Crime and Punishment in the Future Internet

Digital Frontier Technologies and Criminology in the Twenty-First Century

Sanja Milivojevic

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781000374391
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Computer Science
• Subtopic: Data Processing
• Index: Computer Science

Crime and Punishment in the Future Internet is an examination of the development and impact of digital frontier technologies (DFTs) such as Artificial Intelligence, the Internet of things, autonomous mobile robots, and blockchain on offending, crime control, the criminal justice system, and the discipline of criminology. It poses criminological, legal, ethical, and policy questions linked to such development and anticipates the impact of DFTs on crime and offending. It forestalls their wide-ranging consequences, including the proliferation of new types of vulnerability, policing and other mechanisms of social control, and the threat of pervasive and intrusive surveillance.

Two key concerns lie at the heart of this volume. First, the book investigates the origins and development of emerging DFTs and their interactions with criminal behaviour, crime prevention, victimisation, and crime control. It also investigates the future advances and likely impact of such processes on a range of social actors: citizens, non-citizens, offenders, victims of crime, judiciary and law enforcement, media, NGOs. This book does not adopt technological determinism that suggests technology alone drives social development. Yet, while it is impossible to know where the emerging technologies are taking us, there is no doubt that DFTs will shape the way we engage with and experience criminal behaviour in the twenty-first century. As such, this book starts the conversation about a range of essential topics that this expansion brings to social sciences, and begins to decipher challenges we will be facing in the future.

An accessible and compelling read, this book will appeal to those engaged with criminology, sociology, politics, policymaking, and all those interested in the impact of DFTs on the criminal justice system.

1

Introduction

A journey into the Unknown

Imagine the following scenario: police officers arrive at a crime scene. There is a lifeless body on a pavement, and a 3D printed gun next to it. An officer approaches the gun and points an object to it. The two things connect. The object handled by an officer shows information about the gun: the date and place of printing, who printed it and from what materials, who bought it, and maybe even who handled/fired it. Alternatively, imagine this: a prospective terrorist goes to a hardware store to buy items they need to make a bomb. All the components they intend to buy have sensors that communicate with other objects, leaving a unique data trail. The smart things communicate this information to other smart things deployed by law enforcement who can now predict the likely outcome of this purchase. In the final scenario, think about this: prisons may soon become obsolete, thanks to the artificial intelligence (AI) and the Internet of things¹ (IoT) technology. A would-be terrorist’s house from the previous scenario could serve as a prison cell: the front door would deny entry or exit if so ordered by the court of law. In the future, many objects, things and machines in our house, workplace, and public spaces—from doors, chairs, and beds to vehicles and planes—are likely to be connected through the IoT network and powered by AI. They will communicate with other things in the grid, record and monitor our behaviour, location, health, and mental state. They will move us from place to place and deliver our groceries. Critically, objects will also act on our behalf, potentially bypassing us in the process. They are likely to become smarter and increasingly independent, learning from and adapting to the environment and embedded algorithms.

While some of the above scenarios might not materialise, certain aspects of this futuristic hi-tech backdrop already exist. We are ever more fascinated with the advances of science and technology and their role in creating new possibilities for modern societies, as well as improving our well-being and experiences. Commentators argue that technology as ‘the use of scientific knowledge to set procedures for performance in a reproducible manner’ (Castells, 2004: 8) has the potential to ‘completely modify the future course of the humanity’ (Ghimire, 2018: 6). Indeed, as Howard (2015) suggests, behind every empire is a new technology. Navigating society in the desired direction requires the use, control, and oversight of the pace and trajectory of current and potential innovations. Imagining what might eventuate is essential even though it can be erroneous. Future, after all, is uncertain. Nevertheless, to prepare and make the right decisions, we need to look forward. The focus of our attention needs to be on all aspects of technology: objects (actual or virtual), activities, knowledge, modes of organisation and sociotechnical systems (Matthewman, 2011: 12), and in particular technological artefacts—the physical or digital products of scientific activities and knowledge.

