History of industrial revolution

1. History of industrial revolution

The four industrial revolutions

  • 1700 small world, hand craft
  • steam-powered motor 1st
  • low- cost iron stell
  • automation of textile manufacturing
  • industrialization
  • 1800 mass production, education systems
  • rapid city growth, science innovation, disease control, decretionary income, mainstream banking
  • people suffered, countries compete, new economic systems appeared and leading to 2 world wars
  • application of electricity 2nd
  • telephone
  • 1900 inner conbustion engine, cars, and planes
  • Transistor invention 3rd
  • Analog to digital communication
  • rapid transistor innovation by military and businesses of US
  • silicon chips
  • Difference from 1st, 2nd revolution.
    • first 2 are mechanize manual operations
    • 3rd digitization
  • WWW information sharing in 1990s
  • Late 1990s and 2000s, web 2.0, dynamic pages
  • everything is getting connected, the fourth revolution is happening 4th

4th industrial revolution in the lecturer’s understanding

  • tech
  • socieco
  • culture
  • atom Both digital and physical.

2. The elements of change

The significance of velocity, scope, and impact

Gaps in Inequality, the United Nations Sustainability Development Goals identify 17 areas where gaps in inequality must be addressed by 2030, including access to electricity, and water, as examples. Progress has been good in many areas and much more work is needed in others.

Previous industrial revolutions were unevenly distributed and change often took time to have broad reach. This revolution will transform with greater velocity, scope, and impact then has ever been experienced before.

Velocity: high

One of my favorite visuals is the time it took certain technologies to reach 50 million users. Here’s just a few.

  • The telephone, 75 years.
  • Television, 13 years.
  • The internet, four years.
  • Twitter, nine months.
  • Pokemon GO, 19 days.

Each one presents a very different time in human history. The telephone first appeared in the late 1800s, whereas the popular smartphone game, Pokemon GO, first appeared in 2016. In the 1950s, when televisions became relatively popular, a TV show could be seen by just a few million and only in limited geography. Today, popular YouTube videos are watched by billions of viewers in just a few month, and their reach is to every corner of the Earth. An idea, a joke, a misspoken word, breaking news, and fake news can all travel virally around the world in minutes and sometimes even seconds. A new tech product can sell millions in just a few days and be available in global markets in the same week. Recently, e-scooters started showing up in many cities. This wasn’t a multiyear deployment plan. The product arrived in volume and in multiple places at the same time.

This velocity is clearly consequential to sellers, buyers, competitors, politicians, systems, regulators, and so many more.

Scope: huge

Scope: the extent of the introduced change.

Instead of a narrow, limited purview, the scope of Fourth Industrial Revolution change will be deep and wide, and its scope will be expansive.

Let’s use an example to explore this. Not so long ago, software was distributed in physical packaging and available to buy in an electronics store. A new popular software program might sell well but would take years to reach millions of people through relying on a complex supply chain. After all, it required us to go to a store, purchase the product, return home, or go to our business and then install the software. Today, when Apple and Microsoft release new versions of their computer operating system software, the software is seamlessly distributed over the internet to millions of people within hours, all across the planet. The benefits of those new operating systems can be experienced by tens of millions of people within just a few days. And if the software includes some radically new functionality, such as health-related software, the change can be profound.

Equally, a problem distributed at that scale can be a challenge too.

impact: significant

Impact: the magnitude of the effects of change.

After many years, cars began to have automatic transmission rather than manual. This was a remarkable convenience. While it costs more, drivers would no longer have to worry about clutch pedals, and shifting gears constantly. It wasn’t inconsequential but the extent of the impact was relatively limited. Now let’s contrast that with another change in our cars. The emergence of autonomous cars. The impact of self-driving cars will radically reshaped everything from how spend our time traveling, to how we design cities, to the loss of jobs for people who make their living driving vehicles.

Combined

Keep in mind that not all change will be positive, and we need to focus on having appropriate defenses in place.

Let’s imagine for a moment that a popular new free app is downloaded to a couple of billion devices over several days. Suddenly, one month later, it is discovered that a vulnerability has enabled the app to nefariously program to shut down the device’s telecommunications capabilities. While a fix is being found, billions of people are impacted. In this scenario, the velocity, scope, and impact all mean the consequences are dire.

Never before have we had to contemplate this scale of change. This is a revolution unlike any other.

Everyone is getting connected

Story of packet switching

  • in the 1960s, the US Department of Defense awarded research contracts to a number of organizations to develop advanced packet switching.
  • Packet switching dramatically improves reliability and builds redundancy into a network.
  • One packet switching-network, called ARPANET, eventually standardized on what was called the Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol, TCP/IP. for data to traverse across disparate networks
  • That network was open to commercial access around 1989. And voila, (chuckles) the Internet was born.
  • In addition to TCP/IP, value was added with the emergence of a new standard to link documents together across those networks: WWW
  • 5G. Conceivably, in time, all devices and people will have access to blazingly fast wireless connectivity
  • Things are getting connected, IoT
    • Industrial internet

My note:

  • connectivity is the trend, it only just started, more connectivity to come in 4th revolution
  • with connectivity comes enormous dependencies.
    • A major outage cannot only sever communications but also disrupt critical supply chains.
  • Growing connectivity also means more attack vectors
  • The need for defense mechanisms has grown, and cybersecurity must now be a high priority for all of us and our organizations.

Exploring rapid digital transformation and the third wave

We find ourselves today as what Steve Case, former Chief Executive Officer at America Online calls, The Third Wave. It’s a really valuable way of understanding the evolution of the internet.

The first wave

The first years of broad commercial use of the internet, known as The First Wave, was the period of 1985 to 1999. These years were dominated by big players such as Microsoft, IBM, HP, Apple, Sun Microsystems, Cisco, and information services such as America Online and Prodigy. These companies, through innovation were building the early hardware and software of the internet. During this period, websites were relatively rudimentary, largely focusing on broadcasting static information. If you wanted to find out the product sold at a company, and perhaps its mailing address, a static website would be adequate. After all, connections to the internet for the average user were enabled by slow and narrow-band telephone dial-up access, and delivering anything more sophisticated, would just result in a frustrating experience.

The second wave

In no time at all, connections improved and sophisticated web tools emerged, enabling dynamic websites that changed based on circumstances such as user location and input interactions on a website. The Second Wave happened during the years 2000 to 2015. This period was defined by companies and areas such as search, social, and Ecommerce. Examples include Google, Amazon, Facebook, eBay, Salesforce, and Priceline. These services built rich applications on top of the infrastructure of the internet.

This period was also defined by the on-boarding of billions of new internet users. In 1996, there were 36 million internet users. By 2000, the number was 10 times that, at 361 million. 10 years later in 2010, the number had reached 2 billion. By the end of the Second Wave in 2015, internet usage had reached 3.3 billion unique global users.

