The fourth industrial revolution is slowly taking over our society and culture. It's a revolution, that brings you more advanced technology, more automation and new ways of living and improving our lifestyle. But beyond the revolution is a society, that uses new tech to solve problems and create a better society. If the fourth industrial revolution meant anything, it would be something completely new and completely different.
Some of the major consequences of this revolution are a massive boost in productivity and an increase in quality of life. However, industrialization may also lead to increased pollution, diminished natural resource availability and a large increase in the number of job losses. The fourth industrial revolution is the assembling of the fourth great revolution of humankind.
The first industrial revolution started with the use of physical power. Then we had the second revolution with the introduction of automated machines. The third revolution with the introduction of virtual power and the fourth industrial revolution, that we are beginning to witness in this decade. With each technological revolution, society has had to make some adjustments in order to continue to exist.
The fourth industrial revolution takes place at the core of this evolution. The current evolution of technology is largely automated and omnipresent, it is impossible to escape. But the fourth industrial revolution's changes are much more vast and diverse, than previous changes. This revolution will fundamentally change human life and the nature of the global economy. A technology-driven world would place the world at the mercy of a few technology giants like Apple and Google. But how does the world economy and society look in the near future?
The Unequal Global Economy
The first thing to notice about the global economy is that it is highly unequal. A small group of hyper-wealthy individuals possess a great deal of the wealth of the world. The poorest people live in an state of abject poverty. It's a situation, that can not continue indefinitely. It's not an unfamiliar problem. Inequality has been increasing for centuries. However this trend is speeding up and it looks like it will get much worse in the decades to come.
The main driver of increasing inequality is technological advancement. There is a feedback loop between the development of new technologies and the increasing concentration of wealth. As technologies improve, our standard of living increases, which leads to more wealth and even more advancements. However, the benefits of these advancements accrue overwhelmingly to a small minority of the population.
The world we live in is a high-tech, highly automated and increasingly integrated market. This has important implications. First, the economic pie is getting smaller, not only for the poor, but for everyone. The growing gap between the rich and the poor is a direct result of the growing pie.
Second, more and more of our economic activity is moving away from the necessity and the benefit of human labor. Human labor is becoming more and more dispensable. This is already evident in the fact, that we are living longer and healthier lives, but we are producing less with each passing year. These trends will continue as the population grows older and machines become more intelligent.
Beyond a certain point, more intelligent machines will be able to perform a larger variety of tasks at a higher degree of efficiency, without any need for human labor. This will lead to a third driver of inequality and a potential source of conflict, the replacement of human labor by machines.
The growing role of machines in the economy has already decreased the demand for labor, which has led to a decrease in the standard of living everywhere. However in the future, this trend is likely to become more evident.
Some Possible Social Implications
With increasing levels of automation and the potential for intelligent machines to perform an increasing variety of tasks, the value of human labor is quickly declining. As you can imagine, this has significant implications regarding the future of work.
It is not at all obvious, that the benefits of increased productivity and wealth should accrue chiefly to a small group of people. It seems like an obvious consequence of scientific and technological progress, that everyone should be able to share in the benefits.
However, we have just seen a massive transfer of wealth from the bottom to the top of the economic ladder. As wealth accumulates at the top, it has the potential to corrupt political and economic elites and might even filter down to less intelligent and more gullible individuals.
The rich have always been a powerful influence in politics, but with the rise of the machine and the singularity, the wealthy individuals, who run the technological advancements are quickly making themselves a more powerful influence, than the politicians that they have been funding. These technologies are not going to be used in the service of humanity, they are going to be used to make the rich even richer.
The Worldwide Impact
The implications of this revolution will be felt everywhere. Most obviously, this will have significant implications for workers. At the current rate of technological advancement, most of the jobs that we presently have will be lost. That means fewer jobs, lower pay and more competition for those remaining. It is not hard to imagine a future, where the only jobs that exist are the low-skill, dangerous, and/or socially undesirable ones.
The future of work and the future of society as a whole will be dominated by the efficient, intelligent and safety-conscious use of advanced technologies. People will be able to specialize in a small number of tasks and they will be able to do those tasks at much higher levels of efficiency and effectiveness, than is possible today. However, those same technologies could also be applied to the creation of a vast range of new goods and services, which would likely have a positive effect on the economy.
The impact on the environment will be less obvious, but no less serious. The increased efficiency and effectiveness with which we can use natural resources, will undoubtedly be a positive development for the environment. However, intelligent machines, especially ones that are capable of receiving and acting upon new instructions, have a great deal of potential for improving environmental conservation. It might be that these machine intelligences could be harnessed in ways, that avoid or eliminate much waste and resource depletion.
Again, the potential social implications are almost too numerous to list. A future where the machine intelligences dominate all aspects of society and the economy, could have profound implications for freedom, equality and the common good.
One thing is for certain, whatever the eventual outcome is, it will not be a smooth one. The coming revolution in technology may very well be the most disruptive, that humanity has ever faced.
Thank you for reading.
Personally, I observed that industrialization is quite good for us however, it also has a negative impact which affect not just the environment but as well as human being.