The rapid pace of change in our world is not lost on anyone who speculates future trends. But underscoring the reality of how change is so omnipotent and omnipresent is more important than an ever-ready omniscient stance to provide a solution. The moral: There are no easy solutions to complex problems and bringing imminent future problems into limelight is more important as these need to be first unearthed and then seriously studied extensively before any adequate solutions can be formulated. Jumping to conclusions without thoughtful and sustained research to provide solutions is non-productive. An instant prediction or solution which is the response of most of the self-proclaimed gurus of futurology is more telling of a pressure on these people to produce quickly some fodder for the masses. At best it is a knee jerk reaction toward issues which require far more attention than some simple and misleading panacea. For sure, serious potential problems are not going to be helped by transient discussions on shows similar to Oprah Winfrey or through half-baked ideas formulated on the internet forums.
So without providing any quick fix, I would like to highlight a gigantic problem which is bound to break out and shake the world as we know it. The fact is that what is brewing is going to implode having a ghastly and unwelcome effect on the history of the world. I am talking here about the obsolescence of job skills that bring about the livelihood to millions; this would be a major paradigm shift and have a destructive impact on the world as we know it.
In the past there have been great social and economic upheavals but the scope of a problem that would affect millions upon millions is far more serious and gigantic this time around.
A good example of a change in social structure in the past which affected innocent people abruptly and was horrific was during the industrial revolution. The transition of societies, especially in the European world, in the eighteenth century, from an agragarain to an urbanized industrial economy caused great hardships and adjustments. It certainly was a paradigm shift offering insurmountable hardship and problems, especially for those without adequate new job skills and the poor who could not fend for themselves. High unemployment, no labor laws, draconian working conditions, the uprooting and destruction of the family institution, exploitation of people, starvation and host of other ugly trends as a result of the unrelenting misery and suffering were all a direct result of an unresponsive societal stance toward an imminent event. Time, of course, healed the ravages of an inevitable change and societies have to a great extent mitigated, if not compensated, for the terrible state of affairs, where elements such as harsh child labor, 14 hour work days in deplorable conditions and many more related events had devastated a huge section of the population.
But imagine for a moment that even such a big event such as the ill effects of the industrial revolution in the past may be considered a simple blimp. No doubt the next industrial revolution bringing a paradigm shift is going to be far more draconian. The fallout from it is bound to affect all industrialized countries—in effect the whole world. This should make us all shudder.
We could have a more devastating, albeit different, state of affairs than what Alex de Tocqueville described when examining a typical city during the industrial revolution. His conclusion “civilized man is turned almost into a savage” was very apt as were the concerns of Karl Marx and Engels and references to society in literature by writers such as Charles Dickens.
When the industrial revolution of the 18th century took place the total population of the whole world was relatively miniscule and mind you, the shock of rapid industrialization was limited to some European countries rather than the whole world, and yet it was catastrophic. The world population reported by the United Nation is 7.243 billion now and growing every day. Indeed, the recipe for disaster is more rife as globalization and industrialization has dug in its heels and interdependence of the world has peaked and any impact of what may be described as the “new industrial revolution”, certainly another paradigm shift, would result in unimaginable chaos affecting far more people.
Robots in the work place have been used before, but it is the enmasse introduction of more sophisticated and less expensive automation which is going to usher in huge unemployment, and irreversible hardship to most of the people of the world. Not only would the replacement be for unskilled labor but even professionals, as sophisticated robots and AI are developed and become cost effective to use and replace humans in the workplace.
Take Foxcan for example, it has already installed 12000 robots with an average of additional 40000 per year. In China itself, Foxcan employs upwards of a million people whose jobs will become redundant very soon. Foxcan is no exception and all big corporations in order to increase their ROI are eying at using robots almost in every field and eventually at all levels affecting both the professional vocations and others. For instance, even your medical practitioner could be terminally unemployed once the robots are able to master the right skills and become cheaper to produce.
So should we fear the rise of the robots and AI? Or is it the same stuff as the fictional movies falling in the category of Rise of the Planet Apes? I wish it was, but unfortunately that is not the case. The fact that one of the greatest intellectual, Stephen Hawking is also leery of the robots and the consequences of AI if unchecked, tells a lot about why this issue can’t be taken lightly.
Of course, we will not be able to change the inevitable trend of takeover by automation and I am not pretending this change will not happen, nor am I suggesting this change would be necessarily bad if it is ushered in the appropriate way. But the important point here is we have to insulate humanity and ward of an undesirable catastrophe by giving due importance to a reality which could morph into a grotesque form very soon.
The onus is now on the leaders and thinking public to acknowledge the problem of an inevitable paradigm shift, research its trends aggressively and devise appropriate ways to face it head on. Such an approach should certainly help in eliminating or downgrading chaos that is capable of destroying our world and human beings if not addressed in the right way.