The Second Wave also included the use of mobile phones, and particularly, the arrival of the Smartphone, as devices for regular access to the internet. The Smartphone also enabled the development of millions of new applications, in what has become known as the app economy. This ecosystem gave birth to app-native solutions, those built first as an app, such as Uber and Instagram, the Smart Home and digital assistants like Siri. In 2007, there were around 100 million global Smartphone users. By 2015, the number had reached over 1.8 billion.

First Wave was defined by the building blocks of hardware and software, this enabled the software as a service period of The Second Wave.

The third wave

The Third Wave, which begins in 2016 and continues to this day, is not defined as hardware or software, but as a period of internet ubiquity. This is when the internet is effectively built into a vast array of products and services. To paraphrase Steve Case, to say something is internet-enabled in The Third Wave, will be as ludicrous as saying something is electricity-enabled. The Third Wave is a new era of business models, and re-invention that have internet access and wireless connectivity as basic enablers. This Third Wave is a catalyst to further disruptive digital transformation. It’s already changing our homes, health care, government, transportation, and more. This accelerating digital transformation has created the core conditions for a Fourth industrial revolution.

My note

BUilding on top of the fundation of first wave and second wave of internet evolution, the third wave of digital transformation is the core of the fourth industrial revolution

Rapid advances in different sciences

The Renaissance, French for rebirth, was born in Florence, Italy in the 1300’s and later spread to many parts of Europe. It was a cultural revolution that spanned almost 300 years, and had significant influence in areas as diverse as art, music, politics, religion, science, and intellectual inquiry.

The development of the scientific method, the process of observation, experimentation and then determination of a hypothesis. The spread of these ideas to other countries, fundamentally shifted the human view of the world. And set in motion the circumstances for the scientific revolution. What resulted was rapid accumulation of knowledge that began to extend beyond just a few countries. It would take until the 19th century for scientific knowledge to assimilate to the rest of the world.

In the late 1600’s a new scientific and cultural period began that is sometimes called the Age of Reason, but more often is referred to as the Age of Enlightenment

Now we find ourselves with a network that connects almost four billion people and counting. Relative global peace, remarkably easy access to knowledge, significantly improved living conditions, and a set of ground breaking tools, such as 3D printers. Powerful computer processing power has accelerated discoveries that are catalyzing scientific innovation.

  • As we unlock the secrets of the human body and brain we’re making medical breakthroughs that hold a promise to fight major illnesses, from cancer to diabetes, Alzheimers and heart disease.
  • We will see synthetic biology that will enable us to build our own biological parts.
  • We are already using a process called CRISPR to conduct gene editing and therapy.
  • In material science we are developing new, strong and light materials such as graphene.
  • Advances in battery technology is enabling longer lasting electric storage
  • Improved materials, innovation, lower costs, and corporate economic prosperity is also ushering in a new golden age of space exploration.

The Renaissance and Age of Enlightenment created the modern scientific era. It led to the first, second, and third Industrial Revolutions. And now breakthroughs in science, as a result of all these upheavals and the existence of the technological, socio-economic and cultural conditions, means the fourth Industrial Revolution will be a wave strongly defined by them too. Plus, the magic is amplified when the physical sciences intersect with the digital world. When the atoms meld with bits, that’s when it gets really interesting.

Economic and demographic shifts

Understanding the major changes taking place in the world requires us to step back and take a look at macro factors that can have significant influence. We’ll explore what I believe are two of the most important areas: economic and demographic shifts.

Economics

In the early 1800s, around 94% of the population lived in extreme poverty. By 2015, 200 years later, that number had dropped to 9%, and this, despite the world’s population growing sevenfold, leaping around from one billion to almost eight billion today. During the 20th century, despite two catastrophic world wars, many economies flourished and created remarkable new innovation. The century began with most homes lacking electricity, and ended with a computer powerful enough to beat a human at chess. Intuitively we already know that economic circumstances dictate which societies will thrive and those that will struggle. In particular, the last few decades of the 20th century have seen remarkable prosperity.

  • In China, from 1978 until 2013, the economy increased by around 9.5% a year, and became the second largest in the world. During that period, per capita GDP in China went from below $300 to over $6,000 today. All things being equal, China may pass the United States and become the largest economy in the world by 2029.
  • Many parts of southeast Asia have begun to flourish, from South Korea to Vietnam and Malaysia.
  • A similar economic miracle is taking place in India. According to the World Bank, in just the period from 2008 to 2011, 140 million Indians were lifted out of absolute poverty. There’s still a way to go, but the trends for India look favorable over the next few decades.
  • In the opening decades of the 21st century, economic prospects are increasingly global. The fastest growing economies in the world include places such as Rwanda, Tanzania, Ethiopia and Mozambique in Africa, and Uzbekistan, Bhutan, and Myanmar. As prosperity spreads and populations grow, bigger markets are created, more opportunities are presented for improved education, new industries and expanded innovation. Invariably, the pervasiveness of the internet will eventually permeate every corner of the planet. Onboarding around three billion more internet users will not only change the nature of the internet, but create a global hive mind, a global consciousness, so to speak, the shares knowledge, thoughts and resources with vast potential for positive change, and, of course, with plenty of risks and threats.

Demographics

When the first industrial revolution began in the late 1700s, the population of the planet was estimated to have been around 650 million. In just over 200 years, we have now reached around 7.5 billion.

Remarkably, despite this rapid and massive growth, quality of life has significantly improved. In the late 1700s, a person born in England could expect to live to 35 years old on average. Today the global average is 71.5 years old. In Japan, it is 85. These lifespan transformations are due to a number of factors that include improved economic circumstances, and innovation in healthcare.

While the overall global rate is slowing, populations are growing quickly in some areas and shrinking in others. Several countries in Africa and South America are growing from 1% to 4% annually, while many countries in eastern Europe, including Russia, have declining populations.

Populations are also aging at different rates.Today, in many African countries, 40 to 50% of the population is under 14 years old. In Japan and several European countries, including Italy, Germany and Finland, almost 30% of the population is over 60.

These age distribution differences will have profound long-term consequences in each of their countries and regions. As an example, countries with older populations may rely more heavily on robots to do labor and assist with care. In the 21st century, less than 10% of the world lives in extreme poverty, are unlikely to be affected by war, famine, and have many more tools to combat disease. Despite what appears to be a litany of bad news betrayed on media, a human born in the 21st century enters a world more at peace, and with more economic opportunity than ever before. They ought to have a good chance of living beyond 100 years old. Of course, many challenges are evident, including the uncertainty of climate change, and concerns about a retreat of democracy.

While I’ve only touched briefly on these two topics, I’ve provided some evidence to suggest that we cannot look at the technological transformation ahead without considering macro factors, such as the economic and demographic circumstances in which they might emerge.

The core technologies

Now more than ever, it’s the intersection of several new technologies, which is enabling a whole new set of capabilities. Each alone is important, but together, their convergence is what is essential for ground-breaking solutions to emerge. It’s a lens to understand the future, and the possible impacts, of a fourth industrial revolution to you, and your organization.

