"Technology is a double edged sword, it can either help us or harm us"
The age of robotics has undoubtedly made a big impact on how we live today and we don’t seem to be able to find a reason not to use this technology for any other lesser reason. It also seems like through further improved developments, they (robots and A.I.) will be able to do almost anything nowadays. Are there any limitations to their use? Or will they end up replacing us in the coming future as an essential part of development? What will be left for humans to do if machines can (and will) perform the tasks that we do, or even better? And what will happen if artificial intelligence robots reaches or even bypasses our own capabilities, if that time comes, are you ready to accept your irrelevance as a human being?
We are now standing in front of the 4th industrial revolution which is silently creeping into our society and resisting it’s implementation is useless because it will become a part of life, whether we like it or not. The 1st industrial revolution started way back in the early 1900’s as the world began to create machinery which advanced our society into what we are today. The 4th industrial revolution involves machines with artificial intelligence, machines that can move, see, hear and maybe even be able to know what we are thinking even before we do anything. This modern day industrial revolution defines the future of manufacturing and production practices and is considered a standard in the coming years. Imagine a fully automated kitchen that can cook anything you want, when you want it without you having to even peel a single vegetable and all it takes are a few given commands to the computer.
Today, we can already make machines with seemingly cognitive skills such as driving a vehicle, that perform better than most humans do. Man or machine, humans feel a little bit intimidated on what artificial intelligence can do especially when it comes to the work place. A single artificial intelligence driven machine can easily achieve the work of up to four people with dependability and precision which has changed the relationship of humans and machines in the past one hundred years. With certainty, robots will indeed be an integral part of our daily lives and maybe even in a more personal way too, that is the future envisioned by the industries that are promoting artificial intelligence for very obvious reasons.
For the part of industry manufacturers of equipments that deal in mass production products, the word “artificial intelligence” has become a marketing tool of sorts to promote their machinery. These industry manufacturers urges their customers, mainly Chinese factories that make electronic goods to join this so-called 4th industrial revolution if they don’t want to be left behind in the manufacturing industry. This means companies should and must modernize their factories or build new ones, to separate the wheat from the chaff or those who would be reluctant to follow this emerging trend will be left behind. On the digital front, the industry pleads that manufacturers should upgrade their factories in all aspects of it’s operation, and to train their workers in the new incoming technologies that will be implemented and even recruit new workers who have common knowledge of new methods that involve artificial intelligence.
“Industrialization” is a word often assimilated with technical and social change. During the early and mid 19th century, towns across Europe joined up with other neighbouring towns and formed technological hubs, much like we do today. Fire, water and steam was the primary source of foundries and powered the early machineries which lead to the development of modern technology. Coal was the primary source of heat and power which became the foundation of how we created our modern society today. With the dawn of electricity, it raised the speed of manufacturing at an exponential rate, and as the number of factories grew, so did it created new jobs in the labour market that bought in money into the economy. The 2nd industrial revolution ushered in the use of the assembly line which was originally conceptualized by Henry Ford which made car manufacturing faster, that it became a standard manufacturing practice in most industries today.
The advent of the modern computer and data processing machines in the 1980’s was the 3rd industrial revolution and with the integration of robots in the assembly line and the viability of human workers are now put into question as far as the manufacturer’s point of view is concerned. And now we are on the verge of entering the 4th industrial revolution, in where the main target of development is not in the Western hemisphere, but in Asia as major production of almost everything that we use is made there. China is the biggest manufacturing country in the whole world and 80% of almost everything you can think of is made in China and it is obvious that these Chinese manufacturers prefer European made equipment than their own to use in their production line. Knowing the Chinese, they’ll probably strip down the equipment and re-engineer it to make their own version of it, obviously. Chinese manufacturing companies are not only limited to mainland China alone and in the past decade or so, multinational Chinese companies had been buying sprawling acres of land in different countries to set up their factories.
