The History of Industrial Revolutions:
1st (1784): Steam, water, equipment for mechanical production
2nd (1870): The division of labour, electricity, mass production
3rd (1969): Electronics, IT, automated production
4th (beginning now): Cyber-physical systems, Artificial Intelligence (AI)
Source: World Economic Forum
The 4th Industrial Revolution builds on all the innovative momentum of the 3rd IR when we first saw the expansion of intelligent technology into our homes and places of work. The 4th IR has been described as the fusion (or confusion) of technologies between the physical, digital and biological spheres. The internet of things. It is already evident in a number of fields including robotics, nanotechnology, blockchain, quantum computing, biotechnology, self-driving vehicles and 3D printing.
According to the World Economic Forum, these technologies have great potential to continue to connect billions of people to the web, drastically improving the efficiency of business and organizations and helping to regenerate the natural environment through better asset management. It presents many unique opportunities to improve human communication and conflict resolution.
AI and job creation
As the numbers of machines and AI devices increase, so will the need for jobs surrounding them. Robots can’t yet look after themselves — they need human intervention at regular intervals to keep them running smoothly.
This means there will be a demand for people at every stage of the AI journey. From development and testing, through to support, maintenance, and programming, these devices will not be able to function without constant attention from human beings.
In fact, it’s thought that out of all the new jobs created just one third will be filled by actual AI machines. The remaining two thirds will be made up of professional services, performed by people.
Source: Venturebeat / Accenture
The problem is that we cannot yet characterize in general what kinds of computational procedures we want to call intelligent.
JOHN MCARTHY
