The Forth Industural Revolution - (Part 3) Things to Come, The Good News

Equality of education and the reform of a broken system that, by its rigid nature, promotes inequality and the inability to meet the needs of each individual student will see a radical change in this period. The curriculum for some disciplines will no longer focus on memorization of countless facts, but instead, instruct on using the technology wisely and effectively. The concept of "not needing to know everything if you know where to find it" will be realized as information becomes more accurate and at the fingers of those that need it. Some classes will be replaced with group learning sessions which, in the beginning, there may be a mixture of in-person and video attendance. As time passes we will see the need for school buildings, bus transportation, and personnel replaced with digital platforms offering an instructor to answer questions. AI will serve a monitoring role in child development in that it will search for subtle cues to determine the learning needs and methods of the student. As education is disbursed or vertically integrated the cost will lower significantly. This model also allows for standardization of the quality of education and will allow students to learn at their pace, with the flexibility to meet their individual needs. I believe the foundations are already being laid by organizations such as khanacademy.org where one can complete various courses learning at one's own pace with video tutorials provided for instruction. Another learning tool that supports this movement from traditional institutional education is https://www.wikipedia.org. This site is a user-edited online encyclopedia continually under peer review. In my opinion, this sight is a wonder of the modern world, where individual contributions (vertical scaling) are continually employed in an attempt to capture all the knowledge of humanity and offer it, at no charge, back to the public.

Artificial Intelligence has moved from infancy to adolescence in the past couple of years, as it's accuracy, abilities, and applications have grown (very quickly). As cloud computing has made it available to smaller businesses at affordable prices. Often when people approach the topic of AI it is with apprehension or fear. Many fear that this technology will one day evolve into a sentient being that could cause harm to humanity due to its superior intelligence or be used in malicious and malicious ways. In July of 2018, 200 of the leading AI tech companies as well as over 3000 individuals who work within the industry signed the Lethal Autonomous Weapons Pledge. This document addressed the need for responsible use stating:

"There is an urgent opportunity and necessity for citizens, policymakers, and leaders to distinguish between acceptable and unacceptable uses of AI."

As they an industry they agreed that "...the decision to take a human life should never be delegated to a machine" This being a pledge means that there are no consequences for violation of the vow, but what it did was open the door for further discussion and future legislation with teeth. Personally I appreciate the sentiment as it speaks to the change of culture within corporations, as they become more transparent and community-minded.

Artificial Intelligence will touch every aspect of modern life and drive production increases and greater standard of living. In the future the question will not be should I implement AI in my project or business. It will be who's AI should I implement.

The use of AI is not off in some distant future it is happening now and with great success. An example of this is IBM's version of AI is called Watson (also known as Big Blue) It has been in development for many years but in the last couple of years, it has truly matured. In 2019, IBM reported on their implementation within their Human Resources Department. According to CNBC (Click Here for the article), this saved the company an estimated 300 million dollars in retraining cost due to employee retention. The software was utilized to review job performance as well as other factors to determine which employees were unhappy with their job and offer recommendations for changes that would improve their position. The use of Watson also allowed them to cut out 30% of their HR workforce.

IBM’s Chair, CEO and President Ginni Rometty stated that she“...expec[s] AI to change 100 percent of jobs within the next five to 10 years,”

One of the most exciting uses of AI to me will be the ability to provide oversight within industry and government as they will create greater transparency and reduce overhead and taxes. Corruption, in general, will become much more difficult to sustain once adopted. As it runs silently in the background collecting data and searching for subtle clues of misconduct and waste there will be a substantial cost-benefit which will translate to reduce costs of consumer goods and government spending reform.

Communication and information will become more secure overall as AI fact-checking software is developed and implemented in such a way as to promote free speech and limit misinformation through education and the availability of trusted information. Security Certificates for information will be issued by these systems on every type of media showing if the source can be trusted. This doesn't mean that untrusted sources will become unavailable as such measures would violate free speech and possibly silence new ideas and discussions. I truly believe that the use of AI to perform Fact-Checking functions will become one of the new societal pillars, which will be instrumental in protecting both the individual and the nation as a whole from malicious attempts to destabilize our government and affect elections by entities both within our nation and abroad.

The medical system will also realize great benefits from the adoption of AI as a diagnostic tool, providing another set of eyes that will assist healthcare professionals. AI will also reform various other aspects of this system which will lead to faster diagnostics and responses to medical emergencies and more accurate preventative care.

The rest of the world is at least talking and at most starting to understand that they need to update their social, technical, and mechanical infrastructures. The US is doing little, believing that the current socioeconomic system will suffice to compensate for the changes in civilization. This may be effective in the earlier parts of the fourth industrial revolution but as momentum is built drastic measures will have to be taken to forego serious consequences related to workforce displacement.

A good example of how rapidly things can change is at the point where self-driving vehicle technology becomes more cost-effective than the employment of professional drivers such as over the road truck drivers and taxi service employees. Both industries could see rapid movement to this new technology in a very short period displacing millions of workers. If there is no program or process in place to transition those workers it very easily could lead to massive unemployment, poverty, and in extreme cases starvation.

The good news is that as more businesses move closer to a zero margin state, the cost for goods and services will proportionally fall. This will contribute to the expansion of basic human rights to include medical care, power, communication, clean water, transportation, and education as the old socioeconomic ideals are shattered and replaced with new concepts that are not driven by greed or profit I hope that the culture of our nation will adapt too.

For Part 4 Click Here