신흥기술(emerging technologies)의 규제에 대한 몇 가지 고찰

초록

merging technologies as a ground work on the subject in the era anticipating the 4th Industrial Revolution. It has posed three questions: What is emerging technology?; How does the history of science and technology testify as to the relationships between human-being and technology, technicology and science, technology and government, and technology and industry?; and what does the history of regulation of emerging technologies teach about regulating emerging technologies? First question was posed to define the scope and extent of the study of technological regulation and to explain why the regulation of emerging technologies is getting more public attentions and concerns and why it is said that there are extra special difficulties in regulating such technologies. The second question was posed in order to identify and/or verify the significance of technology for human-being, the extent of human pursuit of science and technology, and the respective roles of the government and the industries vis-à-vis the development of science and technology. Third question was posed in order to establish a preliminary set of guiding principles for regulating emerging technologies based on the lessons learned from the past experiences. This paper has provided a definition of emerging technologies that are characterized by radical novelty, relatively fast growth, coherence, prominent impact, and uncertainty and ambiguity. It has explained that because of the perception that emerging technologies are capable of changing the status quo and the aforementioned characteristics, there tends to be more resistance, contentions and conflicts in regulating such technologies. This paper has also verified from the history that technology has been the actual ground for human being to exist throughout history and civilizations, and because it is so, human-beings including our contemporaries will seamlessly pursue innovation driven by further, more and better development of science and technology. Both the government and the industry (or the market) will continue to further facilitate and control the technological progresses and innovations, it is because science and technology have officially become the engine for the economical growth and prosperity in today’s society. Lastly, this paper has suggested six guiding principles for regulation of emerging technologies based on the analyses of and insights obtained from the case studies on regulation of emerging technologies. The principles are: Critical importance of public support and trust; Importance of legitimate, transparent, and open democratic process; No discrimination against emerging technologies (or level playing field); Utilization of innovative, flexible and adaptive regulatory tools; Address legitimate social, ethical and moral concerns; and lastly, seek international regulatory harmonization.

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