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The Fourth Industrial Revolution: Opportunities and Challenges
Min Xu 1 , Jeanne M. David 2 & Suk Hi Kim 1 1 Department of Finance, College of Business Administration, University of Detroit Mercy, Detroit, MI, USA
2 Department of Accounting, College of Business Administration, University of Detroit Mercy, Detroit, MI, USA
Corresponddence: Min Xu, Associate Professor of Finance, College of Business Administration, University of Detroit Mercy, Detroit, MI 48221, USA. Tel: 313-993-1225.
Received: February 16, 2018 Accepted: March 6 , 2018 Online Published: March 8 , 2018
doi:10.5430/ijfr 90 URL: doi/10.5430/ijfr.v9n2p 90
Abstract
The fourth industrial revolution, a term coined by Klaus Schwab, founder and executive chairman of the World Economic Forum, describes a world where individuals move between digital domains and offline reality with the use of connected technology to enable and manage their lives. (Miller 2015, 3) The first industrial revolution changed our lives and economy from an agrarian and handicraft economy to one dominated by industry and machine manufacturing. Oil and electricity facilitated mass production in the second industrial revolution. In the third industrial revolution, information technology was used to automate production. Although each industrial revolution is often considered a separate event, together they can be better understood as a series of events building upon innovations of the previous revolution and leading to more advanced forms of production. This article discusses the major features of the four industrial revolutions, the opportunities of the fourth industrial revolution, and the challenges of the fourth industrial revolution.
Keywords: fourth industrial revolution, five ages of civilization, 3D printing technology, artificial intelligence, IoT, fusion of technology, robotics
- Introduction
The speed and measure of the changes coming about by the fourth industrial revolution are not to be ignored. These changes will bring about shifts in power, shifts in wealth, and knowledge. Only in being knowledgeable about these changes and the speed in which this is occurring can we ensure that advances in knowledge and technology reach all and benefit all.
The first industrial revolution started in 1760 with the invention of the steam engine. The steam engine allowed the transition from farming and feudal society to the new manufacturing process. This transition included the use of coal as the main energy while trains were the main means of transportation. Textile and steel were the dominant industries in terms of employment, value of output, and capital invested. The second industrial revolution began in 1900 with the invention of the internal combustion engine. This led to an era of rapid industrialization using oil and electricity to power mass production. The third industrial revolution started in 1960 and was characterized with the implementation of electronics and information technology to automate production. Under the old ways, making things involved screwing or welding lots of parts together. The fourth industrial revolution now involves computer generated product design and three dimensional (3D) printing, which can create solids object by building up successive layers of materials. (Prisecaru, 57-62) Table 1 shows a short presentation of the industrial revolutions from 1760 to the present.
Table 1. Main characteristics of industrial revolutions
Period Transition Period Energy Resource Main Technical Achievement
Main Developed Industries Transport Means
I: 1760 - 1900 1860 - 1900 Coal Steam Engine Textile, Steel Train II: 1900 - 1960 1940 - 1960 Oil Electricity Internal Combustion Engine
Metallurgy, Auto, Machine Building
Train, Car
III: 1960 - 2000 1980 - 2000 Nuclear Energy Natural Gas
Computers, Robots Auto, Chemistry Car, Plane
IV: 2000 - 2000 - 2010 Green Energies Internet, 3D Printer, Genetic Engineering
High Tech Industries
Electric Car, Ultra-Fast Train
Source: Prisecaru, P. (2016). "Challenges of the Fourth Industrial Revolution." Knowledge Horizons. Economics, 8(1), 57-62. Web search-proquest-com.ezproxy.libraries.udmercy:2443/docview/1793552558?accountid=28018.
Now a Fourth Industrial Revolution is building on the Third, the digital revolution that has been occurring since the middle of the last century. It is characterized by a fusion of technologies that is blurring the lines between the physical, digital, and biological spheres.
There are three reasons why today’s transformations represent not merely a prolongation of the Third Industrial Revolution but rather the arrival of a Fourth and distinct one: velocity, scope, and systems impact. The speed of current breakthroughs has no historical precedent. When compared with previous industrial revolutions, the Fourth is evolving at an exponential rather than a linear pace. Moreover, it is disrupting almost every industry in every country. And the breadth and depth of these changes herald the transformation of entire systems of production, management, and governance.” (Schwab 2015)
- Opportunities of the Fourth Industrial Revolution
There are similarities between four industrial revolutions and the five ages of civilization: the hunter and gather age, the agricultural age, the industrial age, the information worker age, and the emerging age of wisdom. Therefore, we may infer the opportunities of the fourth industrial revolution through the characteristics of these five ages of civilization presented by Steven Covey in his book 8th Habit. (2011, 12-17) First, the productivity of each subsequent age goes up fifty times over the preceding age. Consider for example, the increase in productivity of the industrial age over the agricultural age. Second, each subsequent age destroys many of the jobs of the preceding age. The information age is replacing the jobs created by the industrial age. Much of losses in our industrial age jobs have less to do with government policy and free trade agreements than they do with dramatic shift in our economy to the knowledge worker.
