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Laws and the future. What will the shared scenario be like in 20 years?

• 2017, August
• Author: Gustavo A. A. Sena, Esq. - Director of Sena & Berton Moreno

The law is essential for creating a social order. And such order is reached if the laws regulate properly the reality at a given time. In this sense, how will our reality be like during the next 20 years? Assessing the effectiveness or obsolesce of the laws when reality changes so vertiginously leaves traces, questions and renowned marks in the professional carrier of a lawyer always eager to know more.

Analyzing what the industry and commerce will be like in 25 years' time and comparing them with the legal legislation. Facing other specific challenges, such as having managed to obtain the first sound trademark or assessing the positive and negative aspects of 3D printing. In short, the objective is to prepare ourselves for what is coming, to be able to analyze the future social and technological phenomena (where one modifies, changes or affects the other and vice versa) in a world where the legal system usually takes too long to be updated, if it is actually ever done.

Especially, we should be aware of the fact that what is coming is both fascinating and overwhelming. It excites, disturbs and impresses you. But at the same time, it promises a world with new challenges and opportunities. Some cases will occur within the next 20 years, but other ones are knocking on the door right now to enter our lives. In fact, some developers who spoke at InnovatiBA 2017I made reference to the future of employment, health, food, and education.

Milk, cheese and mayonnaise, that are not actually such, but that have the same taste and texture. Goods free from cholesterol, transgenic, gluten, lactose or any other item that is harmful. How could it be possible? By replacing those elements with vegetable ingredients and creating foodstuff through artificial intelligence.

Biotechnology allows the creation of foodstuff starting from their own cells that multiply themselves. Along with 3D printing, they revolutionize the health field, by producing organoids with human cells and synthetic materials that will be able to replace different organs in the human body. Mechanic exoskeletons will cause elderly or disable people to recover lost mobility and will revolutionize video games.

The employment revolution that computer and robotics will cause shall -within the next 20 years-bring with it years a modification, adaptation or deletion of 70% of the known jobs. What today is usual, tomorrow will not be so. Taxis and public transportation without drivers. This will happen for particular cars as well, but on a lesser scale.

The conquest of space, with exploitation of mineral resources on the moon and factories in orbit around the Earth. Satellites launched by Argentina manufactured with nanotechnology. The end of energy derived from petroleum or gas. Wind and solar energy expansion.

Some facts of the present confirm this future of changes. Foxconn, for instance, the main Chinese manufacturer of cell phones and tablet computers put in motion the second of three phases with which one million employees are being replaced with robots. McDonald’s is replacing cashiers with machines with tactile screens. In the US and Europe, the provision of exclusive lanes for unmanned vehicles is being analyzed. Foodstuff that looks like cheese mayonnaise and other items will soon be in the Argentine market.

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¹ InnovatiBA is the event on innovation, technology and entrepreneurship most important of Buenos Aires City.

Employees that will be paid without working or working part-time while they are being reconverted, or a universal minimum salary are issues under debate these days. It is evident that science is racing a formula 1 car whereas the law is waking with a cane.

It is imperative to think and act quickly. Changes are not the same as 30 years ago, when there were no personal computers, smartphones, 3D printers, and robotics, or at least, they were not available to the public. Things will not be the same in 10 or 20 years' time either.

Initiatives gathering multiple interdisciplinary sectors (unions, politicians, teachers, entrepreneurs, lawyers, etc.) are the key to generate spaces where minds are opened and where we prepare ourselves for the new scenario around the corner.

We are facing the 3rd Industrial Revolution, in a world that will change much faster than it has been doing during the last 30 years and that, certainly in the field of the law and many other disciplines, poses new challenges and a concrete possibility of having to issue new rules and norms. We should move quickly so that the laws do not become obsolete, having as the main premise that we should learn and understand the reality of the years to come, so that the legislation is not arbitrary, seeking also that the changes occur at the appropriate time, so that they can be applied in practice.

SENA & BERTON MORENO was founded in 1938 by ALFREDO SENA and ERNESTO E. BERTON MORENO as a Patent and Trademarks Agency with a stable staff of only four people. Since then, the Firm has grown to reach its current size of forty people, working at our offices located only two blocks away from the Government House and at the heart of the commercial and financial district of the city. S&BM characteristics throughout the years have been a progressive attitudes and customized services provided by a highly qualified staff of people willing to meet the client's needs. This way, the Law Firm has been able to grow and develop in the different areas in which it provides its services.

SENA & BERTON MORENO was founded in 1937 by ALFREDO SENA and ERNESTO E. BERTON MORENO as a Patent and Trademarks Agency with a stable staff of only four people. Since then, the Firm has grown to reach its current size of forty people, working at our offices located only two blocks away from the Government House and at the heart of the commercial and financial district of the city. Ver más