Social, political, and ethical dimensions of digital transformation
Course introduction
There are widespread concerns that social and political divisions are being exacerbated by information technology, and that this is having a profound impact on the capabilities and quality of both global and local institutions. In a similar way to how the advent of the printing press prompted the rise of democracy and the nation state, perhaps digital transformation is contributing to a similar disruption in governance.
Such trends are particularly relevant in regimes where statehood was not an internal process, and was adopted either through colonial or international activity. Rising populism and authoritarianism provides the social and political backdrop to our analysis of the broad impact of technology, and we will consider whether pluralist approaches may help to combat some of the emerging threats to liberal democracy.
This course investigates how digital transformation relates to democracy and governance in an increasingly connected yet potentially polarised world.
Assessment
- 60% Final exam (MCQ) – this relates to all lecture content and the readings from the content section
- 40% Group report [details here]
Mandatory pre-course readings
- von Neumann, J., 1955, “Can we survive technology?” Science and Society
- Diamond, L., 2010, “Liberation technology“, Journal of Democracy, 21(3):69-82
- Carson, B., Romanelli, G., Walsh, P., and Zhumaev, A., 2018, “Blockchain beyond the hype: What is the strategic business value?” McKinsey Digital
- Mergel, I., Edelmann, N., and Haug, N., 2019, “Defining digital transformation: Results from expert interviews” Government Information Quarterly, Volume 36, Issue 4
- Espinosa, V.I., and Pino, A., 2025 “E-government, inclusive growth, and the legitimacy of capitalism: lessons from estonia” Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, Vol. 238
- Blackman, R., and Ammanath, B., Ethics and AI: 3 Conversations Companies Need to Have, Harvard Business Review, March 2022
- Ostrom, E., “Beyond Markets and States: Polycentric Governance of Complex Economic Systems” Nobel Prize Lecture, December 8th 2009
For a 55 point quiz to test your knowledge of the pre-readings see here.
Contents
| 1. Addiction [handouts] |
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| 2. Misinformation [handouts] |
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| 3. Ethics [handouts] |
Also: Mural board |
| 4. Humans [handouts] |
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| 5. Governance [handouts] |
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Group report
For a good example of a subject matter for the group report I highly recommend reading The Story of VaccineCA. It’s an ethnographic and anecdotal account of a 200 day period where tech volunteers got together to alert Americans on where covid shots were available. It is a really good example of an urgent allocation problem that cannot be solved (solely) by markets or by central planning. In particular, consider how the following elements coincide: the type of organisation chosen to pursue this objective (initially volunteers but then a Delaware corporation; the institutional context (i.e. liberal market democracy where sharing such information wasn’t illegal); and the cultural attitude toward problem solving and tech optimism). For a great interview with Patrick McKenzie about his background and advice listen to his Conversation with Tyler.
Extra reading
“The Adolescence of Technology” by Dario Amodei, January 2026 – this is relevant for the course not only because it provides an insider look at AI risk and governance needs, but also the relevance of social media (“during the peak of worries about AI risk in 2023-2024, some of the least sensible voices rose to the top, often through sensationalistic social media accounts”) and democracy (“the remedy is what it always is in a democracy: those of us who believe in this cause should make our case that these risks are real and that our fellow citizens need to band together to protect themselves” and “the AI age could lead inevitably and logically to the conclusion that democracy is the only viable form of government if humanity is to have a good future”).
Optional background material
On Brexit
- The great British Brexit robbery: how our democracy was hijacked, Carole Cadwalladr, The Observer, May 17th 2017
- The Facebook data breach wasn’t a hack. It was a wake-up call, Aja Romano, Vox.com, May 2018
- “Cambridge Analytica probe finds no evidence it misused data to influence Brexit”, by Izabella Kaminska, Financial Times, October 7th 2020,
Recommended Podcasts
- Things Fell Apart, BBC Sounds (a documentary that looks at the different origins of the culture wars, which are defined as “the battle for dominance over conflicting values”, or “the things we shout about on social media”)
- Can Facebook Survive?, Seriously, August 13th 2019
- 12. Conspiracy Theories, The Rest is History, Jan 4th 2021 (a short overview of the history of conspiracy theories, with emphasis on how they tend to satisfy a need for us to try to make sense of shocking events).
- Beware the Jabberwock, This American Life, March 15th 2019 (a single episode that provides a detailed look at the origins of the Sandy Hook conspiracy theory and one parents attempt to fight misinformation. The second half of this episode is an interesting, but less relevant profile and interview with Alex Jones).
