Key Inventions of the Fourth Industrial Revolution

Introduction

Just like the previous three industrial revolutions, the fourth revolution, which started in 2011, is expanding at a ferocious pace. For the last decade, almost every year a prominent invention has made headlines that resulted in the hype, which often went bust. For example, in 2011, IBM Watson beat humans in the game of Jeopardy! And went through a boom-bust cycle during the next nine years. Similarly, in 2015, Waymo demonstrated key inventions related to driverless cars. During 2015 and 2020, driverless cars were touted by pundits and investment bankers alike, which led to a partial bust in 2021-2022.

AI as a Cornerstone of the Revolution

And, during the last six months, one group of Deep Learning Networks in Artificial Intelligence called Generative Pretrained Transformers (GPTs) has captured human imagination worldwide and while they have been improving at an exponential rate, we still do not understand their capabilities or limitations.

Also, in the first three revolutions, new infrastructures related to water and steam, electricity, and electronic communication were created. Correspondingly, the current revolution will lead to the creation of a new infrastructure related to ingesting, cleansing, harmonizing, and utilizing disparate datasets.

The Ripple Effect of AI

In fact, these two iconic inventions (i.e., AI and novel infrastructure regarding data) will also improve the following other inventions of the current revolution:

• Internet of Things (IoT).
• Inventions related to predicting, mitigating, and adapting to rapid climate change.
• Blockchains
• Metaverse and its potential applications.
• Robotics, driverless vehicles, and three-dimensional printing.
• Inventions related to gene editing, modeling protein folding, and healthcare.

Conclusion

Undoubtedly, each industrial revolution has had an enormous impact on society, whether it be affecting the workforce, the role of governments, or driving the trajectory of science; these are discussed in chapters 16 and 17 of the book.

Furthermore, to bolster the arguments provided in Chapter 17 (that AI systems will be used in numerous applications), Appendix A provides 100 use cases and applications, and another 900 are listed on www.scryai.com. Lastly, although reasonably comprehensive with additional technical details in Appendix B, this book contains very little math and no software code.