Industry 4.0 or Artificial Intelligence, whatever you want to call it, is based on several perspectives namely efficiency, dependability and autonomy. To give you a simpler analogy, just think of an elevator. An elevator is used everyday and people like to go up in elevators compared to climbing up stairs. An elevator has to go through maintenance at some point of it’s usable lifetime and it is not that easy to perform maintenance on an elevator system. Now imagine a system integrated with artificial intelligence that does everything from tracking the elevator’s daily use to calling up parts for maintenance and scheduling the most appropriate time to perform the needed maintenance. That saves time and guess work that requires a few people to do it. A.I. can do that job flawlessly and directs everything from the components needed to be changed and the only human intervention needed is the technician that will be attaching that component.
Big production manufacturing companies can greatly benefit from this technology and it will be to the benefit of the company itself, especially when they decide to reduce a third of their human workers. This means that in the next four years, it is expected that about 5 million jobs around the world will be replaced by artificial intelligence. Most economic forums sponsored by most 1st world countries revolve around this seemingly delightful proposition of integrating artificial intelligence on a global scale within the coming decades. These economic forums are mostly attended by world leaders, business conglomerates and scientists discuss the fate of the common working man, whoopee! But as every revolution goes, there will be a few winners and a whole lot of losers. Bill Gates once quoted “We need banking, but not banks!” which has now becoming a standard on how we can digitally move money across the globe through the power of the internet without leaving your home, and all this is done through artificial intelligence and robotics.
This clearly shows that there is a big possibility of established banking institutions becoming irrelevant with the age of digital currency, and eventually destroying jobs related to these banking institutions. Viewing the unavoidable fact of artificial intelligence will eventually replace us all, aren’t you even curious as to what jobs and profession would be retained that robots won’t be able to do? In the eventuality of this happening, let me give you a statistic on how many will suffer if artificial intelligence would take over our jobs.
In general, sooner or later, most companies will have to comply with Industry 4.0 if they are to survive the coming decades. Most fledgling industries today are already being groomed to cater for the acceptance and integration with Industry 4.0 as not to be left behind. This is a dire necessity if a company must survive and since most of the industrial world is ready to accept it as a standard. So I guess the name of the game is “adapt to survive” and it is no mystery why this is happening today. For most countries that can not meet up with the adaptation of Industry 4.0 into it’s economy, meaning that it will be left behind and that it will have to learn how to cope up with the fast pace of development with countries that are already benefiting from this new technology. So World? Are you ready to become irrelevant?
We are now standing in front of the 4th industrial revolution which is silently creeping into our society and resisting it’s implementation is useless because it will become a part of life, whether we like it or not. The 1st industrial revolution started way back in the early 1900’s as the world began to create machinery which advanced our society into what we are today. The 4th industrial revolution involves machines with artificial intelligence, machines that can move, see, hear and maybe even be able to know what we are thinking even before we do anything. This modern day industrial revolution defines the future of manufacturing and production practices and is considered a standard in the coming years. Imagine a fully automated kitchen that can cook anything you want, when you want it without you having to even peel a single vegetable and all it takes are a few given commands to the computer.
Today, we can already make machines with seemingly cognitive skills such as driving a vehicle, that perform better than most humans do. Man or machine, humans feel a little bit intimidated on what artificial intelligence can do especially when it comes to the work place. A single artificial intelligence driven machine can easily achieve the work of up to four people with dependability and precision which has changed the relationship of humans and machines in the past one hundred years. With certainty, robots will indeed be an integral part of our daily lives and maybe even in a more personal way too, that is the future envisioned by the industries that are promoting artificial intelligence for very obvious reasons.
For the part of industry manufacturers of equipments that deal in mass production products, the word “artificial intelligence” has become a marketing tool of sorts to promote their machinery. These industry manufacturers urges their customers, mainly Chinese factories that make electronic goods to join this so-called 4th industrial revolution if they don’t want to be left behind in the manufacturing industry. This means companies should and must modernize their factories or build new ones, to separate the wheat from the chaff or those who would be reluctant to follow this emerging trend will be left behind. On the digital front, the industry pleads that manufacturers should upgrade their factories in all aspects of it’s operation, and to train their workers in the new incoming technologies that will be implemented and even recruit new workers who have common knowledge of new methods that involve artificial intelligence.
