Industrial Revolution 4.5

"One of the biggest mistakes we made was trying to automate things that are super easy for a person to do, but super hard for a robot to do" -- Elon Musk.

What should an army of cyborg do when it needs to choose between hurting its innocent people and eliminate an injured terrorist? That is, by now, a well-known ethical challenge. These challenges are not just starting for only military purposes. Current Industrial Revolution advances (era of 4.0 rite?), bring innovations grown at an unprecedented rate and impact more and more industries.

And if you're a leader of the company, the opportunities are that you too will need to observe trends to prepare a winning and ethical focus as business models shift around you. You'll need to do so, moreover, in a global economy where people don't always agree on what's ethical. How can you reap the benefits of technological advancement while navigating the new difficulties it creates?

While global companies have long faced the challenge of balancing short and long-term performance demands with responsibility and contributing to a sustainable ecosystem, they must now do so in an era of unprecedented technological advancement, we can see it from Apple, Samsung, Huawei and many others. We call this era the next wave of 4th Industrial Revolution.... 4.5 perhaps? 5th still on the making...

In this period, companies need to forecast the rapid social, and economic disruptions brought by the technological revolutions by AI, interconnectivity, machine learning and automation. They need to integrate them into their business models, as they are bringing changes to the way we do business, on a scale and pace rarely seen before.

And the confusing things, they can't rely on the strong global governance structure that controlled technology and business at the end of the 20th Century, do you think it is the USA? China? Russia? EU? Governments often run behind the realities of technology. In their stead, business officers and civil society must guarantee that strong ethical standards take hold in the new, digital economy.

Then what do you think we should wake up and reflecting this to our business?

As the new wave of tech globalization disrupts business, national and global governance structures are missing to keep up. The historical pattern or any revolutionary legacy presents multiple examples of the harm of ungoverned business transformation, which we can learn. We must not forget that the lag between industry transformation and the government acknowledgement was punctuated by times of value destruction and societal infliction. While technological advances are absolutely decisive in the long-run, companies must govern themselves to avoid stakeholder harm until the government can catch up.

And...

We must observe flexibility in our ethics and values in the aspect of constant economic and geopolitical transformation. New industries arena—AI in particular—are emerging, and we must develop widely accepted ethical standards within them. As new tech advances, we must give considerable attention to the stakeholder implications of these developments. Business and the ecosystem must lead on this global challenge given the rapid nature of its development and create a new alliance of norms, industry associations, civil society, and non-profits —these sectors can respond more quickly than government.

And...

We should catch the exponentially-increasing data flow of the current industrial revolution to make more reliable business decisions. Thus, is data the new gold? Of course, it is – though companies must be careful to recognize that the information in itself isn't valuable, but the insights it performs. They must join the rush to collect the data, while at the same time creating strategies for what they are going to do with it. Only this way will you be able to make informed decisions that will keep your company competitive in the future, and that will be the fundamental ingredients in the AI arena.

And...

As business models have evolved, traditional measures of corporate performance, such as financial statements, miss to capture some of the right drivers of the business and economic value. Key factors such as organizational culture, stakeholder relationships and innovation are not included in many businesses' current framework. The picture is further muddled by the deluge of data of the financial markets and the media, creating situations where quarterly financial reporting and even Tweets move the markets, you can see how Trump playing his social media for the global economy.

Anyway...

This does not have to be the case. A new, digital age, requires new corporate reporting standards, models that account for the capability to provide long term business sustainability in a rapidly changing world. As AI technology continues to change the way we do business fast, there is a newfound responsibility for business and civil society leaders to establish new standards for a good company in the modern era of our shared economy.

We should all take our responsibility and reflect on how we can solve the AI ethical challenges of tomorrow in the next Industrial Revolution.

Enjoy the journey!