8 ms·

What the Fourth Industrial Revolution Looks Like

50 points by Natura 11y ago

walterbell 11y ago
> Welcome to life after the fourth industrial revolution, where all of the objects you use on a day to day basis are custom-made and constantly talking to one another for your benefit. Maybe, if they talk through an API filtering proxy of the user's nomination, which can determine benefit based on personal data history that is unavailable to partially-trusted objects.
VLM 11y ago
The "you" in the article only applies to the likely extremely small percentage of the population still in the middle class and employed. The vast majority of the population will be unemployed, living in cardboard boxes down by the river, at least in between wars and revolutions requiring cannon fodder. And a very small "end of the roman republic" style class will own absolutely everything so its not going to be "your house" from the article, everything will be rented and monetized down to the tee shirt from the article. One big company store. "Maximizing the perks of the fourth industrial revolution will require massive cooperation across corporate boundaries" Obvious OP has never worked at an actual megacorp job. The best analogy I can provide to my experience is its very much like being an ancient gladiator without the death and blood. I fight the other departments for my faction because anyone who stops fighting and sabotage will be consumed cannibal style by the non-pacifists. Normally this would result in a less screwed up firm wiping out the megacorp, but once the megacorp (and its friends) own the government and the financial system, that will be made impossible. Its not bad. Its not literal gladiatorial combat so its not physically risky or stressful, and the business model and job are extremely stable. It superficially seems like it would be boring to never really do anything, yet, oddly enough, with a lack of micromanagement comes liberation, exciting new tools and techniques, thus better fighters who almost accidentally get to play with exciting new stuff. Those who are about to die salute you, Caesar. Well, not die for another 40 years or so, hopefully, and my manager is pretty cool and her name isn't Caesar. But same general idea, corporate spam is just SPQR and all that. We haven't quite figured out the paperless office yet, for example. So I wouldn't worry about this for some decades / centuries. We did recently upgrade from XP to 7 on the desktops, change does happen, although very slowly (LOL at the 2025, maybe 2125)
- nine_k 11y ago
  > The vast majority of the population will be unemployed, living in cardboard boxes down by the river Who is going to consume all the goods that the machines produce? Who is going to buy these, and how? However much you might not like factory owners, they are not likely to deliberately shoot themselves in the foot.
  - marcosdumay 11y ago
    Why do you think the factory owners care about people consuming his production? What will those people offer him for it?
    - Phlarp 11y ago
      uh, money?
      - logfromblammo 11y ago
        Currency is the intermediate trade good. Currency is only worth what you can buy with it. If nobody makes anything, no amount of money can buy anything. If the only people making things are the rich folks who own production capital, they can only trade with each other. If they are not producing the things that rich people want, they can't trade. Imagine a degenerate world where there are two rich factory owners and 7 billion unemployed people. One rich owner produces food with robots, enough to feed the whole world at $0.01 per meal. The other produces potable water with robots, enough to supply the whole world at $0.01 per cubic meter. Every day, one richie trades a day's worth of meals to the other, who trades a day's worth of water back. The 7 billion povs can produce food and water, but they cannot compete on price. Even the cheapest pov-made food or drink trades much more expensively than the factory goods. Their problem is that very little that the povs make is worth anything to the factory owners. They, too, would prefer to get their goods from the factories. Every last pov is relegated to subsistence production, for personal use. The only way out is to produce a trade good or service that a richie would prefer to richie-made goods and services. In this degenerate world, the most commonly sold service is likely going to be "not murdering you in your sleep and taking control of your factory the next day". And that is why it is important to care about what people can trade.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
oliveira12345 11y ago
"Yet rather than putting people out of work, this will supposedly free them up for more creative, skilled tasks, rather than subjecting them to menial, low-skilled work" This is a lie. It pretends that the factory owner will continue to pay the wages of existing employees and also the acquisition-and-maintenance of new CPS machines. Simply a lie. It pretends that the employees will be free "for more creative skilled tasks"... this is almost insulting... Previous employees will be fired and in their place will be a small team of highly specialized technicians to control the machines. There is no hope for previous-employees to be kept, they will basically be replaced by machines - please don't create illusions. The truth is that this means layoffs and a new wave of unemployment, for the benefit of the corporate efficiency though machines highly intelligent. The blame should not fall on the technology itself, but instead on the politics which allow the technology to be used to boost financial results without taking into account the social-costs of it. I believe this should be regulated to create socially-owned factories to solve nation-wide necessities.
- maroonblazer 11y ago
  >I believe this should be regulated to create socially-owned factories to solve nation-wide necessities. Which industries comprise the list of necessities?
  - oliveira12345 11y ago
