The Fourth Industrial Revolution
2018.3.10. Chris.
Harrison Ford came to Japan to promote the movie “Blade Runner 2049”, so I rented the DVD “Blade Runner” which I had seen (at) whilst on a homestay in California in 1983. Steam power appeared in the first industrial revolution. Mass production was realized by electricity and oil in the second industrial revolution. The (appearance)emergence of computers (made)pushed automation (go) further in the third industrial revolution. They say everything will be connected to the Internet and that artificial intelligence (=AI) will manage it in the fourth industrial revolution. Humans had been adjusting machines up until the third industrial revolution. However, AI instead of humans will adjust machines in the fourth industrial revolution.
IoT(=Internet of things) means the system in which everything will be connected to the network and we’ll be able to exchange information in real time. For example, if cars are connected to the network, we can exchange information with other drivers in real time such as how crowded the roads are, how the construction is going, accident(s) info, and the (situation) condition of roads’ surface.
AI will analyze the data through IoT, finding regularity of data. AI will control machines. For instance, like automobiles, AI will gather information through IoT such as 3-D maps, ambient vehicles, pedestrians, traffic lights, traffic congestion, accidents, traffic rules, and the condition of the road’s surface. Self-driving is expected to be realized in this manner.
After watching “Blade Runner”, I couldn’t laugh because I felt like this story could happen in the future. I’m looking forward to watching “Blade Runner 2049” on DVD when it is released.
David Autor is quoted as saying in TED TALKS.
(=NHKスーパープレゼンテーション“Will automation take away all our jobs?”).
Now, you may be thinking, Professor Autor has told us a heartwarming tale about the distant past, the recent past, maybe the present, but probably not the future. Because everybody knows that this time is different. Right? Is this time different? Of course, this time is different. Every time is different.
On numerous occasions in the last 200 years, scholars and activists have raised the alarm that we are running out of work and making ourselves obsolete: for example, the Luddites in the early 1800s; US Secretary of Labor James Davis in the mid-1920s; Nobel Prize-winning economist Wassily Leontief in 1982; and, of course, many scholars, pundits, technologists, and media figures today. These predictions strike me as arrogant. These self-proclaimed oracles are, in effect, saying, “If I can’t think of what people will do for work in the future, then you, me, and our kids aren’t going to think of it either.”
I don’t have the guts to take that bet against human ingenuity. Look, I can’t tell you what people are going to do for work 100 years from now. But the future doesn’t hinge on my imagination. If I were a farmer in Iowa in the year 1900 and an economist from the 21st century teleported down to my field and said, “Hey, guess what, farmer Autor. In the next hundred years, agricultural employment is going to fall from 40 percent of all jobs to two percent purely due to rising productivity. What do you think the other 38 percent of workers are going to do?” I would not have said, “Oh, we got this. We’ll do app development, radiological medicine, yoga instruction, Bitmoji.” I wouldn’t have had a clue. But I hope I would have had the wisdom to say, “Wow, a 95 percent reduction in farm employment with no shortage of food. That’s an amazing amount of progress. I hope humanity finds something remarkable to do with all of that prosperity.” And by and large, I would say that it has.
Q1: What do you think about (the) society depending on IoT & AI?
Q2: Do you think the fourth industrial revolution will help solve population decline in Japan?
Q3:Do you agree or disagree with David Autor? Why is that?
Q4: Are you optimistic or pessimistic on this issue?
For example:
・Is AI a threat?
・The role of ethics in AI.
・Ethics and autonomous driving.
・Building AI without the bias.
・Manipulating the masses with AI.
・Regulating AI: Whose role?
・Facing a Future with AI.