It’s time to make sure you have a say in the future

The most significant point about the 4th Industrial Revolution is the rapid pace of its progress, writes Magda Wierzycka.

The term “the 4th Industrial Revolution” is still largely unknown to the average South African, and yet it has the potential to change the way everyone learns, works and lives.

The most significant point about the 4th Industrial Revolution is the rapid pace of its progress; the future is not 50 years away, but already on our doorstep. Unsurprisingly, the 4th Industrial Revolution was the main topic of discussion at the World Economic Forum at Davos this year.

To put the 4th Industrial Revolution into context, let’s recap the three that preceded it. The 1st Industrial Revolution, roughly dated to the 1780s, involved the introduction of water and steam power to mechanise production. The 2nd Industrial Revolution, in the 1870s, harnessed electric power to facilitate mass production, leading to the development of the internal combustion engine, aeroplane and moving pictures. The 3rd Industrial Revolution, in the 1960s, used electronics and information technology to automate the same production, giving rise to digital technologies, PCs and the internet.

The 4th Industrial Revolution refers to the digital revolution, in which technologies merge together the physical, digital and biological worlds. The scope and speed of the breakthroughs are astounding. Whereas the previous revolutions were linear in progression, this one has been called “exponential” in nature. This means that it has the potential to disrupt almost every sphere of life much sooner than we think.

At the core of the 4th Industrial Revolution lies the concept of billions of people connected together by mobile devices such as cellphones, with large processing power and storage capacity. Amplified by developments in artificial intelligence (AI), robotics, the internet of things, drones, autonomous vehicles, 3D printing, nanotechnology, biotechnology, clean energy and quantum computing, among others, almost anything is possible. Many new ideas are already being tested and implemented.

Impressive progress

For instance, Amazon uses drones for delivering packages, while personal assistants like iPhone’s Siri and other chatbots can answer more and more complex questions, eBay is testing virtual reality shopping in Australia and self-driving cars are being tested in countries such as the US and Singapore.

Impressive progress has also been made in AI in recent years, driven by exponential increases in computing power and by the availability of algorithms that can use vast amounts of data to teach themselves. Diagnostic software is being tested to read X-rays and to diagnose diseases such as various forms of cancers. Digital currencies like Bitcoin have already entered the lexicon. Virtual reality is accessible through gaming formats. In future, nanotechnology could be used to inject nano-bots into your bloodstream to deliver cures for a variety of illnesses, 3D printing may be used to create artificial limbs and new organs from live cells as the raw printing material, and blockchains and smart contracts could revolutionise the operations of the financial services industry.

Like the revolutions that preceded it, the 4th Industrial Revolution has the potential to increase the standard of living for all. At the same time, it will undoubtedly eliminate many manufacturing and manual jobs. In one estimate, 47 percent of all US job types are at risk from automation. Optimists think that new, not-yet-envisaged service-orientated jobs will be created to take their place. Pessimists see a jobless future for low-skill workers and an increase in social tensions. The truth is likely to be somewhere in the middle.

The downside of all this is that it will invariably infringe on our rights to privacy, affect our ownership rights and change our consumption patterns. On the other hand, there is a high probability that work and leisure will become more balanced and that many domains of the wealthy, such as good education and access to quality health care, will become more democratised.

Beneficiaries

In the short term, the largest beneficiaries of all the change will be the providers of intellectual and physical capital, the innovators and investors. Shades of Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, perhaps? This already explains the rising gap in wealth between those dependent on capital versus those dependent on labour. This is also one of the reasons that the middle classes are experiencing a strong sense of dissatisfaction and injustice, despite general improvement in standards of living.

The subject of the appropriate regulatory response is a separate topic. It is true that existing policy decision-making frameworks are woefully inadequate to deal with exponential change. Our education system is equally inadequate and should prepare our children for a different world. We can think of the future as something that happens to us, or make a decision now to have a say in that future.

* Magda Wierzycka is the chief executive of Sygnia. Sygnia is launching a new unit trust, the Sygnia 4th Industrial Revolution Global Equity Fund, which will invest in companies that have exposure to developing and using the technologies mentioned above.

* The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of Independent Media.

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