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The Fourth Industrial Revolution
“No other revolution has made such a great impact as the industrial revolution has ever made” (Nehru)
What is a revolution?
Understanding industrial revolution is equally important to understand revolution itself. There are many
definitions in dictionary but I recommend simple one i.e “An instance of revolving”. Fourth industrial
revolution has a lot similarity with this meaning because science has a magnificent role in understanding
why industrial revolution takes place after a decade? How it affect on humans and environment? What it
cost to take place?
Past and 20th century
It all started in late 1700s and early 1800s when industries used steam and water power to mechanize
production. Mankind needed more products for survival, in between a lot of war happening in world
second industrial revolution took place for mass production. Till third industrial revolution countries were
independent and world was busy in making money and mankind reached to 20th century and started
using information technology and electronics to go global, liberal and industrial. (Schwab, 2016)
Present, 21st century and fourth industrial revolution
“There has never been a time of greater promise, or greater peril” (Schwab, 2016)
Mankind was adjusting with facebook, apple & 7D, and suddenly auto driven and chargeable cars, crypto
currency and robots were a real thing. Fourth industrial revolution is building on the third industrial
revolution knows as digitial revolution as well. How people were able to do skype, production needed
manforce and machines; apparently fourth industrial revolution is going to blur lines between physical,
digital and biological spheres. (Schwab, 2016)
According to world economic forum
Picture herein put light on how fourth industrial revolution would be like, but when it’s going to take place?

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Challenges and opportunities
Strength
 It will take place in production,
management and governance.
 It will make market highly competitive and
successful.
 It will enhance nanotechnology,
biotechnology, and energy storage.
 Grow global income level and improve
quality of life.
 Less human intervention.
 Lean process and easy monitoring.
Weakness
 Complex and costly to maintain and
implement.
 Less manual labour needed.
 Not implacable for all business.
 Security of data on cloud.
 Rich will get rich and poor get poorer
 Loosing traditional ethics and work system
Opportunities
 Knowledge base industry and hub.
 Cost of trade will diminish and open new
markets
 Blur the lines between natural and artificial.
 More business opportunities.
 Maximizing human well-being
 3D printing, self-driven car and
digitalization.
 Cross-cultural understanding and
cohesion.
Threats
 Acceptance from manforce.
 Competition: security risk to share data.
 E-commerce and out-sourcing.
 Low skill-low pay/ high skill-high pay.
 Dissatisfaction and unfairness of workers.
It will change the fundamentals how we live, work and relate to one another. There will be massive
megatrends i.e
1. Physical- Automation vehicles, 3D printing, Advanced robotics and new materials( recyclable,
lighter)
2. Digital- Internet of things(IoT), Blockchains, platforms( matching demand and supply in
accessible way)
3. Biological- Genome, synthetic biology and increase medicine precision.
Impact
1. Economy- technology and innovation have come to an inflation point where it will soon take the
productivity and growth to a new height. It will change the working system dramatically and new
skill will lead to low skill/low pay and high skill/high pay. There will be workforce only to portfolio of
things to generate income.
“The velocity of disruption and acceleration of innovation are hard to comprehend or
anticipate” (Marr, 2016)
2. Business- it will be more customer focused where the expectation would be to respond in real
time wherever they are, there will be more customer expectation, data enabled products which
will learn from data and analytics, new collaborations not in marketing but in real business too,
there will be new business models with flattened management.
“Businesses, industries and corporations will face continuous Darwinian pressures such
as, philosophy of always in beta (always available) will become more prevalent” (Schwab,
2016)
3. National- Public institution and organization will be changed disruptively, however citizen will use
technology to voice their opinions. Nation has to compete with talents to citizens and power of
technology.
“Government should be essential partners in shaping the transition to new scientific,
technological, economic and social frameworks” (Schwab k. )