Let’s explore this idea with some examples.

If you’ve ever used a mapping app on your smartphone, which I suspect many of you have, you already know how valuable it can be. There are many available, and they help you find optimal directions, use crowd-sourcing to understand traffic conditions, and provide substantive information on a wide variety of useful factors, before and during a trip. But what does it take to have a successful mapping app, to make this a service with real value, for millions of users?

  • The basics must include a pervasive wireless infrastructure
  • a network of satellites
  • the internet
  • low-cost storage and processing technology, to fit on a mobile phone
  • a mature mobile phone operating system,
  • software development kits for mobile applications
  • expert mobile phone developers.

It becomes clear very quickly, that without any of these items, it’s not possible to have a successful mapping app. Each of these areas represents an incredible human achievement.

Take for instance, our satellite based navigation system. Call it global positioning system, or GPS. This is a network of at least 24 satellites, that enables GPS to work in any weather conditions, anywhere in the world, 24 hours a day, and without any cost to users. It’s the product of a U.S. department of defense project. It’s now enabling an extraordinary amount of innovation, for everyone to use.

For the second example

lets look at on demand transportation. Here, we’re talking about using a smartphone, to schedule a car pickup. What does it take for this solution to emerge, to gain millions of users quickly, and to accumulate enormous market capitalization? And why didn’t this technology exist before 2009? What happened to enable such a radical idea? Much like a mapping app, we need

  • the pre-requisites of GPS
  • the internet, pervasive smartphone adoption an apps economy,
  • wireless connectivity.
  • efficient and seamless online payment systems,
  • advanced software techniques, that optimize connecting the customer with the provider.
  • Beyond technology, for on demand to work, we need the customer provided to be comfortable with some new norms, including, a societal acceptance to step into a stranger’s car, knowing they don’t belong to a traditional taxi organization, with all it’s attendant checks and balances.

New disruptive business models rise when the conditions are right

  • the right convergence of new software and hardware
  • cultural acceptance
  • capital availability
  • knowledge that builds on knowledge
  • good luck and timing.

Okay, so why go here? It’s this foundation that helps us to understand why adding a set of additional capabilities, doesn’t just incrementally change the game, but at the right dosage and convergence, flips a business model on its head. Additionally, we can now compound this with the core characteristics of the fourth industrial revolution. Greater scope, more impact, and higher velocity. And it becomes clear, that it’s not business as usual. What might be these catalyzing technologies? In this course, we cover

  • We’ll begin with artificial intelligence, or AI. The computer systems are increasingly capable of performing human tasks such as, visual perception, speech recognition and decision-making. We ought to look at how AI may lead to super intelligence, computers that exceed the cognitive performance of humans.
  • Then we’ll explore the internet of things, the connecting of billions of devices to the internet, and to each other.
  • Next, we’ll look at Blockchain technology, the underlying database that enables cryptocurrencies, and now has an independent life as an enabler of some remarkable new innovation.
  • Finally, we’ll explore the emergence of autonomous vehicles, and what that might mean to a whole range of industries and behavior.

There are many more important technologies to discover on your own including augmented, virtual and mixed realities. These are remarkable new experiences that supplement how we can view and interact with the world. They’ll be valuable in a range of activities that span from education, to medicine, to gaming and much more. If you haven’t yet had an opportunity to experience these mixed realities, find a way to do it. I promise, you won’t be disappointed. And it may open your mind to a whole range of new opportunities.

Artificial intelligence

The broad use of and the rapid sophisticated evolution of artificial intelligence may be a defining characteristic of the fourth industrial revolution. While it’s been in development since the 1950s, it’s finally here as a viable, mainstream capability. Artificial intelligence is equally one of the most misunderstood and underestimated technologies of our time. For many, it erroneously conjures up images of HAL 9000 in 2001: A Space Odyssey or C-3PO in the Star Wars saga. In addition, artificial intelligence, or AI, as it’s commonly known, is an umbrella term for several types of technology. I’ll briefly explore the nature of AI, but I encourage you to learn more by checking out courses on our library.

How might we define AI today? I like the definition, “The capability of a machine to imitate intelligent human behavior.” Most other definitions are a variation of this. The idea that human activities can be simulated by a machine is at the core of AI research and development. This conclusion does not automatically infer that the achievement of machine consciousness, or emotion, is a necessary goal. We’ll leave that to one side for now, and defer to future philosophers, ethicists, politicians, and innovators to handle.

A better conceptualization of a near-term AI goal is that a computer can use visual analysis to know and describe what objects are in a digital photograph. Sounds simple enough, but it’s remarkably difficult to achieve, but we’re getting there. Visual and audio interpretation has achieved stunning results in just the last few years. Of course, our expectations continue to grow quckly. These examples help to place current AI in the context of a continuum of future possibilities. AI’s recent rise after decades of effort is a direct result of the third industrial revolution and opening years of the fourth. They are the artifacts and attendant behaviors of our digital transformation. For good measure, throw in some math, and science breakthroughs, and a little good luck. Investments by IBM created a machine capable of beating a human at chess, and similar computing moonshots helped to bring about AI innovation too.

A deep exploration of how current AI works will be way beyond the scope of this video. However, let me share some basic concepts.

AI is largely the product of a set of instructions, called an algorithm, that describes a process to execute under certain circumstances. You could think of it like this, if this, then that. If it’s raining, then the sprinkler should not function. There is a condition and an action.

An essential component of making AI work, is that not every conceivable circumstance should need to be predetermined. It is valuable if the computer could see patterns and repetitious, slightly varying outcomes.

One popular way this is achieved is through a subset of AI, called machine learning, or ML. If an AI program needs to identify a bicycle in the picture, it would of course be impossible to show the computer every single variation of a bicycle. However, if the AI software sees a pattern from being fed lots of data where something with two circles in close proximity is likely to be a bicycle, then it has a better chance of identifying bicycles in the future. The more data, the better the ML.

With a category of ML called deep learning, we get capabilities such as image, speech, and face recognition.

As you’d imagine, the research and application of AI is wide and complex. Major areas of development include problem-solving, perception, planning, and the management of robotics.

In addition to the rapid expansion of AI knowledge and breakthroughs, its accessibility is much greater than before. The relative ease to access and use solutions from major players such as IBM, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and a large number of start-ups are making it much simpler for organizations to embed AI into their products and services.

One category of the application of AI, chatbots, provides an interface between a human and a computer. This can simulate a basic conversation, such that service providers can lower the cost of customer service. These chatbots are becoming more valuable with advances in both machine learning and natural language recognition.

AI brings a lot of value to a wide range of areas for humanity, but it’s likely to create some significant challenges too. Advanced AI-powered robots and machines will likely perform human tasks faster, cheaper, and with better outcomes. No doubt this will change the nature of human work.

Internet of Things

The origin of the internet and the web enabled the easy movement of data between networks and a protocol standardization for linking files. At their core was the ability for humans to access data and information from connected devices where the source was geographically irrelevant. There’s no doubt today that these innovations have been game changing for the human experience.

