Humanitarianism and the fourth industrial revolution: saving which lives?

The crossing of physical, biological and cyber domains that characterizes the fourth industrial revolution (4IR) threatens the independence of humanitarian organizations. This challenge increases the urgency to address unresolved differences regarding the importance of independence in humanitarian work; otherwise, efforts to agree behavioural norms for how humanitarian organizations should use cyber space, and how others should treat them in cyber space, will fail. This article contrasts Western European with East and Southeast Asia discourses to make this argument. Independence is challenged by two related trends. First, 4IR technologies help humanitarian organizations use data to improve aid coordination and address causes of suffering – both priorities within East and Southeast Asian humanitarian discourses. However, that same data has greater strategic political or military value for other non-humanitarian actors, and the technologies used to produce that data also increase its vulnerability to theft. This increases the likelihood of humanitarian actors functioning as appendages of others, representing a de facto loss of independence: a priority within Western European humanitarian discourse. But this challenge may bring an opportunity for epistemic delinking that delivers concrete, practical benefits. When compared with conflict-based alternatives, cyberspace offers relatively uncontentious use cases through which to reconcile differences on principles.