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4. Society: Digitalization would turn world “me- centered”. It will be really challenging for society to
absorb new technological centered modernity and maintain traditional value system.
“A wealth of information creates a poverty of attention” (H.simon)
5. Individual- fourth industrial revolution will change who we are in many ways i.e behaviors,
privacy, ownership, consumption, time for work, time for leisure etc.
“In an age of acceleration, nothing can be more exhilarating than going slow. And in an
age of distraction, nothing is as luxurious as paying attention” (Iyer)
Era of creative destruction and link with 4th industrial revolution (IR)
According to Schumpeter "process of industrial mutation that incessantly revolutionizes the economic
structure from within, incessantly destroying the old one, incessantly creating a new one" is a creative
destruction. (gale, 1950)
In the name of innovation we create so many tools for simplifying jobs to be done but those tools and
utilities are damaging ecosystem which belongs to manhood. This era has become more destructive
creation which is taking away the traditional knowledge of work system; natural therapeutic of healing is
taken over by biology revolution such as synthetic and silicon therapy. Education center have very
important role for teaching and leading youth, so they learn and lead nations “future leaders” but artificial
intelligence is taking over education as well. In future we may need more computers than teachers for
learning and upgrading skills. 4th IR is going to be story of jobless future in many senses, because it may
be using energy system than fuel but they are harming ecosystem in other ways. Is capitalism and high
development and growing GDP going to serve clean air, water or food, is 4th industrial revolution capable
to satisfy basic needs of humans.
If developments in 4th IR going to remove poverty, malnutrition, fair legal system and clean air to breath I
will support it and use such utilities and make my life easy, but if not I can never imagine dying jobless,
foodless and alone because creative destruction is leading to 4th IR and that is leading middle class to
poverty and non skill workers are left on their destiny. (Raju, 2016)
Understanding with Examples
It is AI, robotics, nanotechnology, biotechnology and automation. Car manufacturers are launching self-
driven cars whereas Tesla already has launched one and Uber is doing trial in Pittsburgh. Mercedes Benz
and Volvo are manufacturing self driven trucks and reason is long haul truckers will become short haul
truckers. IBM working on AI called Watson which is now been used for medicine. Almost half of job
activities will be automated; according to world economic forum predicts loss of 5 million jobs in next 5
years. Robots will be used for assembling and other industrial work.
As Schwab predicts government could fail to employ and regulate new technology to capture benefits,
organization won’t adapt, shifting power may give rise to security concerns. Inequality will grow and
society fragment. There will be short working hours, as French people started working for 20 hours a
week. Universal basic income will take over with few eligibility criteria for people not working which will
replace government benefits.
For fourth industrial revolution it’s important for leaders and citizens to shape future together that works
for all, put humans first and keep remember these technologies are made by humans for humans, not to
replace them and become a reason for inequality and no control over society.
Imagine if gun was legal to keep by everyone and murder was never an offense, humankind would have
eloped from this world. We should appreciate creativity, empathy, stewardship and start thinking
strategically about the forces of disruption and make world sustainable for future generation to enjoy
nature naturally not artificially.
Some fascinating examples of the 4th industrial revolution are: The Government of Saudi Arabia recently
gave its citizenship to a robot named Sophia, Dominos Pizzas is planning to change their pizza delivery
system through drones, data storage is done via cloud computing using the medium of web browser, the

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agricultural sector have changed completely; it is no longer a family owned business and is becoming
more profit driven, the manufacturing sector is booming ahead of its time by using all the robotics and
automation technologies which helps in increasing the productivity of the companies.
Conclusion:
The term growth can be considered in a positive way always but that’s not the only side of it. When the
economy is booming, when the government reserves are getting filled everyday it’s all a good thing but
an economy is considered happy only when all the sectors of that particular economy is happy. 4th
industrial revolution will cut short jobs in thousands. Destructing something is really easy it doesn’t take
much time whereas it takes a lot of period to construct something. Let’s not forget the old proverb ‘ROME
WAS NOT BUILT IN A DAY”. Another major impact will be on the environment. As there is certain limit
that the environment can carry. If we are going at this pace then that day is not far when we will exceed
the environment carrying capacity. Invention and discovery has a major difference of finding and
developing, technology has been invented as well as discovered based on available resources by nature
and manmade, for the ease of work and more productivity so there is proper supply for demand. If
technology is a success then poverty is not a good result, it is a world concern.
As mentioned in book written by K.Schwab, head of world economic forum and a professor, give a deep
thought for this development in industry. Where will this lead us? There are many positives but serious
negatives, we know all the positive side of industry development all mechanical work, artificial technology
in all stream from education to law firms, software are more capable of doing things, or say leading us to
jobless future.
Works Cited
gale,S.(1950). Conceptin economics.
H.simon.(n.d.).
Iyer,P.(n.d.).
Marr, B. (2016, 04 05). Forbes. Retrievedfromwww.forbes.com:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr/2016/04/05/why-everyone-must-get-ready-for-
4th-industrial-revolution/#279b5d343f90
Nehru,J.L. (n.d.).
Raju,V. (2016, 05). World economicforum. Retrievedfromwww.weforum.org:
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/05/creative-destruction-or-destructive-creation/
Schwab,K. (2016). FourthIndustral Revolution. Whatismeansand How to respond,3.
Schwab,k. (n.d.). TheFourthIndustrialRevolution. Retrievedfromwww.weforum.org:
https://www.weforum.org/about/the-fourth-industrial-revolution-by-klaus-schwab