The Concept, Trends and Risks of Digitalization in the Formation of a Digital Society

Abstract

The article reveals the trends and risks of digitalization, which today is the main factor in the formation of a new society. Digitalization is seen as the high point of the globalization process. Digital technologies have increased the effects of globalization, weakening the factors that hinder interstate economic interaction, which has become a determinant of the growth in the share of international trade in national economies, thereby increasing the degree of interdependence of states, international integration and the role of large private companies in international trade. Digitization as a complex and multifaceted phenomenon is of particular importance, since the developed global level of the technological process and the prevalence of digital technologies led to the active involvement of people in the online environment. And although the states are at different stages, we can affirmatively talk about the last stage at which the population of the planet is, having reached the global scale of digital technologies. The acquired level of distribution and use of digital technologies indicates the formation of a digital space, the structure of which consists of computer technologies, mobile devices and other means of virtual and augmented reality, in which communication between users is deployed, the movement of information flows takes place, as well as production, distribution, exchange and consumption of digital goods and other types of social interaction. The digital space is the main source of formation of the digital economy and contains all its processes and elements. Modern society is in the thick of digitalization. In almost all areas of social life, we find a wide array of different practices that are subject to digital change. The Internet and social media platforms have changed how we receive information and experience entertainment, socialize, shop, and present ourselves. We develop and are confronted with new digital business models that are based on the “new gold” of user and process data. Apps and “smart” machines are designed to make sense of these data in order to automatically understand patterns or to control industrial processes in the context of Industry 4.0 (the Fourth Industrial Revolution). Algorithms, autonomous vacuum cleaners, cars or weapons and humanoid robots are in different stages of development and implementation. All of these manifestations and practices are obviously connected to questions of digital security, democracy, and how politics and legislation deal with these new phenomena of digitalization.