[The Editors' Verdict] Powers That Threaten Private Autonomy

The principle of private autonomy (私的自治) generally refers to the modern civil law principle that legal relationships under private law are governed by the free will of individuals under their own responsibility, without interference from the state. The theoretical basis of the principle of private autonomy lies in human dignity and autonomy. The notion that humans are dignified and autonomous means that, unlike other living beings, humans pursue happiness by realizing self-determined life goals and take responsibility for the consequences of their actions.

To realize private autonomy, general freedom of activity and freedom of contract, the integrity of life and body, protection of property rights, and the condition of being human as a purpose must be guaranteed. The guarantee of private autonomy is imposed on the state as an obligation through constitutional fundamental rights protection. In other words, the state must guarantee private autonomy to the greatest extent possible. From economic and social perspectives, private autonomy calls for minimal state intervention in the market economy and civil society. Although state intervention can be justified for public interests such as national security, maintaining order, and public welfare, even in such cases, infringement on the essence of private autonomy is prohibited.

In a society facing a pandemic such as the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19), state power’s control and surveillance over citizens have become the new normal, posing a significant threat to private autonomy. Moreover, the rapid development of Fourth Industrial Revolution technologies such as 5G communication, cloud computing, big data, and the Internet of Things (IoT) enables extensive collection and analysis of personal data, increasing the risk of privacy violations. Furthermore, an expanded government through fiscal expansion also threatens private autonomy. Large-scale government-led research and development (R&D) projects sometimes produce adverse effects by guaranteeing the survival of dependent companies. The same applies when local governments directly provide communication services that should be handled by the private sector.

Another power threatening private autonomy is corporations. Today, large corporations possess capital, budgets, and manpower comparable to those of states and have become leading powers in civil society. In particular, the power of platform companies now almost completely dominates our daily lives. Netflix’s documentary "The Social Dilemma" explains that platform companies manipulate users by using recommendation and like functions to keep them on the platform for extended periods, showing only what users want to see. It also analyzes users’ online activity to display advertisements tailored to their preferences, inducing product purchases. Platform companies have thus become powers that dominate users for their own and advertisers’ benefit.

A notable fact is that it is not humans but artificial intelligence (AI) that governs and controls these processes. In this regard, AI can become a third power threatening private autonomy. AI recommends other fake news that arouses users’ interests. What matters is the users’ interests, not whether the exposed information is true. If this repeats, users also cease to care about the truthfulness of information. Humans begin to believe only the facts provided by AI as truth and adjust their behavior accordingly. A bigger problem is that democracy, which relies on discussion and dialogue to find optimal alternatives, is being destroyed by extreme polarization between left and right, where people believe only the information they want and reject the other side.

State power, platform power, and AI power are competing to attract citizens’ support and attention or to guide and control citizens as they wish. Now is the time for citizens to check these three powers through law and ethics, and for the state to protect citizens by restraining platform and AI powers. Just as it is hard to imagine a car without safe brakes despite the importance of developing and using cars, no matter how useful and necessary an organization or technology is, if appropriate risk prevention measures are not devised, it can threaten human dignity and autonomous life.

Lee Seong-yeop, Professor, Graduate School of Technology Management, Korea University / Director, Center for Technology Law and Policy

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.