- Four Hours at the Capitol, BBC (a documentary about the storming of the US Capitol building on January 6th 2021)
- The Coming Storm, BBC Sounds (7 part podcast documentary on the rise of QAnon)
- Death by Conspiracy, BBC Sounds (an 11 part podcast documentary on Gary Matthews, who died from covid in January 2021 having been drawn to social media claims that it was a hoax. I listened to this as a parallel to The Coming Storm but it strayed too far into covid, media ethics, and psychology for me to incorporate it more fully in this course, which attempts to avoid those areas. I didn’t learn much about conspiracy theories aside from episode 9 which provided a good attempt to understand why our common conception is often misplaced. Ultimately I just found this sad.)
- The Last Podcast on the Left (Episodes 400-405) – this series was recommended as a deep dive into the original and most important conspiracy theory of all time, but I found it so irritating and juvenile in presentation that I didn’t get past the first episode. I did like the claim that conspiracy theories require a conspiracy vacuum, however.
- Good Robot, Vox Media, March 2025 – A bit slow going and more about the rationalist community and effective altruism movement than the dangers of AI (which isn’t a robot!). I considered it a somewhat forced attempt to use those communities as a means to link AI doomerism to religion.
Recommended Video
- Matthew Perry on BBC Newsnight, (yes, one can make the contrarian and pedantic point that humans exercise “choice” in every decision we make, but this interview demonstrates the importance of acknowledging the human cost of not being in full/partial/any control of things that are harmful to your well being. Particularly poignant given Perry’s death in 2023).
- Command and Control, PBS (a documentary looking at how close we came to a major nuclear accident)
Famous documentaries about Facebook include:
Here are US political strategists talking about micro targeting:
Here is David Rand’s talk on misinformation:
This documentary looks at the Arab spring:
Here is an introduction to the (classic) trolley problem:
Here is Coltan Scrivner explaining the evolutionary purpose of paying attention to true crime:
Here is Patri Friedman arguing that we should be able to start new countries as easily as starting a new company:
“I spent 10 years at Google… I think we should be able to start new countries as easily as we start companies today.” pic.twitter.com/IcsOgRJH9z
— Freethink (@freethinkmedia) August 11, 2022
And here is his poignant Facebook post following the assassination of Charlie Kirk.
Recommended Interviews
- Tyler and Daniel Gross Talk Talent, Conversations with Tyler, Episode 150, May 18th 2022
- #291 – Jonathan Haidt: The Case Against Social Media, Lex Fridman podcast
- Chris Blattman on War and Centralized Power, Conversations with Tyler, Episode 149, May 4th 2022 – this is a fascinating interview with a global expert on war (Blattman’s core thesis is that violence occurs when centralised groups have no check on their ability to indulge their narrow preferences). It doesn’t have direct relevance to this course but it is very interesting and touches upon the concept of polycentricity (which is the notion of multiple centres of power).
- #365 – Sam Harris: Trump, Pandemic, Twitter, Elon, Bret, IDW, Kanye, AI & UFOs, Lex Fridman podcast – a good overview of the ethics of public vs. private conservation (i.e. platforming); the weaponization of social media (i.e. why Harris deleted his Twitter account); the health of democracy and our capacity to deal with social problems such as a potential future pandemic. Also relevant to future AI prospects.
- #429 – Paul Rosolie: Jungle, Apex Predators, Aliens, Uncontacted Tribes, and God, Lex Fridman podcast – a fascinating conversation that helps us to link animals, consciousness, intelligence, and AI. The section from 1:41:00 to 1:58:46 is a wonderful conceptualisation of how we, as “meat vehicles on a floating rock”, should think about these things.
- #367 – Sam Altman: OpenAI CEO on GPT-4, ChatGPT, and the Future of AI, Lex Fridman podcast – Altman defends OpenAI’s strategy of transparency and iterative progress that gets tested on a wide scale. He believes that AI alignment can keep pace with its capabilities. A good counterexample is nuclear weapons.
- #371 – Max Tegmark: The Case for Halting AI Development – Lex Fridman podcast – Tegmark claims that AI development is a suicide race not an arms race, and it’s not obvious that other countries, who might have more to lose from cutting edge technology, will continue regardless. The open letter that he organised was specifically intended to deal with the collective action problem whereby AI developers want everyone else to slow down but can’t do so unilaterally.
- Eliezer Yudkowsky — Why AI will kill us, aligning LLMs, nature of intelligence, SciFi, & rationality – Dwarkesh Podcast, April 6th 2023 – lengthy but towards the end Dwarkesh throws out as many reasons as he can think of about why we should be calm about AI development, and Eliezer bats them all away.
- #390 – Yuval Noah Harari: Human Nature, Intelligence, Power, and Conspiracies” Lex Fridman Podcast, July 17th 2023 – a discussion about the power of storytelling
- Episode 25: Is it the phones? The Studies Show, January 30th 2024 – a look at the evidence relating to social media and teen mental health.
- Episode 11: The AI apocalypse debate The Studies Show, September 19th 2023 – two science journalists discuss whether AI will cause the end of human life.
