The 4 Industrial 6 October 2016 - Safety and Reliability ...€¦ · Nanotechnology •New Materials –Lighter, ... Abundant, Renewable Energy ... –Wider inequalities of wealth

1

The 4th Industrial

Revolution

HSL Conference

6 October 2016

The First Three Industrial Revolutions

• 1780-1850:- coal, steam, iron, factories,

railways

• 1870-1914:- machine tools, electricity,

oil, internal combustion engine, flight

• 1975-2000:- computers, internet, digital

manufacturing

www.samiconsulting.co.uk 2© SAMI Consulting

The Fourth Industrial Revolution

• Robotics

• Artificial Intelligence

• Big Data

• Nanotechnology

• Biotechnology

• Genetech

• Abundant, Renewable Energy


Robotics

• Safe Robots– Working alongside people

• Productive Robots– From building skyscrapers to flipping burgers

• Pioneering Robots– Space robots and robot wars

• Domestic Robots– Caring robots, robots for fun

• In the future: Enhanced Humans?????


Artificial Intelligence

• Beating Humans at their Own Games– Chess, Jeopardy, Go!

• Virtual Assistance– Your shopping list; your PA; social insights

• Work– Data analysis, driving vehicles

– Legal casework, diagnostics, prescribing

• Creativity– Journalism, music, painting

• In the future: The Singularity????


Big Data

• Smaller, Faster Processors

– Reinventing Moore’s Law

• Faster Transmission

– 5G and beyond

• The Internet of Things

– Everything is connected

• Blockchains

– Self-sufficient communities of interest


Nanotechnology

• New Materials

– Lighter, tougher, more conductive

• Recycling

– An end to landfill?

• New “Stuff”

– Self-cleaning fabrics

– Nanoswarms in medicine


Biotech and Genetech

• Earlier diagnosis … or prediagnosis

– … leading to better prevention and cure

• Gene-splicing

– Eliminating genetic defects in people

– Pest- and disease-resistant crops

• New ways to clean up pollution

– Cleaner rivers, cleaner oceans

• In the future … New life forms?


Abundant, Renewable Energy

• Solar and Wind– Better cells and turbines and better batteries …

– … 25% of UK electricity in Q2 2015

• Cleaner technology for fossil fuels– Carbon capture and storage

• Cleaner, safer nuclear?– Smaller reactors; thorium

• The end of the age of oil

• In the Future??? … hydrogen cells from water


Impact of the 4th Industrial Revolution

• Positives– Better, cleaner environment

– Better health care

– More connected society

– Access to information

– New areas of leisure & creativity

– New economic growth sectors

– More scope for self-sufficiency

– Energy security



• Challenges

– Job losses – whole sectors at risk

– Social & political instability

– “Precarisation”

– Wider inequalities of wealth

– Cybercrime and terror

– Mass-migration



• On the UK (and the rest of the Western

World)

– Job losses – 47%? 9%?

– Labour depreciation v capital growth

– What becomes of the unskilled?

– The erosion of the middle classes

– Rise of the Exponential Organisation

– The “Japanese disease”?



• On The Rest of the World

– End of the 3rd World development model

– Impact on poor countries with large populations

– Twilight of the oil economies

– Global tensions – in combination with other

causes

– Mass-migrations/movement of people



• Closer to Home

– Rise of the precariat – mortgages, pensions?

– Impact on government revenues

– Impact on public services

– The rise of the “new politics”

• Optimistic outcome – communities of interest, the

sharing economy

• Pessimistic outcome – impoverishment, cybercrime,

troubled times


The Perils of Prediction

“MARCH OF THE

MACHINES MAKES

IDLE HANDS”New York Times, 1928

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Scenarios Aren’t Forecasts


SAMI

• www.samiconsulting.co.uk

• LinkedIn – SAMI Consulting

• @sami4insight

• [email protected]


http://www.samiconsulting.co.uk/

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The 4 Industrial 6 October 2016 - Safety and Reliability ...€¦ · Nanotechnology •New Materials –Lighter, ... Abundant, Renewable Energy ... –Wider inequalities of wealth

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