The Cybernetic Revolution, COVID-19 and the E-state

Grinin et al. show the impact of the pandemic on the course and the pace of the Cybernetic Revolution and make forecasts about very large changes not only in technology, but also in the socio-political sphere. Anti-COVID measures have had a number of side negative effects, which Grinin et al. discuss in detail. However, the growth of the role of medicine due to COVID strongly confirms Grinin et al.’s ideas of the integrating role of medical technologies in the MANBRIC-convergence and has made significantly clearer the mechanisms that can provide such a breakthrough in medicine and related technologies. COVID-19 has become a powerful impetus in further changing socio-administrative relations. The authors pay great attention to the role of a special type of self-managing systems, by means of which it is possible to regulate our behavior without human participation just by means of AI. The authors are talking about socio-technical self-managing systems (SSSs). SSSs with the help of AI will regulate various social and administrative relations (i.e., control, verification, security, checking, identification, issue of documents, etc.). Grinin et al. forecast that the development of SSSs pushes society towards the formation of an electronic state (e-state) with its positive and strongly negative sides.