In the early days of the web, convenience and simplicity meant that millions of people could participate as information consumers and many could easily become providers of information. The internet and web provided a seamless online medium for a wide range of interaction.

Over time enterprises began using the internet to interact with machines to conduct actions such as checking the status of a device or restarting it. Machines began to be programmed to commonly communicate over the internet in the role as just another user. Early uses included sending an email or text based on certain conditions such as confirming the completion of a tape backup. The notion of customer to machine and machine to customer emerged.

Instead of a internet limited to connecting people, the internet was now connecting people and all sorts of machines and devices. It was also connecting machines to machines. By the early 2000s, the first references to an Internet of Things or IoT emerged. While the total human participation on the internet is limited to the world’s population size, the Internet of Things is vastly bigger with the potential to add billions of devices with no upper limit. It’s generally anticipated that 20 billion devices will connect over the internet by 2020. We can anticipate the number skyrocketing beyond that date.

The full definition of the Internet of Things goes beyond simply a device connected to the internet. Consistent with trends in the Fourth Industrial Revolution, the IoT is better defined by a convergence of several technologies. Let’s look at a consumer example of an IoT device.

A new type of thermostat for the home, one connected to the internet. This thermostat requires a home Wi-Fi network, but once connected it becomes remarkably smart. First, as a result of connectivity, it can be controlled from multiple devices such as a home computer or a smart phone. Being connected means its software can be updated wirelessly. Using AI, it learns the nature of temperature in a room and the preferences of home occupants. It can determine if the occupants of a home have left and an eco-friendly way adjust the temperature. Finally, home owners can access this data online, and they can understand their energy savings and opportunities to improve efficiencies.

The thermostat was a breakthrough device and opened the door to a huge number of home based IoT devices that are now responsible for powering what’s being called the Smart Home. Many of these independent systems now conform to one or more standards that enables control from one system, and optimal co-ordination between devices.

While the IoT world I’ve described so far is largely focused on the consumer space, there are other areas of the economy where IoT is emerging.

The industrial IoT, also known as Industry 4.0, is a convergence of the Internet of Things, machine learning, sensor data and machine to machine communication and automation all in an industrial setting. Embedding this technology in a manufacturing context can significantly improve traditional human processes such as identifying efficiencies and predicting production and maintenance issues early. The Industrial Internet improves quality control, sustainability practices and supply chain efficiency. Improved outcomes include predictive maintenance, deployment of field technicians, energy management and asset tracking.

One popular example of the Industrial Internet is the ability to predict maintenance issues. Traditionally, the first time an organization knows it has a manufacturing issue is when a machine fails. When this happens, production on that line has to be stopped and the issue must then be diagnosed by qualified engineers. Repair or replacement work must be conducted. Testing is then done and assuming all is well the production line can be put online. This is an expensive process both in terms of repair, but also lost manufacturing time.

In Industry 4.0, a manufacturing machine has a device embedded in it that is monitoring specific criteria under varying conditions. These might include temperature levels, cog movements, pressure and air and oil flow. Using machine learning, the sensors learn when the system is running smoothly. Then when something is not right the IoT device can record it. At that point, a decision can be made as to what to do. It’s a much more efficient way to deal with possible issues.

Both IoT and the Industrial Internet are reinventing how we think about the possibilities of home and industry innovation. There is no IoT without the internet and artificial intelligence, and there is no Fourth Industrial Revolution without the Internet of Things.

Blockchain

The emergence of blockchain technology as an important instrument of change itself, is somewhat of a surprise, since its primary function, to enable cryptocurrency, was supposed to be its defining purpose. Blockchain, or distributed ledger technology, DLT, came to life as the technology backend of the cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, in 2009.

Bitcoin requires a database of validated and secure transactions. These transactions must be immutable and easily associated with owners.

For example, if you currently own five Bitcoins after series of currency purchases and trades, each of those transactions must be tied to you in order to resolve to your account total. The database stores the transactions in blocks of data in sequence, a chain, so to speak, where each new block is dependent on the previous block. Fundamentally, this is the technology, A database called blockchain.

In the first few years after the emergence of Bitcoin, blockchain technology was relatively unknown. However, there were properties of blockchain technology that made it appealing outside the domain of cryptocurrency. Innovators discovered that the very qualities of distributed ledger technology that made it perfect for insuring the integrity of Bitcoin meant it could be used as a way to store all types of data in a more secure and validated manner. This would only be the beginning of its rise to prominence as a new disruptive technology.

While traditional structured and unstructured databases have served us well for several decades, they do have some fundamental security weaknesses. These include issues with account administration and ensuring only the right people have access to certain data. Innovators have worked hard to plug these gaps, but challenges persist that, until distributed ledger technology, have not been elegantly addressed.

Unlike traditional databases that use authentication to permit specific rights, distributed ledgers, DLTs, use a consensus mechanism to enable permissions. This consensus mechanism ensures that only transactions allowed by predetermined rules can take place. It also provides the assurance that a transaction is associated with a specific person. To make this real:

  • a DLT can ensure that a digital-based real estate transaction is authentic, and as it moves between stakeholders it retains its integrity.
  • A DLT can ensure that a vote over the internet is, in fact, authentic, and associated with a specific individual.
  • The inherent design of blockchain technology makes fraud and transaction manipulation, something common in traditional databases, remarkably tough and near impossible.

DLT can be used for a massive variety of digital transactions and database stores: from supply chain, to financial services, government, retail, and the internet of things. This technology is finding a home in solving all types of challenges and creating new opportunities.

smart contracts

DLT becomes even more valuable when complex rules can be codified into the blockchain database. Known as smart contracts, these block chains not only facilitate data management, but can trigger events based on certain conditions being met.

What we’re talking about here is the idea of distributed applications, or DApps, as they are known, that can execute all types of actions independent of checking in on a central server. The code base is distributed among users and devices. This creates enormous efficiencies and also eliminates the bottlenecks and redundancies of traditional hierarchical systems.

Let’s look at medicine that is required to be kept at a certain temperature as it’s transported. It can be carried in internet-connected blockchain-enabled packages. If conditions change, a smart contract may be programmed to send a notification, or perhaps raise or turn down the temperature. These actions can happen locally and with full integrity.

Blockchain technology eliminates our need to rely on traditional trust. We call this a trustless system. This increases transaction integrity, and eliminates the need for brokers and other third party mediators. If the possibilities of DLT are maximized, it has remarkable capacity to disrupt all manner of business models. It may force us to rethink the very nature of the centralized organization. For sure, it will create new ways of conducting business.

Autonomous vehicles

The pursuit of developing cars that drive themselves is older than most of us think. Since the 1920s, there have been a significant number of efforts put forth to realize this dream.

Released from the burden of driving, occupants of a car would be free to pursue other activities, such as watching a movie, doing work, or even getting some sleep. For almost 100 years, this goal has seemed elusive. Research was conducted with government money and also independently by major car companies.