The evolution of humankind has been a long and adventurous affair. A Swedish-American physicist and cosmologist, Max Tegmark (2017), suggests that life on Earth had three key stages, depending on life forms’ ability to design itself. In Life 1.0 (a simple biological life), living creatures could survive and replicate. However, they could not evolve or design their biological hardware and software other than via a lengthy and painful process of evolution. Humans signify Life 2.0 (a cultural life), where software could be successfully designed (i.e. we can learn a foreign language or adapt to our surroundings by not eating peanuts if we are allergic). Nevertheless, we cannot alter our biological hardware (i.e. ‘upgrade’ our brains). As we move deeper into the twenty-first century, humankind is on the brink of Life 3.0 (a technological life), where intelligent life forms could design both its software and hardware. While we are yet (if ever) to see the birth of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI – ‘strong’ AI) that can understand, learn, and perform any intelligent task a human being can with no human input, smart devices powered by ‘weak’ AI are everywhere. Siri, Amazon Alexa, facial recognition software, Netflix viewing suggestions, and email spam filters are just some examples of our overwhelmingly technological reality.

Be that as it may, we often reminisce on a failed hope that by now, innovations celebrated in decades of science fiction would become a reality: chatter regarding flying pods from The Jetsons are a frequent feature in our household. The driver behind this narrative is, aside from sci-fi movies and novels, the view predominant since the Enlightenment: that scientific and technological developments are the defining factor of progress. Techno-credulity—blind faith in technological solutions, as Lucia Zedner (2009) points out—is a hallmark of late modernity. We use our technological artefacts, such as smartphones, computers, and tablets, to read about medical breakthroughs, wearable and security technologies, AI and robotics, and many other endeavours in a range of disciplines, from medicine to physics, and from aeronautics to microbiology. As Kléber Ghimire (2018: 6) suggests, ‘[g]lancing at the current literature on future studies, one gets the impression that the future direction of humanity is all about technology’. When the outbreak of COVID-19 virus hit the world in 2020, many hailed technological innovations such as smartphone apps as critical tools needed to help stem the tide of the pandemic, monitor the spread of the disease, and facilitate treatment (HIMSS Media, 2020). Technology ‘play[s] a crucial role in our collective attempt to make sense of the future’ (Verschraegen and Vandermoere, 2017: 2), especially given the fact that the future is by default uncertain. As the future looks increasingly risky, even dangerous, we focus on technology and science, expecting miracles. Contagious diseases, the threat of global warming, expansion and potential use of weapons of mass destruction, mass shootings, and terrorist attacks are a constant in the media and public discourse, as we are seemingly only one step away from such disasters. The future seems precarious, as technology and science innovations emerge as indispensable tools that can tame the beast.

On the other hand, technology could be hazardous, if not fatal, for individuals, communities, or the humankind. As Matthewman (2011: 25) suggests, when we invent technology, we also invent the possibility of unwanted outcomes that the use of such technology. A growing network of modern Luddites call for restraint and, often, a dramatic rejection of new technologies.² In the future Internet of algorithms, AI, interconnected smart devices and autonomous machines (hereafter ‘digital frontier technologies’ – DFTs), unwanted outcomes of new technologies could be severe and global (see Bostrom and Cirkovic, 2011). The world’s sharpest minds such as Stephen Hawking, Nick Bostrom, Yuval Noah Harari, and Bill Joy warned about the potential impact of out-of-control technological developments to our future. The conclusion of many scholars in a range of disciplines is that, even seemingly benign technologies could be designed and developed to dominate (Matthewman, 2011: 6). As Harari (2018: 17) would have it, ‘[i]t is undoubtable … that the technological revolutions will gather momentum in the next few decades, and will confront humankind with the hardest trials we have ever encountered’. Every new technology, thus, ‘invites its own sets of hopes and fears, raises as many questions as it answers, and resides in its own (false) binary between utopia and dystopia’ (Papacharissi, 2019: Section 1; Introduction). I revisit this vital point throughout the book.

This chapter outlines some of the key themes explored in Crime and Punishment in the Future Internet, such as:

• The classification and overview of the DFTs and the rationale for their inclusion in the book;

• The significance of these technologies for crime prevention, offending, criminal justice responses, and penal policies.

This chapter also maps an overarching approach, as well as the aim and the structure of this volume.

Digital frontier technologies, society, and crime: A missing link

Above outlined radical transformation of contemporary societies, commonly dubbed the Fourth Industrial Revolution, has largely been underpinned by the development of emerging technologies. While there is no universal definition of frontier technologies, such technologies ‘have the potential to disrupt the status quo, alter the way people live and work, rearrange value pools, and lead to entirely new products and services’ (Manyika et al., 2013: 1). Frontier technologies are linked to the UN-defined Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as innovations that ‘will reshape industry and communications and provide urgently needed solutions to global challenges’, while having ‘potential to displace existing processes’ (Ramalingam et al., 2016: 16). These technologies are fast-changing, with significant political and cultural impact and economic value. They can improve humanity by, for example, eradicating hunger and contagious diseases, automating manual tasks, creating new and better-paid jobs, reducing carbon emissions, prolonging life expectancy, and improving the overall quality of life (United Nations, 2018: 1). The impact of such technologies is on the individual, social, and global level, as they improve people’s lives, promote social prosperity, and protect the planet. Yet, we often do not know if the technology will be beneficial, detrimental, or both (and to what extent) until we see it used in an actual context (Matthewman, 2011).