    Can't give you a complete answer on this, although I believe the correct way to evolve on this list (and other questions of importance to society) could be something like (for example): * a) open period of public discussion (media info and debates), and invite proposals to be sent and received before a fixed deadline-A. This expects the contribution from anyone, both {government, social, private} entities which work around the context but also from anyone else who has a valid opinion or contribution to make (journalists, individuals, teachers, etc). * b) let the discussion of arguments and solutions breed during the period of public discussion, and when deadline-A is reached identify key-arguments-and-participants who surfaced as dominant contributions and with them constitute a "task-team". (make available to them some gov-special-temp-permission to work on this) * c) Ask the "task-team" to try to elaborate a joint proposal, with their different contributions taken into account, and explaining the pros/cons of the decisions proposed (this could serve also as an historical-explanation-of-why-those-decisions-were-proposed-at-that-time). If it is not possible to make a joint proposal (arguments too different) then the task-team would elaborate multiple proposals and take them to an online voting to let the public decide which proposals should be discarded at this point. * d) At this point, there should already be public conscience of the problem and the different tradeoffs around proposed solutions (from a)). Also there should be a proposal elaborated by the "task-force" (from c)), so in this phase the proposal should be gradually implemented, with much communication and transparency of the whys-and-hows. These are just some sparse ideas... I believe that society could be led to participate much further and generate greater/better contributions towards the well-being of the nation...
negamax 11y ago
This is only half the picture. This sort of automation is welcome and should be pursued. But it won't free people but enable to take on bigger, wider, never imagined before challenges. There will be products which none of us are thinking of right now. Solutions (and also problems)
pharke 11y ago
The most interesting part of the article seems to be in the video in which it is mentioned that part of the goal is to create easily reconfigurable assembly lines that "fit together like lego bricks". It is also mentioned in the article that many of the manufacturers that have already implemented these automated and configurable production processes are in the business of producing the machines used in other assembly plants. Could it be possible to produce a set of standardized manufacturing machines that can be swapped out or reconfigured to produce different end products? This would require an incredibly high degree of automation, but that level of automation is the stated goal of this movement. I don't see how you could feasibly do it today but given some combination of rapid additive manufacturing, conductive ink circuit printing, and some future generation of baxter like manufacturing robots capable of handling pick and place as well as assembly or other more general tasks could move us in that direction. If this is implemented it might be used for simple customization for individual use. Smartphones whose dimensions are tailored to your hands or usage patterns. A flatscreen designed to match the aesthetics of the room in which it will be placed and integrating your preferred console or other gadgetry. Mass produced prosthetic limbs designed to perfectly match their owner. Hololens' in whatever style you choose so you feel like less of a space cadet while wearing them. Driverless cars geared towards your lifestyle and family size. It'd essentially be the end of the 'model' as we know it for products. Just provide your body scan and bio-socio-informatic data along with your credit card number and you can expect a drone delivery in the next 3 hours.
- superbaconman 11y ago
  This is the goal we should be striving for. Not just for end user customization, but for small business owners who design products but don't have the capital to invest in infrastructure think factories as a service.
dothething 11y ago
It must be much more fascinating to imagine machines managing everyday life than to imagine the societal complications that will result. I've seen like 3-4 of these machines do it all posts and nothing to examine what people will do. It's a bit silly to imagine everyone suddenly becoming creative and entrepreneurial - of the people I know and the people I see they are such a small minority.
- TeMPOraL 11y ago
  What people will do? Probably finally get around all those things they really want to do but they don't have time because of their job and commute. People are generally creative and have dreams - even those who one would dismiss as dumb/lazy. It usually takes talking to them to discover it. INB4: I don't believe people would sit all day in front of TV/Netflix - it's a kind of thing you do because after 8+ hours of working, some commute, making dinner and stuff you're really too tired to do anything else.
kokey 11y ago
The fantasy future presented in the introduction is different from mine. I don't think you will hear the car start. I think a car will be on its way to pick you up at home, and it will probably have electric motors so you are unlikely to hear it start before your journey.
pdkl95 11y ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Pq-S557XQU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Pq-S557XQU "Humans Need Not Apply" (by CGPGrey) In case someone hasn't seen it yet, this is prone of better overviews on the problem we need to start solving now, now that automation has started making many of the remaining jobs obsolete,

50 points by Natura 11y ago

> Welcome to life after the fourth industrial revolution, where all of the objects you use on a day to day basis are custom-made and constantly talking to one another for your benefit. Maybe, if they talk through an API filtering proxy of the user's nomination, which can determine benefit based on personal data history that is unavailable to partially-trusted objects.