In the 1980s, the first visual-driven experiments were conducted. The first breakthroughs involved the application of both improved computer vision and a maturing technology called LIDAR. LIDAR uses a pulsed laser to illuminate a target and then measure the reflected pulses with a sensor. The differences in laser return times and wave lengths are then used to construct a three-dimensional representation of the target.

In the 1990s, more successes were achieved and often funded by government and private competitions. While distance was achieved with some vehicles, complete autonomy continued to be elusive.

Between 2004 and 2007, the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Agency, or DARPA, funded a series of grand challenges that finally resulted in a clear autonomous winner, a team headed by the Carnegie Mellon University.

By the early 2010s, all the major car companies were making bets on commercially viable fully autonomous vehicles. Seeing the writing on the wall, governments have been scrambling to enact laws and regulations to keep up with the innovation.

To better understand the complete autonomous vehicle landscape, let’s take a look at what is called the six levels of automation.

  • Level zero is no automation. This means that all controls are made by a person.
  • Level one is called driver assistance. Under certain circumstances, the car can control steering or acceleration, but not both simultaneously. An example of this is cruise control.
  • Level two is called partial automation. The car can steer, accelerate, and break itself in certain circumstances.
  • Level three is called conditional automation. Under the right conditions, the car can manage many aspects of driving, including monitoring the environment. The driver must be able to take over at any time.
  • Level four is called high automation. The car can operate without human input or oversight, but only under select conditions defined by factors such as road type or geographic area.
  • Level five. This is full automation. The driverless car can operate on any road and in any conditions a human driver can negotiate.

While we have production versions of levels zero through three, as of mid-2018, we’re getting close to level four, but there is some distance yet to achieve a viable level five.

In a level five automation world, humans are simply occupants of the vehicle with no control capabilities, except, perhaps, indicating where they want to go or indicating an emergency situation. There is no steering wheel or pedals. This opens up a world of completely rethinking what the interior of the vehicle looks like, and the kinds of things that can be done during the journey. There is as much debate on what it will take to reach high adoption rates of level four and five vehicles as there is about timing.

So far, the rate of innovation is exceeding most projections, but adoption just won’t be about technology.

  • It will involve change costs
  • the regulatory environment, politics, economics
  • breaking the love affair that many have with driving
  • Autonomous vehicles will impact those that make their living driving, including all the attendant jobs and industries

However, the promise of self-driving vehicles is compelling

  • We could see a massive reduction in accidents that cause injuries and deaths.
  • It could be the solution to the curse of urban congestion
  • Vehicles could travel faster, getting us to our destinations more quickly
  • autonomous vehicles will likely disrupt urban planning and enable new ways of designing cities, particularly those historically planned around cars

Imagine no need for traffic signals, parking spaces, and even the grid system. Much like several of the technologies discussed in this course, autonomous vehicles represent a convergence. They will be disruptive and the path they create will be uncertain. In fact, this one field may change the world in the next 30 years in ways that, right now, are impossible to imagine.

The impact of this revolution

The emergence of smarter cities

Today, for most humans on our planet, we call cities our home. Over half the global population lives in an urban environment and within just a couple of decades, that number will reach 70%. Each week around two million more people leave rural areas and join cities. It wasn’t always this way. Urbanization at this scale is a recent human phenomenon. We used to be a rural population tending to crops and cattle in small scattered communities. Today’s mega cities are a product of our first and second Industrial Revolutions and it seems fitting that they will soon reflect the convergences of the fourth Industrial Revolution.

Let’s quickly review how we got there.

History of Cities

Cities have existed for thousands of years. Damascus, the capitol of Syria, thought to be the oldest, continuously inhabited city in the world was founded around 11,000 years ago. These ancient cities, however, were the exception not the norm.

From about 1600 onwards, large scale urban settings began to be more commonplace. Even still, the global population was pretty small and didn’t reach one billion until around 1804. Around this time, the first Industrial Revolution was beginning in earnest in Britain. Increasing opportunity and factories and mines pulled people away from farms and they established themselves in housing complex’s next to these new jobs. At first, conditions were pretty poor but over time social structures improved. Institutions like the police and unions were established. Improved sanitation reduced disease and this period was coupled with other medical breakthroughs. British cities began to grow quickly as did other industrializing cities across Europe and in the United States.

By the early 1900s, the global population doubled to two billion and would hit three billion by 1960. The phenomenon of cities has continued all over the world as countries have developed. These organizing structures have provided

  • lots of jobs
  • predictable services
  • significant economies of scale
  • increasing prosperity
  • the emergence of rich, diverse culture. Cities have lifted billions of people out of extreme poverty.

By 2012, the population of the planet hit seven billion with half living in cities. Today, cities dominate the human experience of every major economy on the planet.China alone has over 160 cities with a population of over one million people.

The problems of cities

While cities have provided so many positive contributions to our human wellbeing, many argue, they are the single most important of the human creations.

Unfortunately, they have created and are sustaining significant problems too. The price of two Industrial Revolutions has been costly. Many cities are near breaking point and many are already failing in key areas such as basic services. In fact, cities are now the biggest contributor towards our global climate crisis. Thought of another way, if we’re going to save the planet from over heating and becoming unsustainable for life, we’re going to have to fix our cities.

Work in progress for cities

The work to repair our cities and prepare them for the next 100 years and beyond has started. Solutions will involve every strat of society. They will require bold change in areas such as politics and economics, social and cultural and of course, technology. Rethinking and reinventing how our cities deliver their services in a digital age will require connected intelligent systems. Those local governments that are already pursuing the first phases of this type of strategy are being called smart cities. They are using technology to improve livability, workability and sustainability. Foundational fourth Industrial Revolution technologies such as high speed fixed and wireless internet, the internet of things, artificial intelligence, autonomous vehicles, digitization, big data and even newer tech such as block chain are becoming the building blocks of our future cities. I would argue that cities are becoming the ultimate manifestation of this new revolution. They will be the great big complex urban machines that have the largest impact on the human experience. If we’re going to fully understand and respond to the consequences of a major slice of the fourth Industrial Revolution, we don’t need to look further than our cities. If you’d like to learn more about smart cities, I’ve created a course specifically on the topic.

The future of work

In many ways, the current state of the global job market with acknowledged challenges such as poor working conditions and stagnating wages in some areas has never been better. How might the Fourth Industrial Revolution impact the future of work from both a positive and negative perspective? This is a big topic, and there are many ways to address it. Two unique perspectives

  • new styles of work
  • the impact of automation.

Styles of work

While we take it for granted today, the five-day, 40-hour workweek is a relatively new concept originating in the United States in the 1920s. Through much of the Second Industrial Revolution, factory workers could regularly put in 16-hour workdays. Today, in most developed nations, an eight-hour workday is common. But it’s changing. The Third and now Fourth Industrial Revolutions are providing a wide range of new working options. The Internet has enabled millions of people to work for themselves and to work at home. The work is wide-ranging and includes activities such as marketing, design, software development, and administrative tasks. In these instances, working hours and duration have become the responsibility of the individual. The five-day, 40-hour workweek is suddenly much less relevant. With an increasing emphasis on information workers in the United States, by around 2005, 30% of the workforce had become contractors, no longer tied to specific office or factory work hours and with little allegiance to any particular employer.

