Earlier this year I read a fascinating book – “The Fourth Industrial Revolution” by Klaus Schwab of the World Economic Forum. Ever since I have meant to sit down and publish a post – the news this week that the UK is working with Amazon to trial delivery drones has provided the impetus I needed!
What fascinated me about the book was the implications of the changes in technology on our Society. Let’s start with Amazon delivery drones, for me the future is here, delivery by drone will become a reality – but what does that mean for all those people who are involved in delivering packages? To start with the drones will deliver packages up to 2.3kg but that accounts for 90% of Amazon’s sales – that is a chunk of work coming out of the economy. Drones will not earn a salary, pay taxes, get carried away in a PC World sale and come away with a TV far bigger than they really need (although hopefully they will be less polluting and quieter) 🙂 At the same time that we are potentially reducing the tax take from that section of the labour force, we are possibly having a bunch more people who need support from the Government as they retrain and move to a new role.
Autonomous cars are another exciting technology which I am confident will be with us in my lifetime – probably within the next 15 years tops. What will this do? Today owning a car is a necessity for many, a social status symbol for a lot of people. Will we own cars then? If cars can drive themselves do we just call a car – for example a 2 seater to take my Wife and I to Ikea then a truck to bring us and the bargain basement treasures home? What’s the impact here? So if I no longer own a car I don’t need insurance, road tax, servicing, accessories – the list goes on. If cars drive themselves do I need Taxis? What about Trains – surely if cars can drive themselves it must be soon that trains become fully automated or superseded?
Other new trends like Block Chain which promise to shake up Financial Services and contract law; Bot Frameworks – which for me have the potential to revolutionise Customer service centres serve to further demonstrate that the pace of change will only continue to accelerate.
As a Techie I am naturally really excited by these new trends, but the challenge for us and our Governments is how do we manage the impact of these changes? They will affect not just “manual” labour but as technology develops it will consume further up the food chain. How do we avoid social unrest or inequality? How do we harness these trends to make society “fair” on our path to Gene Roddenberry’s Star Trek outlook? Will ideas such as Basic income which the Swiss recently voted against start to gain traction? Who knows – certainly not me – I’ll stick with the whiteboard until the robots replace me too!
Another book I recommend which I will do a post about sometime – “Bye Bye Banks?: How Retail Banks are Being Displaced, Diminished and Disintermediated by Tech Startups – and What They Can Do to Survive” by James Haycock and Shane Richmond. Don’t be put off by the incredibly long title the book is actually quiet short!
The opinions and views expressed in this blog are those of the author and do not necessarily state or reflect those of Microsoft
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