A sub-section within frontier technologies are digital technologies that use algorithms or applications to perform tasks by generating, storing, or processing data. In 2016, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) classified digital emerging technologies as cloud computing, photonics and light technologies, blockchain, robotics, quantum computing, modelling simulation and gaming, grid computing, AI, IoT and big data analytics (OECD, 2016). This book focuses on four DFTs, defined as such by the United Nations (2018):

• Artificial intelligence and machine learning;

• The Internet of things (‘ambient intelligence’, ‘smart devices’);

• Autonomous mobile robots—autonomous vehicles and drones (‘smart machines’); and

• Blockchain.

Most of the literature on the topic also identifies these technologies as leading or frontier (see, for example, Manyika et al., 2013; Briggs et al., 2019). Because of its size, this volume had to exclude some emerging DFTs such as quantum computing that is billions of times faster than an ‘ordinary’ computer, and as such can crack any encryption, including Internet banking, in seconds (Tvede, 2020). Pause for a second and think about the implications of this development for offending and crime control. I trust many upcoming volumes and research projects will engage with quantum computing and its social and criminological relevance.

Digital frontier technologies, thus, bring hope and risk. They constitute and modify people’s behaviour, identities, status, and surroundings. Just think of your smartphone: how much did you adapt to this technology? How much did you change habits because of it? How quickly did addiction and adaptation to the technology develop? Critically, ‘[t]he affection we feel for our objects is greater than that which we feel for our fellow subjects’ (Matthewman, 2011: 42). These technologies are also powerful actors and help create power relations. They are inseparable from us and form much of our existence. As Verbeek (2011: 29) would have it, ‘[o]ur reality is a web of relations between human and nonhuman entities that form ever-new realities on the basis of ever-new connections’. Yet, their impact on crime, offending, and victimisation has mostly been ignored. This book aims to fill this gap by examining the present and imagining the future, both hopeful and atrocious.

To do this is not an easy task. The book’s title is Crime and Punishment in the Future Internet so by default, the book is aimed at criminological and legal audiences. In the book, I apply a traditional definition of crime as an activity that is defined as such in the law. While aware of the limitations of this definition, and while for most of my criminological career I applied the definition of crime that bypasses the narrow, legal definition to include the concept of harm, I have decided the legal definition should be applied in this book to ensure the clarity of the analysis. Although the volume uses mostly criminological lens, one cannot write such a book without dipping into the literature, theory, and knowledge in a range of disciplines: science and technology studies (STS), surveillance studies, political economy, philosophy, sociology, and policy studies, to name just a few. This volume needs to cast a wide net to analyse artefacts and their impact on crime and punishment. One needs to delve deep into disciplines that are not the author’s area of expertise. Writing about mobile robots or blockchain is daunting for a person that, while early adopter of many technologies, has no expertise in these specific areas of academic inquiry. Indeed, for a criminologist, debating machine ethics or device communication in the IoT network is equally as unnerving. Therefore, I hope the reader will be both patient and sympathetic to (m)any shortcomings they find in the book, however obvious they might be. Crime and Punishment in the Future Internet is not aiming to capture all, nor most issues, vis-à-vis DFTs. It will also be modest in providing answers. This book is a provocation. Its primary and foremost purpose is to commence a dialogue—both in terms of critique and future research. I hope that, after reading the book, scholars in social sciences, humanities, science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), as well as the public, will join the debate to further our investigation of the digital frontier technologies-crime nexus.

Foresight approach, scanning and scenario writing

The central investigative and analytical tool applied in the book is the foresight approach used in STS, as a ‘participative process in which evidence’ on a particular topic or development ‘is assessed, possibilities articulated, and actions proposed’ (Miles et al., 2016: 4). The foresight approach has a long history. Like many other ground-breaking ideas, we can trace its origins to H. G. Wells, who maintained that there is a need for a systematic study of the future implications of new technologies:

[Although] we have thousands and thousands of professors and hundred...