How to win the 5th industrial revolution

In 2016, Klaus Schwab wrote a book on the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) and how it would transform industry, the economy, and society. Five years later, 2021 onwards, authors have begun discussing the advent of the Fifth Industrial Revolution (5IR). The question is how different and revolutionary the 5IR is from the 4IR. Is it for real, or is it a utopian global scenario that we strive for, but are still far away from??

Will artificial intelligence win or will humans?

As noted by columnist Thomas Friedman, "Polymathic artificial general intelligence offers us huge, unimaginable opportunities to enable people to live longer, healthier and more abundant lives. It offers us huge risks that cannot be anticipated. We don’t fully understand the extent of either. So, we need to find globally trusted ways to control those risks from A.G.I. while driving incessantly forward to garner the benefits and opportunities."

In an extract from her new book Converge, award-winning scientific futurist Catherine Ball reveals what Industry 5.0 means for the circular economy and its potential to foster flexible business practices. For example, how can AI help leaders make better decisions under pressure?

The medical-industrial complex, the foot soldiers in the trenches and patients will are struggling to win the 5th industrial revolution.

Let’s check backwards before we move forwards. These are the industrial revolutions we have already had:

• 1.0 was around the 1780s, when steam power was really cranking and making machinery move.
• 2.0 was around the 1870s, when mass manufacturing and division of labour was applied.
• 3.0 started around the late 1960s and was the time of computing.
• 4.0 was around the year 2000, when sensors started getting smaller and more connected. It was dubbed the ‘internet of things’.

Industry 5.0 will be about the robotics we put inside ourselves?– bionic augmentation and the ‘internet of bodies’. It will be powered by purpose, not just profit. It will be about how mankind works with machines and creates boundaries and responsible AI and information and communications technology applications that we trust.

Here are some lessons learned from the past few years:

How to be more human during the 4th industrial revolution

The 4th industrial revolution boot camp

How doctors and patients can win the 4th industrial revolution, and the 5th one too

How and what to teach to win the 4th industrial revolution

Moving forward, our sick care strategies and tactics should be guided by:

1. Appropriate rules, regulations, and rights
2. Addressing the threats of the technology-industrial complex
3. Education and training reform
4. Equitable access to tools
5. Cultural and organizational transformation
6. Reconciling the conflicts between the business of medicine and the practice of medical judgement
7. Fixing busted trust
8. Appropriate AI guidance, augmentation, and assistance to achieve the sextuple aims
9. Cybersecurity, confidentiality, and privacy
10. Public/patient education
11. Data, semantic and information interoperability
12. An appropriate balance of techno-optimism and techno skepticism
13. Policies and procedures to adapt to the inevitable workforce transformation
14. Restore confidence and trust in expertise

Help stakeholders lead AI and digital organizational and personal transformation

The 4th industrial revolution is ongoing. The 5th is evolving. Prepare now, future proof your career and create your kid's future

Arlen Meyers, MD, MBA is the President and CEO of the Society of Physician Entrepreneurs on Substack and Editor of Digital Health Entrepreneurship