it comes to asteroid mining. The relevant clause says "Outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies, is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means." Proponents of asteroid mining argue there are a few loopholes that would permit them to do their thing.

Meanwhile in Japan there are plans for a mineral exploration experiment From Business Insider

Japanese space scientists have unveiled the asteroid hunting space probe they hope to launch later this year on a mission to mine a celestial body. The probe, named Hayabusa-2, is expected to be flung into space on a rocket for a mammoth four year voyage to the unpoetically-named 1999JU3 asteroid. When it gets there, some time in 2018, it will release a powerful cannon which will fire a metal bullet at the asteroid's barren crust, once the probe itself has scuttled to safety on the far side of the rock. It will then return to scoop up material uncovered by the cannon blast. If all goes well, these pristine asteroid samples will be returned to Earth by the time Tokyo hosts the Olympic Games in 2020.