“Industrialization” is a word often assimilated with technical and social change. During the early and mid 19th century, towns across Europe joined up with other neighbouring towns and formed technological hubs, much like we do today. Fire, water and steam was the primary source of foundries and powered the early machineries which lead to the development of modern technology. Coal was the primary source of heat and power which became the foundation of how we created our modern society today. With the dawn of electricity, it raised the speed of manufacturing at an exponential rate, and as the number of factories grew, so did it created new jobs in the labour market that bought in money into the economy. The 2nd industrial revolution ushered in the use of the assembly line which was originally conceptualized by Henry Ford which made car manufacturing faster, that it became a standard manufacturing practice in most industries today.
The advent of the modern computer and data processing machines in the 1980’s was the 3rd industrial revolution and with the integration of robots in the assembly line and the viability of human workers are now put into question as far as the manufacturer’s point of view is concerned. And now we are on the verge of entering the 4th industrial revolution, in where the main target of development is not in the Western hemisphere, but in Asia as major production of almost everything that we use is made there. China is the biggest manufacturing country in the whole world and 80% of almost everything you can think of is made in China and it is obvious that these Chinese manufacturers prefer European made equipment than their own to use in their production line. Knowing the Chinese, they’ll probably strip down the equipment and re-engineer it to make their own version of it, obviously. Chinese manufacturing companies are not only limited to mainland China alone and in the past decade or so, multinational Chinese companies had been buying sprawling acres of land in different countries to set up their factories.
Industry 4.0 or Artificial Intelligence, whatever you want to call it, is based on several perspectives namely efficiency, dependability and autonomy. To give you a simpler analogy, just think of an elevator. An elevator is used everyday and people like to go up in elevators compared to climbing up stairs. An elevator has to go through maintenance at some point of it’s usable lifetime and it is not that easy to perform maintenance on an elevator system. Now imagine a system integrated with artificial intelligence that does everything from tracking the elevator’s daily use to calling up parts for maintenance and scheduling the most appropriate time to perform the needed maintenance. That saves time and guess work that requires a few people to do it. A.I. can do that job flawlessly and directs everything from the components needed to be changed and the only human intervention needed is the technician that will be attaching that component.
Big production manufacturing companies can greatly benefit from this technology and it will be to the benefit of the company itself, especially when they decide to reduce a third of their human workers. This means that in the next four years, it is expected that about 5 million jobs around the world will be replaced by artificial intelligence. Most economic forums sponsored by most 1st world countries revolve around this seemingly delightful proposition of integrating artificial intelligence on a global scale within the coming decades. These economic forums are mostly attended by world leaders, business conglomerates and scientists discuss the fate of the common working man, whoopee! But as every revolution goes, there will be a few winners and a whole lot of losers. Bill Gates once quoted “We need banking, but not banks!” which has now becoming a standard on how we can digitally move money across the globe through the power of the internet without leaving your home, and all this is done through artificial intelligence and robotics.
This clearly shows that there is a big possibility of established banking institutions becoming irrelevant with the age of digital currency, and eventually destroying jobs related to these banking institutions. Viewing the unavoidable fact of artificial intelligence will eventually replace us all, aren’t you even curious as to what jobs and profession would be retained that robots won’t be able to do? In the eventuality of this happening, let me give you a statistic on how many will suffer if artificial intelligence would take over our jobs.
• 97% of jobs will be taken over by artificial intelligence
• That means a large number of professions disappearing
• In the case of unskilled or semi-skilled jobs, such as manual labour, there is
an 89% probability that these jobs will be taken over by artificial intelligence.
• For office and inventory jobs, about 98%
• 59% of all jobs will be taken over by A.I. regardless of what it is.
• Most of these jobs affect people with low qualifications and unskilled work.
In general, sooner or later, most companies will have to comply with Industry 4.0 if they are to survive the coming decades. Most fledgling industries today are already being groomed to cater for the acceptance and integration with Industry 4.0 as not to be left behind. This is a dire necessity if a company must survive and since most of the industrial world is ready to accept it as a standard. So I guess the name of the game is “adapt to survive” and it is no mystery why this is happening today. For most countries that can not meet up with the adaptation of Industry 4.0 into it’s economy, meaning that it will be left behind and that it will have to learn how to cope up with the fast pace of development with countries that are already benefiting from this new technology. So World? Are you ready to become irrelevant?
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