The gig economy

In addition the third wave, has given way to the gig, or shared economy. Enabled by the prolific availability of smartphones, Internet connectivity, big data, and artificial intelligence, these organizations provide a lightweight platform for coordinating a wide variety of business models. These companies are enabling individuals to earn money in fractional ways and at their own discretion. When done right, an individual can hypothetically do one or two jobs for just a few hours a day, rent a room in their house, rent their car, and be able to sustain a living.

By 2020, it’s estimated that the combined number of contractors and gig economy participants in the US will reach 43% of the workforce. It’s only likely to go up from there.

The emergence of gig economy type work is giving people more freedom and choice. It is kicked off an ecosystem of providers that support these new types of businesses and alternative work lifestyles.

For example, many people now use service providers to maintain Airbnb properties.

However, this shift is not without challenges. Many people find it difficult to earn enough to succeed in the gig economy. Additional costs for healthcare and types of insurance and the absence of traditional perks like pension plans and paid vacations needs to be factored into an individuals calculations. In addition, the lack of union representation, and the unpredictable nature of the work demand provides further risk.

The impact of automation, specifically robots and artificial intelligence, or AI.

So far, AI has been augmenting our personal and work lives for some time, creating useful efficiencies. Examples include search engines like Google and recommendations for movies and Netflix.

  • At work, AI augments our work in domains such as financial services and healthcare.
  • In industrial settings, AI coupled with robotics has reduced the need, for example, for humans to be exposed to unsafe conditions.

Most of the time, AI and robots have reduced or removed difficult but routine tasks for us and enabled humans to do higher-value work and less strenuous work.

But what happens when AI and robotics transition from simply augmenting our work to eliminating the need for us to do the work? History suggests that automation did not steal our jobs. Through three previous industrial revolutions, demand for human workers has skyrocketed. Would a Fourth Industrial Revolution be any different? There are many who will argue both sides of this.

  • Some say jobs for humans will continue to grow and may even be more meaningful. Although they will evolve in nature and scope
  • there are those who say that we’re entering a period of mass unemployment.

The latter argument is based on the defining characteristics of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, scope, impact, and velocity. Applied against AI and robotics, innovation suggests consequences we’ve never had to face before. Let’s briefly look at one example.

What might the future hold for Americans who drive trucks for a living as autonomous vehicles enter service? The trucking industry is a strong candidate for disruption. Based just on the overhead cost of drivers’ salaries, and the limited hours a person can drive in a day, the case of self-driving trucks is very compelling. There are almost nine million Americans who will have the possibility of losing their jobs as a direct result. Assuming autonomous trucks emerge as anticipated. But the number will be much higher. There are many more millions of people who provide auxiliary services to the trucking industry that will be impacted. The diners, mechanics, motels, laundry services, emergency services, and more.

Have we seen this kind of disruption at this scale before? Now, let’s multiply this by many more industries that will be displaced or will fold as a consequence of the convergence of the Fourth Industrial Revolution technologies. It’s difficult for us to comprehend all the consequences. We’ll need to look to the future of work with our eyes wide open.

Industries at risk

During the Second Industrial Revolution in Britain, it was common people to be woken up by a person tapping their bedroom windows. This real profession, called a Knocker-upper, was essential to ensure, that in a time before alarm clocks, workers would get up on time and head to their jobs at the factories. In addition, many knocker-uppers used a snuffer-outer as a tool to extinguish gas lamps in the morning that had been burning all night. As reliable alarm clocks became available and electricity was deployed in more and more neighborhoods, the job of the knocker-upper was in jeopardy. Eventually the technology had reached enough people that the necessity for the job was eliminated. An entire industry vanished.

We can all likely think of many jobs made unnecessary and industries that have vanished as a result of innovation. Equally, we can think of new industries, services and products that continue to emerge every year as a result of new technologies.

When considering the impact, scope and velocity of change in the Fourth Industrial Revolution, what types of industries may be most at risk, and what new kinds of industries might be born?

industries at risk

We’ll start with industries at risk. Any industry and any organization that underestimates both the extent of disruption and the speed in which that disruption may occur, should be flagged as a risk. Now if an organization can digitize its product or service, it must seriously consider it. If that product or service used to thrive in an analog world, but can replicated and improved upon in a digital context, the momentum will be towards making that shift.

non-flowing industries

In Kevin Kelly’s book “The Inevitable”, he introduces the concept of flowing. It means that static, analog content is far less appealing in a world of rich, dynamic online experiences. This is the same force that moved newspapers online, and music to streaming, and maps to apps. The concept of flowing will only increase in the years ahead. Many of these original, non-flowing businesses that didn’t shift are gone or at best, continue to struggle with old business models.

intermediary role industries

Industries that are based on the intermediary role may feel pressure should blockchain technology become widely accepted and deployed. Old types of brokerages, from mortgages to notaries, from insurance to stocks and much more may become obsolete. Digital business models will dominate the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

left/right mind

In Daniel Pink’s well-received book “A Whole New Mind”, he explores the topic of professions that may prosper in the future and those that may be at risk. The thesis is simple, but important. It is based on which side of our brain we tap into. The left side of our brain largely takes care of logic. Things like process, structure and mathematics. The right side is where we get our creative abilities. His argument is that computers and machines are highly capable of replicating left brain activities but will struggle with right brain creative processes for a long time to come. If humans are to have a meaningful role in the future, we’ll need to focus on right-brained work. Industries that are human based and require largely left-brained thinking, will be dominated and reinvented by computers, robots and machines. Here we’re not just talking about mass-production factories where we’ve seen, for example, robots build cars and dishwashers. We’re also talking about professions such as lawyers, accountants and many types of software engineers. The professions and industries more likely to succeed will include designers, storytellers and jobs that require empathy and play. To add to our vocabulary of understanding the times in which we are entering, Daniel Pink calls this “the Conceptual Age.” Now, I want to add a footnote to this item. Daniel Pink’s work slightly predates the recent breakthroughs in artificial intelligence. Whereas his thesis is wholly reliant on a world where computers aren’t technically creative, AI may challenge this notion in the years ahead.

Summary

Finally, I’m reminded of a popular, early 21st century meme. It’s an image with two pictures side by side. One is of a table with a whole lot of useful gadgets and devices. The other is simply a smartphone. And the caption reads “things my smartphone replaced.”

Many of those individual industries have been impacted and while not totally extinct, many of the dominant players are gone and only a few niche organizations remain. It’s a powerful reminder of what the scope, impact and velocity of change ahead may mean to today’s popular industries.

