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By Alan Yung*
Man-made tools were employed before the Industrial Revolution, and humans spent most of their time in production for consumption. It was a level exercise where total production may be just over the total amount of consumption. Excess production may be saved for near-future use or emergencies.
In the 18th century, the steam engine and machinery came into the picture when production was sped up during the first Industrial Revolution. While mass production with machinery increased the efficiency of production, steam power increased the pace of transportation. Humans had more consumption options as well as relatively less work compared to previous eras.
By the late 19th century and early 20th century, the second Industrial Revolution took place through the railroad, telegraph & telecommunications, electrification, and assembly production line, which led to faster production. Manufacturing was significantly faster and at a lower cost. In general, less manpower was needed and likely created a wave of unemployment and obsolete jobs & columns of unemployment.
The third Industrial Revolution was on computerisation which fostered much faster production and allowed massive information available in most people’s daily life usage. Society was filled with ample goods, services, entertainment, etc. During this era, less human time was needed for production. On the other hand, people could have more time to consume all sorts of products. Well, there was another list of obsolete jobs again contributing to social problems such as worker unrest. Wondering where the typewriter and the typist have gone?
Generally speaking, we are now living in the fourth Industrial Revolution, in which digitalisation, the Internet, advanced digitalisation, availability of digital gadgets, the connection between all sorts of production factors and humans, high-capacity connectivity; new human-machine interaction, which contribute to even faster paces in most of the production process. The faster pace means less time to produce the same amount of product & service for the world population, or the same amount of time input with better quality & quantity. The digital gadget, specifically the smartphone, has replaced at least a couple of dozen of items or tools needed if not a hundred. You don’t need a separate camera, calculator, compass, address book, pager, paper notepad, wristwatch, recorders, torch, and a long list of items that look obsolete.
Digitalisation leads to efficiency. Redundancy is inevitable, and “full-time” jobs are losing place to automation, digitalisation, and robots. Routine role jobs with a counter such as a teller, cashier, driver, agent, line of a civil servant on paperwork, or assembly line workers should be out of sight within a decade or so. Only a few stay to provide service to those who lag behind the digital wave or groups of people under the digital divide.
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