- Ep. 126: Stephen Davies – What Is Global Catastrophic Risk?, – Steve Davies defines global catastrophic risk and discusses potential for AI to destroy humanity.
- Civil society – Paul Aligica on Human freedom and the Third Sector, Mercatus Center – an interview with an academic (one of my PhD committee!) who articulates the importance of polycentric solutions to solve social problems, and the normative importance of respect for individual autonomy and consent. This is particularly relevant for students who are from former communist countries, or those interested in modern forms of indoctrination.
- Jennifer Pahlka on Reforming Government (Ep. 238), Conversations with Tyler – a good interview with the founder of United States Digital Service. I particularly liked her point about seeing legislation as a step-by-step process (where you hand off to someone else) versus a feedback loop. The key issue is the assessment of DOGE, and whether sensible and gradual government reforms are ever really possible.
Recommended movie night
This is not massively related to this course, but I really enjoyed watching Top Gun: Maverick (you may need to watch the original Top Gun first to get the full benefit). It reminded me of how Rocky IV contrasted American individualism, authenticity, and heart against superior Soviet technology. I saw Maverick as a rumination on automation, and the continued role for human emotion, and decision making that is instinctive, impulsive, and emotive, and how that gets managed. The subtext is that unmanned drones and algorithms are the future. In the film, US technology is deemed inferior but it is all about who is in the plane and not the plane itself. Traditional pilots needs to eat, sleep and piss but remain the driving force of future success, and whatever it is that ensures a future is worth achieving.
Here’s an absorbing and fascinating explanation of how the Mach 10 scene resembles a perfect pop song:
The best 3 movies related to AI and our conception of reality (in my opinion) are:
Recommended Activities
- Play Moderator Mayhem, a game that helps understand more about internet safety
- Learn the SHARE checklist (UK government)
- Play Wordle (or the even better Strands)
- Take the Political Compass test
- Take the Take Machine test
- Create AI images with DALL-E (and improve them with these tools) or with MidJourney (see here)
- Use ChatGPT to generate insightful text based on prompts (see here for some implications, here for a tool to check whether students use it to cheat, and here for my policy/approach).
Case studies on digital transformation
Perhaps the best case study of the importance of an effective digital transformation is the UK Post Office Horizon scandal (Wikipedia). There is an excellent podcast about it produced by BBC Sounds and in January 2024 ITV aired a documentary.
Further academic reading
- Study on the impact of digital transformation on democracy and good governance, European Committee on Democracy and Governance (CDDG), September 6th 2021 – includes 12 principles of good democratic governance and case studies of how various European countries are dealing with issues such as microtargeting.
- Giraudo, M., 2022, “On legal bubbles: Some thoughts on legal shockwaves at the core of the digital economy“. Journal of Institutional Economics, 18(4), 587-604 – an account of how changes in expectations around how data gets protected as private property has influenced Big Tech. I found the article badly written but conceptual and therefore reasonably accessible to a non academic audience.
- Stephan, M., Marshall, G., and McGinnis, M., “An Introduction to Polycentricity and Governance“, 2019, in Thiel, A., Blomquist, W., and Garrick, D., eds. 2019. Governing Complexity. New York: Cambridge University Press, chap. 1, pp. 21-44.
On design
Resources for the public sector
If you wish to work in the public sector I recommend the following resources:
- Machine learning: An introduction for public servants – a free online bootcamp
- Ethics, transparency and accountability framework for automated decision making – a 7 point framework to help UK government departments with the safe, sustainable and ethical use of automated or algorithmic decision-making systems
- Dunleavy, P., Margetts, H., Bastow, S., and Tinkler, J., 2006, New Public Management Is Dead—Long Live Digital-Era Governance Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, Volume 16, Issue 3, Pages 467–494
- Clarke, Amanda, Digital Government Units: Origins, Orthodoxy and Critical Considerations for Public Management Theory and Practice
Recommended books
The MIT Press Essential Knowledge series contains a number of titles that are relevant for this course. I particularly recommend:
Other
The Ostrom Workshop has some good resources on Polycentric Governance.
Student reflections
Priyanka Dalotra (LinkedIn)
And finally
If you detect an attempt to link together the claims that “an important solution to social media addiction is good parenting” and “we have to learn how to raise AI” then this is deliberate. Dario Amodei refers to Anthropic’s constitution in the following terms: “It has the vibe of a letter from a deceased parent sealed until adulthood.” Stuart Ritchie (who works at Anthropic) captures it nicely:
And it’s apt that I teach this course at ESCP. As Martin Luther said, Paris is “the parent of learning”.
The course introduces students to several important and contemporary issues that relate to economics. Having already covered the key insights from Micro and Macroeconomics, we will go deeper into the frontiers of the discipline. Students will challenge their understanding of complex and controversial issues and develop their perspective on how to become managers of the future.
