The Fourth Industrial Revolution

This chapter looks at the current Fourth Industrial Revolution which integrates the basic sciences and technologies of physics, chemistry and biology, blurring the boundaries between the physical, digital, and biological worlds. The convergence of these technologies has created unprecedented breakthroughs - computations and algorithms based on the process of evolution are now applied in creating artificial intelligence and in genetic programming to simulate artificial neural networks. Advanced technologies will perform at a level higher than human experts in terms of accuracy and output. They will also revolutionise multiple industry sectors simultaneously. As such, the disruption of work practices and displacement of human workers occur at a much faster speed than in the past. Hence, the Fourth Industrial Revolution will make university-level education even more vital.

Keywords: Advanced robotics and autonomous transport, Artificial intelligence, Automation, Disruption, Fourth Industrial Revolution, High-level machine intelligence (HLMI), Lifelong learning, Machine-learning, MOOCs, Skills gaps and skill mismatch.