Is the Fourth Industrial Revolution Going To Affect Me?

The mechanizing-automating-digitization of jobs (something that is already underway, in case you thought this is some issue for the future) will leave absolute no profession untouched. Proof of this bold statement lies in the fact that in 2010, Edward Hospital in Illinois, posted a video on YouTube showing a robot performing delicate surgery on a grape.

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In this video you see the skin being cut off a grape, pulled off in sections and then, stitched back on to the grape again. And you thought that doctors, let alone surgeons, could never be replaced by machines! Additionally, as if in preparation for another instalment of “The Terminator”, you see in another YouTube clip that robotic soldiers are deployable not that far in the future either. 

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In this video, the clincher is the robot’s ability to differentiate between its human handler and static targets so that he does not shoot the human but can recover quickly enough to shoot steel targets without hesitation. How amazing is that?

If a machine can do surgery – and by the way, the Da Vinci surgical system is already installed in several Kuala Lumpur hospitals – and if robots know not to shoot a friendly human, we are already breaching one of the most human traits that we all thought machines could never have: judgement. If a machine can do predictable tasks repeatedly and exercise judgement, your job – whatever job you currently have – is vulnerable. You can have your place at work, taken by a machine. Maybe not this week, but eventually, yes. For sure!

The no.1 profession that is in rapid decline in Hong Kong is accountancy. People there are already being replaced by systems to the point that anyone who can read words and numbers, can follow the basic instructions online and have the financial machine accounts and generate the necessary corporate financial numbers quickly and with less error than a human.

If you Google “jobs least affected by automation”, you will find lists of jobs that some ‘expert’ claims will be safe from the Fourth Industrial Revolution, or 4IR. Among those jobs are Chief Executive Officer, Psychiatrist, Priest, Singer, Politician and Magician. So what’s the problem? Oh, wait! You are none of those and so your current job isn’t listed as being “safe from automation”! Welcome to the reason that Mckinsey Global Institute is saying that at least 800 million people worldwide will be made unemployed as a result of 4IR. In a nutshell, your job or whatever you are doing now for pay, has at least a 90% chance of being impacted by automation. That means you will lose your job because of a machine. It’s purely a matter of when.

“You will lose your job because of a machine. It’s purely a matter of when.”

So, what can you do about it to guard against loss of employment and loss of income? I will address that problem separately, but for now, just get used to the fact that your job is not safe. A machine of some type, will be doing your work. For sure.