Third, in the first three ages of civilization manual workers produced most goods and services with their body, but in the last two ages, knowledge workers produce most goods and services with their mind. Knowledge workers are the link to a company's other investments. They provide focus, creativity, and leverage in using those investments to achieve the organization’s objectives more efficiently. In other words, knowledge is an integral part of total management and cuts across functional boundaries. The main assets and primary drivers of the industrial age were machines and capital. People were necessary but replaceable. The management style of the industrial age simply does not work in the new economy. Management focused on motivating employees to perform the physical labor needed to produce the products and services. In the fourth industrial age, the challenge now is how companies can motivate their knowledge workers to release their human potential.
Leading researchers argue that the fourth industrial revolution will shape the future through its impacts on government and business. People have no control over either technology or the disruption that comes with the fourth industrial revolution. However, we can predict the opportunities that comes with the fourth industrial revolution: 1) lower barriers between inventors and markets, 2) more active role for the artificial intelligence (AI), 3) integration of different technics and domains (fusion), 4) improved quality of our lives (robotics) and 5) the connected life (Internet).
exacerbate the gap between returns to capital and returns to labor. The scarcest and most valuable resource in an era driven by digital technologies will be neither ordinary labor nor ordinary capital; rather it will be those people who can create new ideas and innovations. In the future, talent, more than capital, will represent the critical factor of production. People with ideas, not workers or investors, will be the scarcest resource. (Brynjolfsson, McAfee, and Spence 2014). In 2017 Bloomberg Global Business Forum, Apple CEO Tim Cook commented – “If I were a country leader, my goal would be to monopolize the world’s talent.” (Leswing 2017) The quest for talent will give rise to a job market that may become increasingly segregated. Low skilled and low wage jobs will be replaced by computers and digitization. The higher paid jobs requiring more skills are less likely to be replaced. This increased dichotomization can lead to an increase in social tensions. (Wolf 2015, 125)
In addition to the threat of massive job displacement under the ongoing fourth industrial revolution, there are a variety of challenges, such as cybersecurity, hacking, risk assessment, and others. (Lambert 2017) A higher level of alert is raised up when our lives become extensively connected to various devices, from our cell phones, cars, and light switches to our home security cameras, and smart speakers. One of the biggest trends in 2018 Consumer Electronics Show is that everything is connected and there is no going back. (Goode 2018)
Having everything attached to everything else in the IoT is going to monumentally increase the vulnerabilities present in any given network. With more knobs, connections and burden of connectivity, systems are going to have to be more secure. The fourth industrial revolution calls for greater cybersecurity. Companies will need to map their networks, assessing the risk and critical factors relating to security. Such an assessment should examine accessibility to systems, such as possible threats from internal sources, from disgruntled employees to internal human error, and external sources including hackers and cyber terrorists. Further, companies must assess risk and determine if these risks will be accepted, reduced, shared via insurance or other vehicles, or rejected. Risks can be from both intentional and unintentional sources. If your house lights turn on via your computer, but you have lost the wireless connection to your house, you may be living in the dark. Unintentional sources of risk can include error s promulgated by company employees or nature itself such as storms causing disruptions in connectivity. Individuals too should assess their risks, just as companies will. It may come that the Internet will have more information about individuals than the family, friends, and colleagues of the individuals. Certainly, the ability of data to be processed and the speed in which it can be done surpasses the ability and speed of individuals. It is necessary to examine the value of processes and assets, from machinery to intellectual property, ensuring that there is insurance, security measures and that any vulnerability is sufficiently identified.
