Trust Fails

One of technology's relatively unappreciated qualities is that it has helped boost global trust. The internet has become an ecosystem whereby anyone can purchase goods from any seller anywhere in the world. Both the buyer and seller have relatively high confidence that the promised goods will be delivered and the seller will be paid, even if this is a one-time transaction where the parties have no connection to each other. Government identification documents have increasingly moved beyond photographs to include definitive biometric data. The global banking system mostly has abandoned paper documents that can be forged—or lost—and sends money around the world in a fraction of a second. Databases contain vast amounts of information that can verify almost any data point and make information available to any mobile phone user anywhere.

Technology's ability to ensure that strangers can trust each other has accelerated and deepened economic activities, even in remote places. + If one side or another fails to meet obligations, that will be recorded in some way in the vast depository of shared information: Credit reports will be hurt, online reputations will be tarnished, and platform access will be revoked. In that environment, individuals and firms need not limit their engagements to a small number of well-known entities, promoting efficiency, innovation, and agility.

However, just as technology has boosted trust, there are increasing signs that technology can be used to diminish trust. One part of this dynamic involves disinformation and misinformation. + Deepfakes—which use advanced technology to create visual and audio records of people saying and doing things they have not done—are just the beginning. + Computing power can be used to create false records that either build or tarnish a reputation and can create entities and events that exist only in the imagination. + Once corruption infects an information system, it compromises the presumed integrity of everything in that system. For example, if a hostile actor can change even a limited amount of information in a government employment database, every data point for every employee potentially becomes suspect.

Disinformation can also reduce the perceived credibility of news sources, spreading knowledge of false stories and undermining the credibility of true ones. + Citizens' trust in institutions, in governments, and in those around them would diminish. +

A second way technology can diminish trust is through spreading disinformation through social media. Because social media's algorithms are optimized for engagement, it tends to support material that evokes an emotional reaction. Under these circumstances, misinformation that elicits outrage becomes widespread, and information that corrects the misinformation is downplayed. In addition, malign actors' own algorithms can create vast amounts of disinformation with relative autonomy, allowing those actors to experiment with a wide variety of products to see what works. + While most social media platforms have a vetting process meant to curb the most serious excesses, critics have argued that they are insufficient. When it works at its best, social media connects people with shared interests and identities. But social media sometimes does so at the expense of larger, more heterogenous communities and can promote internal division. In addition, social media also allows for cyberbullying and anonymous attacks, diminishing social trust.

The consequences of a collapse in trust over the next decade would be broad. Economically, it would reverse a trend toward global trade dynamism. It would likely result in increased tariffs, require increased inspections of shipments, and make arms-length trade connections more difficult. + Digital platforms would be encumbered, and financial platforms would become less efficient. Reduced trust in supply chains, exacerbated by disinformation or fears of cyber sabotage, could disrupt global trade. The increased costs of identity verification within societies would also spread widely, and it would increase friction in commerce and slow growth. + Small- and medium-sized enterprises, which lack the resources of larger corporations to manage these risks, would be particularly vulnerable, widening economic inequality.

Politically, less trust would be likely to polarize societies, reducing confidence in governmental institutions and deepening a sense of pervasive unfairness. + Because central governments are responsible for engaging with other governments, diminished support for governments would be likely to encumber international cooperation, especially on complex regulatory matters.

Internationally, a decline in trust would diminish foreign direct investment and international loans, especially in countries that do not have a robust digital infrastructure to protect trust. Creating and supporting such an infrastructure would be an expensive proposition, and diminishing global trust would likely deepen the divide between wealthier and poorer states. + In addition, perceptions that foreign governments are using their technological power to weaken adversaries could set off an escalatory spiral of attacks and counterattacks that further diminish trust within societies, making agreements between governments even harder to strike. That could promote a world that is not only less peaceful and less prosperous, but one with more robust criminal networks that can escape government control.