Making sense of the ‘fourth industrial revolution’: choices to be made Professor Phillip Brown, Distinguished Research Professor, Cardiff University, & Director of the Digital Futures of Work Research Programme

Have we properly understood the ‘fourth industrial revolution’? Bringing in data from digital hubs in Silicon Valley, Singapore, London, South Korea and more, Professor Brown lays the evidence that optimistic assumptions of creating better job opportunities for everyone is not materialising as expected. In the unbundling of work that is taking place at scale, AI technologies are being used more purposively on knowledge work, rather than to shed low and mid-skilled forms of work. Occurring at a time when the world has the most well-qualified workforce in human history, it creates a conundrum for all – be it corporations making decisions on their human-technology strategies, heads of education and training preparing learners for a world in which complex jobs may be scarce, and policymakers responding to a highly-educated middle class. The trajectory of AI’s impact on knowledge work is not predetermined. The choices we make today as a society on how to harness and deploy AI technologies will shape our economic and social structures for decades to come.