In a 1965 article in ‘Horizon’
(and latter in 1970 best seller under the same name) writer Alwin Toffeler
coined the term ‘Future Shock’ to describe the shattering stress induced in
individuals because of the too much change in too short a time.
He
examined the change in the last 50,000 years of Man’s existence by dividing it
into lifetimes of approximately 62 years each. There have been such 800 such
life times. Out of these 800, fully 600 were spent in caves. The overwhelming
majority of all material goods we use in our daily life today have been
developed within the past five life times.
The
present lifetime marks a sharp break with all our past experiences. During this
last lifetime our relationships to resource have reversed. In this lifetime
agriculture, the original basis of civilization has lost its dominance in
nation after nation. The majority of the farm labour has been lost and in that
place a blue collar factory worker emerged. Within the a few decades, the blue
collar workers were outnumbered by those in the so called white collar jobs
such as trade, administration, communication, research, education and other
service categories. Mankind threw off the yoke of manual and factory labour and
poised to a concept of service economy. All the boundaries have burst, the
social web have tightly woven that the consequence of any event radiate instantaneously
around the world.
To
quote U-Thant, the late UN secretary general, “It is no longer resource that
limits decision; it is the decision that makes the resources”.
Are we on the
brink of Industrial Revolution 3.0?
Gartner's 2013
survey suggests that the world of business awake each day into a world of
technology uncertainty and change. The change being brought about by disruptive
shifts, is coming at an accelerated pace and at a global level of impact. ‘Digital
Industrial Revolution, Digital Business, Smart Machines and the Internet of
Things — that are set to have an impact well beyond just an IT function’.
Digitized
employee has moved from the factory floor to the back office of businesses and
they are different from a traditional robot. There appears to be no reason why
we cannot go forward from the present primitive and trivial robots to build
humanoid machines capable of extremely varied behavior. At that point we shall
face the novel sensation of trying to determine whether the smiling face behind
a reservation counter or elsewhere is a pretty girl or a carefully wired robot.
Any
process that is repetitive and does not require judgment is a good candidate
for robots. Data entry, account review and maintenance, creation of user IDs
and passwords, general ledger account maintenance and issuing of purchase
orders are examples of tasks suited for execution by robots. These tasks are
major components of the modern office.
“By
2020, the labor reduction effect of digitization will cause social unrest and a
quest for new economic models in several mature economies.” This is the dire warning from IT analyst
Gartner.
Other
predictions are:
By 2020, a majority of knowledge worker career paths
will be disrupted by smart machines in both positive and negative ways.
By 2017, 10 percent of computers will be learning
rather than processing.
By 2024, at least 10 percent of activities
potentially injurious to human life will require mandatory use of a non-overideable
"smart system.
By 2020, enterprises and governments will fail to
protect 75 percent of sensitive data, and declassify and grant broad/public
access to it.
By 2016, 3D printing of tissues and organs
(bioprinting) will cause a global debate about regulating the technology or
banning it for both human and nonhuman use.
By 2018, 3D printing will result in the loss of at
least $100 billion per year in intellectual property globally.
So watch out, the ‘Future Shock’ is at your
backyard.
