Increased usage of technologies, resulting in widening inequality always seem to be good tango partners.
New-shaped inequalities caused by the frontier technology boom are among the hottest debates over the last decade. Some of which are automation taking jobs, polarization between high- and low- wage jobs, the gig economy – promoting insecure on-demand workers and heightening gender inequality, market and profit concentration into a few “Big Tech” businesses, Artificial Intelligence’s dependence on dominant data economies, and global technical gaps that reduce labor-cost competitiveness of less industrialized nations.
UNCTAD’s recent Technology and Innovation Report 2021 addressed these and other pertinent issues as a result of a blowout in tech adoption, due to the pandemic.