Ethics of technology

If you’ve been to a movie theater in the last few years, you’ve likely noticed that there are now pre-movie announcements about the use of smartphones during the show. These short videos usually ask you to power off your device as a courtesy to other moviegoers. It’s the kind of thing we could never have anticipated just a few years ago.

As technology evolves, acceptable norms change, too. While some of these new behaviors emerge quickly because new technology raises obvious issues concerning areas such as safety, courtesy, and convenience, other responsibilities and responses aren’t so clear. They are more complex and take much longer to settle. Two areas that represent goods examples of this are

  • privacy
  • artificial intelligence

In particular, our ethical responses as they relate to areas like these will test and stretch our leadership competencies with much more frequency in the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

What do we mean by ethics in this context? It is the discipline dealing with what is good and bad and with moral duty and obligation. What might be right for one person or culture quickly becomes debatable for another. We see this play out in terms of how different societies view the role of government and healthcare or the death penalty. We see it with voting and drinking age, with drug use and social safety nets.

It’s driven by complex motivations that include tradition, culture, religion, politics, and economics. But here’s why we need to be even more concerned with this now. While ethics traditionally evolves over a long period of time, the challenges we face from accelerate impact, scope, and velocity means we will often not have the luxury. In the Fourth Industrial Revolution, ethical dilemmas associated with privacy and AI will arise much more often.

Privacy

Just the mere mention of the word privacy probably brings up a particular view you have of the topic. Privacy as a 21st century notion is an area of significant debate. Some argue we’re already in a post-privacy world. We also have unanswered questions and ambiguity about who owns our data and what can be done with it. Do we need a data Bill of Rights?

But let’s be clear, privacy has always been a tough topic, but it’s become a lot more complex since the Third Industrial Revolution. The ease at which information can be stored and shared in a digital format creates enormous benefits and risks.

To live and thrive in a 21st century urban society means we’ve already given up a lot of our privacy. In fact, sharing data is often necessary.

  • Consider the fact that your smartphone could be broadcasting your location 24/7.
  • Think about your use of credit cards and how the data on that tells so much about what you do, when you do it, what you like and don’t like, and much more. * Cameras in cities record so much of our activity. Research has shown, for example, that a Londoner is captured on a camera up to 300 times per day.

ethics of AI

Now let’s briefly look at the ethics of AI. On one level alone, we must consider this question, what should AI be able to do independently versus what must be deferred to a human for judgment? The answer to this question is changing often. What would you be comfortable with? What would offer the optimum efficiency? What is our moral responsibility? And is this complicated? Sure.

To bring this topic home, let’s look at one example in one domain. It’s the role of AI in autonomous vehicles. Let’s set the stage. A level five autonomous vehicle is navigating to a destination with passengers. The vehicle is completely in control and the passengers are enjoying the time being disengaged from the trip itself. The vehicle is powered by AI, and is largely executing routine judgements that have been acquired through millions of existing trips learned from every other autonomous vehicle that has ever driven. But suddenly a new situation emerges, it’s a tough one. The vehicle must avoid colliding with a small group of three people who are crossing the road, but in doing so, will kill one unrelated person on the opposite side of the road. We’ll assume that no other options exist. Is killing one person who has nothing to do with the situation the ethical thing to do versus killing the group of three who shouldn’t have been crossing the street to oncoming traffic? How does AI derive the moral compass to make this decision?

Let’s make it a little more difficult. If, in the same situation, there are three people in the way of the vehicle and three people on the opposite side of the road, should the car crash and risk killing the passenger of the vehicle? What happens when there is one in the way, one on the opposite side of the road, and one passenger? Who should die? If you’re struggling with processing how each of these dilemmas should be solved, you’ve just discovered the ethical challenges of the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

While not everyone of our future dilemmas will involve life and death, they will certainly involve uncomfortable and unfamiliar judgments. They will involve privacy, responsibility, culture, rights, and more. These issues will impact everyone of us and our organizations.

Preparing and responding to change

Taking action: Organizations

  • In 1958, on the Fortune 500 list, an annual list of the most profitable US industrial corporations, companies remain there for an average of 61 years. Today, the average is just 18 years.
  • In the UK, at the top 100 organizations listed in 1984 on the FTSE 100 Index, a listing of the largest UK organizations by market capitalization, only 28 remain today.

Relevancy is increasingly fleeting. Competition is rigorous. Innovation is swift. The Fourth Industrial Revolution accelerates all of this. So what actions should an organization take.

Let’s acknowledge there are hundreds of models for anticipating and responding to changes of all kinds. But I’d like to explore the topic through the lens of risk. Simply put, a risk is the possibility of an adverse outcome happening that deviates from what is expected. Risk doesn’t mean something will happen, particularly if you take mitigating actions. In my view, the biggest risk to an organization in the Fourth Industrial Revolution is that becomes irrelevant. And when it becomes irrelevant, it can no longer exist. We have to look at lowering that risk.

To do this, I suggest the four step process.

  • One, gather intelligence.
  • Two, assess the situation.
  • Three, evolve the strategy.
  • Four, on a regular basis, repeat steps one through three

    gathering intelligence

    This can take several forms. But at its most basic, it’s about education. Ask, do the leaders and other stakeholders of an industry understand the dynamics of the Fourth Industrial Revolution? And when they do, do they understand the broad risk factors?

  • Reading articles and books
  • listening to podcasts, watching videos, consulting with peers
  • participating in conferences

these are all appropriate mechanisms to elevate intelligence on this complex topic.

assess the situation

In other words, what are the specific risks to the organization and industry and what are the risks of not acting? There are many approaches to this, and I suggest taking a leadership-convened SWAT analysis to get the ball rolling. SWAT stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.

Say the organization is in vehicle insurance. We know now that autonomous vehicles are likely coming in a big way. We have to assess the risk to the insurance business. Will automobile insurance be viable when there are less accidents? How do you provide insurance for the behavior of AI? Using a SWAT analysis, we can begin to understand the extent of the risk through four dimensions. What used to be strength may no longer be relevant. Thus, a high risk is identified. A weakness may require greater urgency to address. Our opportunities may be expensive and speculative. And finally, the threat may be obvious.

An initial pass at a SWAT analysis, really only serves to elevate the conversation. Then, evolve the strategy.

Evolve the strategy

Based on the risk assessment, it’s likely that an organization’s strategy will need to change. The idea that a strategy is good for several years, typically three to five, well, that’s out the window. My hunch is that most organizations will be iterating on their strategy frequently. Constant change and lack of predictability will become a common characteristic of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Disruption will happen suddenly and will often be disorientating. Evolving the strategy may be enough as conditions change, but sometimes a complete refresh of the strategy may be required.

Repeat

Lastly, repeat steps one through three often. Remember, this new era is defined by greater impact, scope and velocity. It means that leaders and stakeholders need to constantly gather intelligence. Without insight, our possible future cannot be understood. Without continual assessment of a risk, it automatically goes up. And if organizations don’t evolve their strategy, the world will change too quickly around them, leaving them in the dust.