VLM 11y ago

The "you" in the article only applies to the likely extremely small percentage of the population still in the middle class and employed. The vast majority of the population will be unemployed, living in cardboard boxes down by the river, at least in between wars and revolutions requiring cannon fodder. And a very small "end of the roman republic" style class will own absolutely everything so its not going to be "your house" from the article, everything will be rented and monetized down to the tee shirt from the article. One big company store. "Maximizing the perks of the fourth industrial revolution will require massive cooperation across corporate boundaries" Obvious OP has never worked at an actual megacorp job. The best analogy I can provide to my experience is its very much like being an ancient gladiator without the death and blood. I fight the other departments for my faction because anyone who stops fighting and sabotage will be consumed cannibal style by the non-pacifists. Normally this would result in a less screwed up firm wiping out the megacorp, but once the megacorp (and its friends) own the government and the financial system, that will be made impossible. Its not bad. Its not literal gladiatorial combat so its not physically risky or stressful, and the business model and job are extremely stable. It superficially seems like it would be boring to never really do anything, yet, oddly enough, with a lack of micromanagement comes liberation, exciting new tools and techniques, thus better fighters who almost accidentally get to play with exciting new stuff. Those who are about to die salute you, Caesar. Well, not die for another 40 years or so, hopefully, and my manager is pretty cool and her name isn't Caesar. But same general idea, corporate spam is just SPQR and all that. We haven't quite figured out the paperless office yet, for example. So I wouldn't worry about this for some decades / centuries. We did recently upgrade from XP to 7 on the desktops, change does happen, although very slowly (LOL at the 2025, maybe 2125)

nine_k 11y ago
> The vast majority of the population will be unemployed, living in cardboard boxes down by the river Who is going to consume all the goods that the machines produce? Who is going to buy these, and how? However much you might not like factory owners, they are not likely to deliberately shoot themselves in the foot.
- marcosdumay 11y ago
  Why do you think the factory owners care about people consuming his production? What will those people offer him for it?
  - Phlarp 11y ago
    uh, money?
    - logfromblammo 11y ago
      Currency is the intermediate trade good. Currency is only worth what you can buy with it. If nobody makes anything, no amount of money can buy anything. If the only people making things are the rich folks who own production capital, they can only trade with each other. If they are not producing the things that rich people want, they can't trade. Imagine a degenerate world where there are two rich factory owners and 7 billion unemployed people. One rich owner produces food with robots, enough to feed the whole world at $0.01 per meal. The other produces potable water with robots, enough to supply the whole world at $0.01 per cubic meter. Every day, one richie trades a day's worth of meals to the other, who trades a day's worth of water back. The 7 billion povs can produce food and water, but they cannot compete on price. Even the cheapest pov-made food or drink trades much more expensively than the factory goods. Their problem is that very little that the povs make is worth anything to the factory owners. They, too, would prefer to get their goods from the factories. Every last pov is relegated to subsistence production, for personal use. The only way out is to produce a trade good or service that a richie would prefer to richie-made goods and services. In this degenerate world, the most commonly sold service is likely going to be "not murdering you in your sleep and taking control of your factory the next day". And that is why it is important to care about what people can trade.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

oliveira12345 11y ago

"Yet rather than putting people out of work, this will supposedly free them up for more creative, skilled tasks, rather than subjecting them to menial, low-skilled work" This is a lie. It pretends that the factory owner will continue to pay the wages of existing employees and also the acquisition-and-maintenance of new CPS machines. Simply a lie. It pretends that the employees will be free "for more creative skilled tasks"... this is almost insulting... Previous employees will be fired and in their place will be a small team of highly specialized technicians to control the machines. There is no hope for previous-employees to be kept, they will basically be replaced by machines - please don't create illusions. The truth is that this means layoffs and a new wave of unemployment, for the benefit of the corporate efficiency though machines highly intelligent. The blame should not fall on the technology itself, but instead on the politics which allow the technology to be used to boost financial results without taking into account the social-costs of it. I believe this should be regulated to create socially-owned factories to solve nation-wide necessities.

