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The smart devices that make up the Internet of Things induce consumers to cede control over the products they buy. Devices like smartphones offer real benefits, but combined with embedded software, network connectivity, microscopic sensors and large-scale data analytics, they pose serious threats to ownership and consumer welfare. From coffee makers and toys to cars and medical devices, the products we buy are defined by software. That code gives device makers an increasing degree of control over how, when, and whether those products can be used even after consumers buy them. That shift of control has profound implications for ownership.

This final chapter discusses how conservation technology might evolve in the near future. The first section provides a global overview of the current scope of conservation technology. The second section focuses on the current limitations of conservation technology and describes advances that may help to overcome these constraints. The chapter will then discuss technological trends such as robotics and virtual reality, which are not yet widely used in conservation but offer promise in addressing current conservation challenges. Examples of integrating different technologies—with and without human intervention—in conservation research and management are given. Finally, the barriers to integrating technology into conservation and propose solutions to overcome them are covered.

With the publication of its White Paper on Artificial Intelligence—A European Approach to Excellence and Trust, the European Commission has set the stage for regulatory measures to ensure that the diffusion of artificial intelligence (AI) will remain acceptable to market participants, data subjects, and citizens. While recognizing the immense promise that AI holds for economic development, it also points to serious concerns over privacy, accuracy, and equity of automated decision systems, and economic dominance and abuse by platform providers. Intellectual property rights (IPRs) have, from the perspective of competition law and policy, always raised questions about the justification of their exercise in light of economic dominance. The use of AI in traditional business models involving sales and online services, but also new applications such as Internet of Things (IoT), digital twinning and AI of Things (AIoT), otherwise known as Edge Computing, is set to create new forms of dominance that is reinforced by intellectual property in relation to data, software, and trade secrecy. This chapter deals with the intellectual property system and how it may have to be adapted for its continued acceptance as instrument to engender trust in the sustainable development of Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) platform technologies, and AI in particular. It is argued that competition policy that recognizes and safeguards consumer interests in AI-dominated markets is key to the smooth functioning of such a platform economy.

The Internet of Things is created by giving Internet connections to objects embedded in the environment, including wearable items. When IoT devices are connected and coordinated in an urban environment, smart cities are created, which can allow control of the environment, for example to improve carbon emissions or traffic flow. Instrumentation of the environment creates problems of consent, privacy, security, safety, and trust. The status of the IoT with respect to Internet ideology is discussed. The Silicon Valley Open Internet supports citizen-centric development, but may lack coordination at scale. The DC Commercial Internet creates great power for platforms. The Brussels Bourgeois Internet values rights and privacy, which may suppress innovation. In China, India, and elsewhere, smart cities are seen as key to developing a paternal social vision under digital modernity. Given its key role in the IoT, this is where America’s battle against Huawei may be most consequential.