Wealth distribution and economies are being increasingly influenced by the digitization and Internet. The Hub4NGI D2.1 pointed out that the Internet has changed the market dynamics. Only the companies doing service innovation might survive. The major elements of economics and wealth distribution are shown in the following Figure:
The proliferation of AI and automation is becoming a major threat to human employment. As the machines will take over certain tasks in the economy, there is a need to find new ways of distributing wealth. 70% of European citizens agree that robots and artificial intelligence are going to steal peoples' job in near future [Lipparini & Romeo 2017]. Before it would happen, we need to find the answers to these questions:
- How can human and machines coexist in the economy?
- What roles are humans ideally suited for and what roles are machines best at?
- How can humans' livelihood be sustained?
- How can machines be paid for?
- How the autonomous machines be legislated?
- Should robots and AI be legible to pay taxes?
- How to support SMEs in the new Internet economy?
- What alternative business models exist to challenge the dominance of the incumbents?
Compared to other business types, SMEs are seen to be at a disadvantage and need help to take advantage of NGI. Investment policies and legislations should aim to increase the abilities of SMEs to profit from NGI technologies. Furthermore, new business models are needed to challenge the current dominance of the large incumbents. New collaboration based business models which integrate people and resources from various disciplines might help significantly.
