QUESTION ONE $[40]$

How will the $4$th Industrial Revolution affect business?

Imagine a future where new cars are designed not by people, but by computers analysing

hundreds of sensors on an old car as it drives around and then the new version is $3$D printed

ready to be delivered to the showroom.

Well, that future is already here according to Mark Skilton, Professor of Practice Information

Systems and Management, and Felix Hovsepian, an AI adviser, who has been researching

the technology since $1984.$

The fourth industrial revolution represents the convergence of artificial intelligence $($AI$),$

machine learning, virtual and augmented reality, $3$D printing and the internet of things into still

unimagined new products, services and even industries and the designing of cars is a prime

example of this new reality.

$$A motor racing manufacturer sent their racing car around the track covered in sensors$,$ says

Professor Hovsepian, who has worked as a Chief technology Officer after a PhD in AI$.$They

called it the digital nervous system and they drove it around, collected all the data, fed it into

a package called Dreamcatcher by AutoCAD, which is a generative design package.

$$The computer then designed a new chassis for that racing car. But that new chassis could

not be manufactured using standard manufacturing techniques $$ they would have to $3$D print

it$.$

$$Even more interesting was when a similar type of procedure was used for designing a drone,

and it looked like the skeleton of the flying fox bat. So as these generative design techniques

produce results, they're beginning to look a lot more like what you see in nature than they do

from what man has designed.$$

The impact of these technologies is set to revolutionise our lives. The UK Government

estimates AI alone could add $630$ billion to the country$$s economy by $2035$ and has put

together a series of proposals to make the UK the world$$s centre for developing AI businesses.

And this is what managers and executives need to understand, says Professor Skilton, it is no

longer business as usual, change is happening to every sector.

Professor Skilton, who has also authored Building The Digital Enterprise and Building Digital

Ecosystem Architectures, says: $$We$\text{'}$re entering a new era of what I call post$-$Moore's Law.

Computer processing power has reached its limits$,$ silicon chips are the size of atoms now,

they can$$t get any smaller.

$$So now it is how we can combine all these technologies with this massive computing power.

$$I$\text{'}$m wearing a Fitbit, but soon we will have cars connected to cell phones $-$ computing is going

to be everywhere around us$.$ We can already talk to it$,$ with virtual assistants, and that is going

to explode across every domain and office.

What is the fourth industrial revolution?

$$We have seen computers become quicker and more powerful, but the fourth industrial

revolution is where software, computers, materials and objects can think for themselves.$$

AI will allow us to do the seemingly impossible, scan a whole library in minutes, search for

cancer cells in seconds, process masses of data in the blink of an eye, things beyond the

capacity of humans $$ superhuman.

The fear is that millions of jobs will disappear as a result, but Professor Hovsepian argues it

should instead transform professions and make us so much more productive

$$The real difference in my mind is AI enables us to do things we've not been able to do before

rather than simply automating and making things efficient,$$ he says.

$$Adidas is able to $3$D scan your feet and look at the mechanics of your feet as you run $-$ they

can now design a shoe uniquely for you. Soon it could be for all of us$,$ you just pick the style.

That's high$-$end couture at the moment, but AI could make that a mass market.$$

The effect is then exponential,$$ says Professor Skilton, who has consulted for PA Consulting

Group and Capgemini and is Global Head of Digital Strategy at utilities firm Enzen.

$$To give you an example, for professors $10$ to $20$ per cent of their job can be replaced as it

involves routine tasks, but also a further $20-40$ per cent involving knowledge communication

and some research involving investigating and theorising could also be automated.

"You only have to look at the innovating going on in scientific analysis using neural networks

that exploit text recognition, image processing and semantic understanding to see this is

rapidly advancing.

How will automation affect society?

$"$So it$$s not just a digital transformation, it's an intelligence transformation. You could research

and analyse and publish more per day, per minute, because AI would augment the way you

go out and find information. It would tell you what's going on and collate the data, suggest new

things to do with it$.$

The pair argue companies and governments need to plan for this revolution now, because it

will change the way we work, learn and live in the next decade or two. For example a recents