maroonblazer 11y ago
>I believe this should be regulated to create socially-owned factories to solve nation-wide necessities. Which industries comprise the list of necessities?
- oliveira12345 11y ago
  Can't give you a complete answer on this, although I believe the correct way to evolve on this list (and other questions of importance to society) could be something like (for example): * a) open period of public discussion (media info and debates), and invite proposals to be sent and received before a fixed deadline-A. This expects the contribution from anyone, both {government, social, private} entities which work around the context but also from anyone else who has a valid opinion or contribution to make (journalists, individuals, teachers, etc). * b) let the discussion of arguments and solutions breed during the period of public discussion, and when deadline-A is reached identify key-arguments-and-participants who surfaced as dominant contributions and with them constitute a "task-team". (make available to them some gov-special-temp-permission to work on this) * c) Ask the "task-team" to try to elaborate a joint proposal, with their different contributions taken into account, and explaining the pros/cons of the decisions proposed (this could serve also as an historical-explanation-of-why-those-decisions-were-proposed-at-that-time). If it is not possible to make a joint proposal (arguments too different) then the task-team would elaborate multiple proposals and take them to an online voting to let the public decide which proposals should be discarded at this point. * d) At this point, there should already be public conscience of the problem and the different tradeoffs around proposed solutions (from a)). Also there should be a proposal elaborated by the "task-force" (from c)), so in this phase the proposal should be gradually implemented, with much communication and transparency of the whys-and-hows. These are just some sparse ideas... I believe that society could be led to participate much further and generate greater/better contributions towards the well-being of the nation...

negamax 11y ago

This is only half the picture. This sort of automation is welcome and should be pursued. But it won't free people but enable to take on bigger, wider, never imagined before challenges. There will be products which none of us are thinking of right now. Solutions (and also problems)

pharke 11y ago

The most interesting part of the article seems to be in the video in which it is mentioned that part of the goal is to create easily reconfigurable assembly lines that "fit together like lego bricks". It is also mentioned in the article that many of the manufacturers that have already implemented these automated and configurable production processes are in the business of producing the machines used in other assembly plants. Could it be possible to produce a set of standardized manufacturing machines that can be swapped out or reconfigured to produce different end products? This would require an incredibly high degree of automation, but that level of automation is the stated goal of this movement. I don't see how you could feasibly do it today but given some combination of rapid additive manufacturing, conductive ink circuit printing, and some future generation of baxter like manufacturing robots capable of handling pick and place as well as assembly or other more general tasks could move us in that direction. If this is implemented it might be used for simple customization for individual use. Smartphones whose dimensions are tailored to your hands or usage patterns. A flatscreen designed to match the aesthetics of the room in which it will be placed and integrating your preferred console or other gadgetry. Mass produced prosthetic limbs designed to perfectly match their owner. Hololens' in whatever style you choose so you feel like less of a space cadet while wearing them. Driverless cars geared towards your lifestyle and family size. It'd essentially be the end of the 'model' as we know it for products. Just provide your body scan and bio-socio-informatic data along with your credit card number and you can expect a drone delivery in the next 3 hours.

superbaconman 11y ago
This is the goal we should be striving for. Not just for end user customization, but for small business owners who design products but don't have the capital to invest in infrastructure think factories as a service.

dothething 11y ago

It must be much more fascinating to imagine machines managing everyday life than to imagine the societal complications that will result. I've seen like 3-4 of these machines do it all posts and nothing to examine what people will do. It's a bit silly to imagine everyone suddenly becoming creative and entrepreneurial - of the people I know and the people I see they are such a small minority.

TeMPOraL 11y ago
What people will do? Probably finally get around all those things they really want to do but they don't have time because of their job and commute. People are generally creative and have dreams - even those who one would dismiss as dumb/lazy. It usually takes talking to them to discover it. INB4: I don't believe people would sit all day in front of TV/Netflix - it's a kind of thing you do because after 8+ hours of working, some commute, making dinner and stuff you're really too tired to do anything else.

kokey 11y ago

The fantasy future presented in the introduction is different from mine. I don't think you will hear the car start. I think a car will be on its way to pick you up at home, and it will probably have electric motors so you are unlikely to hear it start before your journey.

pdkl95 11y ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Pq-S557XQU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Pq-S557XQU "Humans Need Not Apply" (by CGPGrey) In case someone hasn't seen it yet, this is prone of better overviews on the problem we need to start solving now, now that automation has started making many of the remaining jobs obsolete,