Moti­on Béglé (17.3895): Pro­mo­ting a socie­ty in which digi­tizati­on ser­ves peo­p­le and not the other way around

Sub­mit­ted text

The Fede­ral Coun­cil is ins­truc­ted to deve­lop a natio­nal Rese­arch Pro­gram (NRP) that exami­nes the impact of digi­tizati­on on our socie­ty and deter­mi­nes the con­di­ti­ons that must be met for digi­tizati­on to make a posi­ti­ve con­tri­bu­ti­on to pro­mo­ting the com­mon good. We must avo­id our socie­ty mere­ly let­ting the effects of this tech­no­lo­gy wash over it, and instead do ever­ything pos­si­ble to ensu­re that ever­yo­ne in our socie­ty is empowered to use this tech­no­lo­gy for their own bene­fit and for the bene­fit of the com­mu­ni­ty at large.

Justi­fi­ca­ti­on

The digi­tal revo­lu­ti­on has just as pro­found an impact as the indu­stri­al revo­lu­ti­on had. This tech­no­lo­gy will turn eco­no­mic, poli­ti­cal, social and cul­tu­ral con­di­ti­ons upsi­de down. It rai­ses enti­re­ly new que­sti­ons, the ans­wers to which requi­re a major chan­ge in con­scious­ness and new basic rules of social coexistence.

1. Posi­ti­on of digi­tizati­on. Whe­re should we posi­ti­on our­sel­ves in the field of ten­si­on bet­ween tech­no­lo­gi­cal faci­li­ta­ti­on and reduc­tion of human cont­acts? When are direct human cont­acts indis­pensable? Does a mee­ting via Sky­pe give a team the same boost as a mee­ting with phy­si­cal pre­sence of the team mem­bers? Does an online cour­se (mas­si­ve open online cour­se, MOOC) inspi­re stu­dents as much as a cour­se in the semi­nar room?
2. Ube­rizati­on. How to deal with the risks of abu­si­ve use of atten­ti­on and “free” time of the indi­vi­du­al? In stores, is the repla­ce­ment of the per­son at the check­out by auto-scan­ning wit­hout psy­cho­lo­gi­cal con­se­quen­ces for cus­to­mers? Is it easy to accept that stan­dar­di­zed machi­ne tele­pho­ne announce­ments force us to listen to often long and use­l­ess information?
3. Pro­fit sha­ring. How can it be ensu­red that the gains from digi­tizati­on (time saved, per­son­nel saved) bene­fit the peo­p­le who wil­ly-nil­ly have to go along with this digitization?
4. Intel­li­gence Quo­ti­ent. What can be done about exce­s­si­ve smart­phone use? Don’t young peo­p­le who spend too much time using apps on their smart­phones run the risk that their IQ will deve­lop less than others?
5. Emo­tio­nal intel­li­gence. Is it pos­si­ble to replace real inter­per­so­nal cont­acts with vir­tu­al ones on social net­works wit­hout run­ning the risk of losing per­so­nal balance?
6. Off­li­ner. How should socie­ty deal appro­pria­te­ly with tho­se who fail to take the step into digi­tizati­on or who refu­se to do so?

The­se chal­lenges must not lead us to renoun­ce pro­gress. But digi­tizati­on must not come at the expen­se of our cul­tu­re. We need a cor­rect assess­ment of what digi­tizati­on will bring us, what nega­ti­ve effects it can have, and what it will take to give it its rightful place in our society.

State­ment of the Fede­ral Coun­cil of 22.11.2017

The Fede­ral Coun­cil shares the moti­on writer’s assess­ment that digi­tizati­on is rapid­ly chan­ging the eco­no­my and the world of work and that, in this regard, fun­da­men­tal­ly new que­sti­ons are ari­sing about how to deal with the asso­cia­ted tech­no­lo­gies and the social impact of digitization.
Within the frame­work of its Digi­tal Switz­er­land” stra­tegy On July 5, 2017, the Fede­ral Coun­cil appro­ved the Report of the Fede­ral Depart­ment of Edu­ca­ti­on and Rese­arch (SERI) “Chal­lenges of Digi­tizati­on for Edu­ca­ti­on and Rese­arch in Switz­er­land has been taken note of. It inclu­des an action plan to pro­mo­te both rese­arch and indi­vi­du­al skills in the use of digi­tal tech­no­lo­gies at all levels of edu­ca­ti­on and within the scope of the respec­ti­ve respon­si­bi­li­ties of the fede­ral govern­ment and the can­tons. The aim of the action plan is to streng­then the play­ers in the ERI sec­tor in a tar­ge­ted man­ner with a view to mee­ting the chal­lenges of digi­tizati­on across all poli­cy and appli­ca­ti­on areas.
In the con­text of digi­tizati­on, rese­arch into the asso­cia­ted social, legal and poli­ti­cal issues is of cen­tral importance. Against this back­ground, the Fede­ral Coun­cil, in taking note of the report, has com­mis­sio­ned the Fede­ral Depart­ment of Edu­ca­ti­on and Rese­arch (SERI) to exami­ne an inter­di­sci­pli­na­ry series of Natio­nal Rese­arch Pro­grams (NRP) on “Digi­tal Trans­for­ma­ti­on of the Eco­no­my and Socie­ty”. Within this frame­work, over­ar­ching socie­tal issues rela­ting to the manage­ment of digi­tizati­on are also to be addres­sed in the con­text of inter­di­sci­pli­na­ry rese­arch pro­jects. Switzerland’s hig­hest hig­her edu­ca­ti­on poli­cy body, the Swiss Con­fe­rence of Hig­her Edu­ca­ti­on Insti­tu­ti­ons (SHK), express­ly sup­port­ed this field of action in its reso­lu­ti­on of May 19, 2017, and unders­cored the important role of uni­ver­si­ties in addres­sing the digi­tal chal­lenges facing the eco­no­my and society.
The review of the NRP series on “Digi­tal trans­for­ma­ti­on of the eco­no­my and socie­ty” fol­lows estab­lished pro­ce­du­res for laun­ching Natio­nal Rese­arch Programs.
At the request of the EAER, the Fede­ral Coun­cil is expec­ted to deci­de at the end of 2018 on the launch of one or more NRPs in the the­ma­tic area of digitization.
Against this back­ground, the con­cerns of the moti­on have alre­a­dy been met.