When we consider the changing nature of security threats - from employees connecting personal devices to company networks to brute force attacks from hackers - the situation is further complicated. The sophistication in risk identification and neutralization has to change with it. While data can be lost or stolen by employees, either inadvertently or intentionally, the biggest attacks in recent years have been external malicious attacks, collectively or commonly referred to as hacking. These could be hacking to move money around, such as when Russian hackers stole $10 million from Citibank customer accounts, Internet terrorism, such as the $2 million damages caused to WeaKnees over a six week botnet attack, Internet pump-and-dump fraud where hackers take advantage of manipulating stock prices, or software piracy which is estimated to cost over $50 billion a year. (Romney and Steinbart 2017, 159-167)
The fourth industrial revolution is more than just technology-driven change. Rather, it is powered with disruptive innovation to positively impact our core industries and sectors, such as education, health and business. In education, with the previous industrial revolutions, the focus of education changed. With the first industrial revolution, education was focused on standard modes of learning, such as the McGuffey reader. With move toward mass production in the second industrial revolution and standardized testing. Education is service oriented and with the move into the third industrial revolution we come to see students under a customer learning model. Now in the fourth industrial revolution, technologies really blur the lines between physical, digital and biological spheres. Disruptive innovation makes its way into higher education in which it redefines the conventional ways universities deliver their content to students. New modes of curriculum and teaching arise, and the focus changes from modes of teach to modes of learning. Alternative curriculums are being constantly developed. Disruptive innovation also reshapes how businesses operate. Thinking has really moved outside of the box. New markets are created and new products are defined. Netflix is competing with traditional television. Taxis must compete against Uber and Lyft. These offered similar product offered to customers in new ways. You could watch your shows from your home or get a ride somewhere. With the Airbnb alternative overnight accommodations are competing against traditional hotels and motels. (Jules 2017)
Last, in an era featuring AI, automation, robots, and genetic engineering, we have new ethical concerns emerging. Lots of debates have arisen in genetic engineering about the use of tools and research technologies. On one hand, preventing genetic disease by genetic engineering is desirable. On the other hand, what guidelines, or regulation, or ethical boundaries we should establish in order to prevent the over manipulation genetics for desirable traits? Is there such a thing as over manipulation? Infused with artificial intelligence and machine learning ability, robots have become smarter and more autonomous, but they still lack an essential feature - the capacity of moral reasoning. This limits their ability to make good or ethical decisions in complex situations. Further, the most critical question is whose moral standards should robots inherit. Moral values differ greatly from individual to individual, across countries, religions, and ideological boundaries. Uncertainty over which moral framework to adopt underlies the difficulty and limitations to ascribing moral values to artificial systems. (Al-Rodhan 2015)
- Conclusion
We have recently entered the dawn of the fourth industrial evolution, in which it differs in speed, scale, complexity, and transformative power compared to previous revolutions. This article has examined the opportunities and challenges that are likely to arise as a result of the fourth industrial revolution. As industrial revolutions have moved from the mechanization of production in the first industrial revolution, to the mass production in the second, and then to the automation of production in third, the standards of living for most people around the world have greatly improved. Undoubtedly, the capability of advancing technology coming forth from the latest industrial revolution has the potential to make even bigger and greater improvements on every aspect of our lives changes than the first three industrial revolutions summed together.
On the other hand, there are a variety of challenges stemming from the fourth industrial revolution to overcome. From income inequality to cybersecurity, the benefits of the fourth industrial revolution have obstacles that must be harnessed, directed and overcome, such as income inequality, cybersecurity, and ethical dilemmas. Technology and advancements in science drive transformation around the world. They create ripple effects on societies, institutions, and economies. They will transform the ways in which we live, work, and interact with one another. Understanding these new technologies and their disruption potential is critical for all nations and especially developing countries.
The fourth industrial revolution may affect society and economy in a variety of ways. (Prisecaru 2016) First, a large portion of people around the world are likely to use social-media platforms to connect, learn, and change information. Second, a variety of innovative producers and competitors will have easy access to digital platforms of marketing, sales, and distribution, thereby improving the quality and price of goods and services. Third, consumers will be more and more involved in the production and distribution chains. The main effects of this revolution on the business environment are the impact it will have on consumer expectations, product quality, the move toward collaborative innovation, and innovations in organizational forms.
References
Al-Rodhan, N. (2015). The Moral Code: How to Teach Robots Right and Wrong. Retrieved from foreignaffairs/articles/2015-08-12/moral-code
Anderson, C. (2012). Makers: The New Industrial Revolution. New York: Crown Publishing.
Brynjolfsson, E., & McAfee, A. (2015). Will Humans Go the Way of Horses: Labor in the Second Machine Age. Retrieved from foreignaffairs/articles/2015-06-16/will-humans-go-way-horses
Brynjolfsson, E., McAfee, A., & Spence, M. (2014). New World Order: Labor, Capital, and Ideas in the Power Law Economy. Retrieved from foreignaffairs/articles/united-states/2014-06-04/new-world-order
Covey, S. (2005). The 8th Habit: From Effectiveness to Greatness (1st Free Press trade). New York: Free Press.
Dan Miller. (2016, September). Natural Language: The User Interface for the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Opus Research Report.
Gershenfeld, N., & Vasseur, J. P. (2014). As Objects Go Online: The Promise (and Pitfalls) of the Internet of Things. Retrieved from foreignaffairs/articles/2014-02-12/objects-go-online
Goode, L. (2018). Everything Is Connected, And There's No Going Back. The Verge. Retrieved from theverge/2018/1/17/16898728/ces-2018-tech-trade-shows-gadgets-iot
Höller, J., et al.. (2014). From Machine-to-Machine to the Internet of Things: Introduction to a New Age of Intelligence (1st ed.). Amsterdam: Elsevier.
Reading 1
Course: Civil Engineering (BSCE 01)
University: Ateneo de Davao University