Existing organizations will need to change, that’s a fact. But for new entrants, the future may be rosier. As industries and organizations become irrelevant, new ones will emerge. The Fourth Industrial Revolution will create incredible new opportunities to innovate. At a minimum, we have to agree that current organizations can’t just ride this out. The risks are too high. Have a plan, and take action, otherwise irrelevancy awaits.

Taking action: Individuals

So far, the rapidly industrializing and urbanizing world of the 21st century has largely continued to produce enormous amounts of new opportunities. Employment, despite growing ranks of illegible workers, has remained high on average. But what might the dimensions of a fourth industrial revolution mean to an individual, either with their career ahead, or even well into a career?

Many indications are positive.

  • Natural evolution of jobs: As some occupations have waned, others have blossomed.
  • More roles in energy, health, CS. In some nations, there may be less mining or manufacturing jobs, but there are many more jobs in clean energy or health and computer science.
  • shortage in skilled workers: In fact, in some areas, there will be huge shortages in areas such as nursing, pilots, teachers, technologists, engineering and more.

So, is there a case for blissful optimism? Maybe not so fast. While the following is somewhat speculative, it’s important for us to understand some possible difficult employment challenges that the fourth industrial revolution may present. Being successful in a new or existing career will largely depend on the type of work that you do. Many opportunities may be lucrative right now, but looking ahead, automation may present a significant threat. There are a number of studies on the potential for automation technologies to impact human jobs. While they often differ in scale and timing, they align around a common theme.

  • Many jobs will be replaced by our AI-driven, digitized, and mechanized robot associates.
  • One study suggested up to a third of global jobs could be displaced as soon as 2030.
  • In the United States, the number could range from 16 to 54 million impacted workers, and globally over 375 million people may need to be retrained for other work.

The more the job is left-brained, predictable, and highly paid, the greater the chance for replacement by labor-saving technology. Jobs associated with machine operation, food preparation, the collection and processing of data, legal and accounting, are all candidates. Safer jobs will include those that are far less repetitive and much more creative. They include managers, scientists, healthcare providers, educators, gardeners, plumbers, and eldercare providers.

Looking even further out, the new economy of the fourth industrial revolution will create amazing new employment opportunities that we can’t even imagine right now. It will create a huge need for retraining. More education will be required for jobs that have greater technical skill requirements.

Unemployment could skyrocket and a whole new phenomena of a class of unemployable people may emerge. These are the people who might be unable to participate in the new economy, due to limited educational or inability. For these, we’ll need new ideas and a rethinking of our social safety nets.

  • The idea of a Universal Basic Income, or UBI, is gathering momentum as a way to manage inequity caused by unevenness across the spectrum of society. It will be provided by government to all citizens, to ensure that everyone had enough money to live. Those already earning could collect UBI but would not see the benefits as their overall income level would be subject to a UBI tax.

It’s a fascinating idea that should not be quickly dismissed. There is much to think about here, and this will form the basis of action for many individuals. Equipped with this knowledge, the right set of decisions could enable more of us to be winners in the fourth industrial revolution.

Our choices and the challenges ahead

A revolution can be defined as a dramatic and wide reaching change in conditions. When considering the cumulative consequences of many changes taking place in the first two decades of the 21st century, particularly from a technological perspective, we appear to be in a period that meets this definition. Unlike previous industrial revolutions, the fourth revolution has no precedent with regard to the degree of impact, scope and velocity of change.

And while so much of the progress we’ve discussed in this course has a positive trend line to it, there are a lot of reasons to have concerns, too. The decisions that we collectively make over the next few decades will define humanity’s destiny for a long time to come. So many of those decisions will be ethical in nature.

It won’t necessarily be a question of whether we can do something; but rather a question of whether we should do something. It’s been said that with great power comes great responsibility. In many ways, these words may come to define the fourth industrial revolution.

  • What choices will we make with regard to the role of artificial intelligence in society?
  • How will organizations and individuals act, and be protected in what appears to be an inevitable post-privacy world?
  • What will be our boundaries for editing human genes and extending life, or creating new life, and even redefining life?

These questions only hint at the consequential times ahead. We’ve only just begun to explore the nature of a fourth industrial revolution.

What we didn’t delve into are a number of other macro contexts in which this revolution will unfold.

  • Most looming is our climate crisis. If we are to accept the conclusions of hundreds of climate scientists, in the decades ahead we face significant human challenges. Our sea level is anticipated to rise, putting coastline cities at risk, Many which host millions of people. More frequent and devastating weather patterns will bring bigger storms and longer droughts. Our seas and lands will become less tolerant to abundant life, devastating the ecosystem that supports the fish, animals, and plants we consume. But our climate crisis can be another frontier to apply new ideas and technologies. With investment and leadership, we may have the tools to save our planet. Somehow an exit plan, the desire to find somewhere else in the galaxy for us to live doesn’t seem practical. For the foreseeable future, this is the only planet that is our home.
  • A climate crisis, changing economic circumstances, an easier mobility may also force large human migrations. How will cities and cultures adapt to a massive influx of new people? This won’t be limited to a European or U.S. challenge. Human migrations will be within and between most continents. It’s a large challenge for humanity in terms of resources. Stress on already stretched urban infrastructure, And the cultural capacity for peaceful assimilation.
  • This fourth industrial revolution will have far reaching consequences in the way we live, work and play. Remarkable new technology, such as self-driving cars, artificial intelligence, medicines that cure major diseases or help us live much, much longer. New material science and so many more change the calculus for humanity.

Drop in the climate crisis and the shifting demographics into the mix, just two of many macro factors, and we have the conditions for another long wave of great change.

  • On one level, this may all sound fascinating, and make for interesting knowledge and discussion.
  • However a more pragmatic way to respond to knowledge of a fourth industrial revolution, may be to ask what does it mean to you, your family and colleagues, and to organizations that matter to you.

Conclusion

Next Steps

We’ve reached the end of our primer on the fourth industrial revolution, but there’s much more to learn. Take a deeper look at the courses in our library of areas that really interest you. You might also want to determine how you can personally prosper in this new world. Will you pursue another career equipped with these new insights? If you’re a leader or can influence a leader in an organization, what action would you advise? In this fourth industrial revolution, there will be winners and losers. It’s a theme we’ve touched on many times. I am an optimist. We’ve faced and overcome crisis and uncertainty in the past. Ultimately, we need to make a series of big, important decisions, along with many small ones in the years ahead. If we generally get it right, we’ll ensure that billions of us are winners for a long time to come. It’s up to us. We get to decide. Thanks for watching and good luck.

Other related notes

XaaS notes

benefits of XaaS

  • lower costs, recurring opex, instead of one time big capex
  • staffing benefits: no need for managing specialized staff
  • outsource complexity
  • quickly deploy new services, business agility
  • rapid software development
  • Other: Xaas addresses neglected or poorly implemented tecnologies. for example, security, backup, recovery… ###