How is the next generation of innovations in communications, with
the development of robotics and intelligent machines, likely to change
the organisation of work, power, and social life? How should societies
respond?
Introduction
Witnessing and imaging the next generation of evolutionary change in communication
systems, with the unstopping advancement of robotics and proliferation of intelligent
machines. It will influence and adapt the history, in the fields of organisation of work,
power and strongly affect people’s daily life. This text will mainly focus on job
polarisation, human labour displacement, automation and digitalization, and how social
life will be changed in the future.
Organization of work
With the robust and unstopping development of innovation in communications
system, along with the development of robotic and intelligent machines in recent
years, the organization of work facing a severe threat in few aspects.
The first one is the new workforce, Professor West points out that the rapid increase
in emerging technologies showing that they are having substantial impact on the
workforce. (West, 2015) There will be a period of time that machines will majorly
take place of people for the wide range of jobs in the current economy, and will
achieve in the near future, Economist Andrew McAfee argues. The second trend is
automation and mechanization in the workplace. In some fields of work, technology
is taking place of human labour. Some heavy and dirty works will be done by robots
or automatic machines instead of people. This could reduce the pressure of human to
some extent, but for the most part, the new upcoming technology is been destroying
jobs while creating new and better jobs also cutting the amount, argues by Hod
Lipson, an engineer from Cornell University.
Automation can largely replace labour, and it also replenishes large numbers of
workers, increasing output, leading to higher demand for labour and interacting with
adjustments in labour supply. In the past, journalists and experts have tended to
exaggerate the extent to which machines are used to replace human labour, ignoring
the relationship between automation and labour. They can be in a complementary
state, whose complementary nature increases productivity and income, thus increasing
the demand for labour. Changes in technology do change the types of jobs available
and reduce the cost of original production. How recent and future developments in
artificial intelligence and robotics should affect our thinking about possible
trajectories for career change and job growth. Autor hold the view that the interaction
between machine and human comparative advantage enables computers to perform
daily, coded tasks for workers, while amplifying the comparative advantage of
workers in providing problem-solving ability, adaptability, and creativity.(Autor,
2015)
Ford (Ford, 2016)proposes that the Information Technology (IT) is a way to change
the rule which have a unique destroying power with no historical precedent. Because
this will cause not only low-skilled labour worker to be replaced also the workers
with higher technical skills will be substitute by machines one day with the risk. In
the last wave of automation, we have witnessed the fundamental change of workers to
machines. The machines are not only themselves, but they have been becoming the
workers themselves. This is due to the accelerating computer and technical
development. (Wajcman, 2017)
Some is believed that robotics, artificial intelligence and machine learning could
partly substitute humans and help improving accuracy, efficiency and productivity.
(West, 2015)Which led a lot of business organisation and companies cut their
workforce to operate in lower budget, which lead to severe unemployment. For
example, Robot financial analysis and Robot Reporter which using algorithms and
machine learning strategy to help companies and organisations to produce more
within a shorter time, first developed by Narrative Science company. Also, human
labour could not wholly substitute by automation, but work with robots or other new
technology, so the advantages must be taken by both sides, we could demonstrate
from Model 3,(Berg, Buffie and Zanna, 2018) To have robotic colleague in the future
work place will be helpful to improve the job, helping people do less dull and
repeatable works. (Benjamin Wohl, 2017) Martin predicted that accelerating
development of technology will “disrupt” rapidly and fundamentally have impact in
the field of global employment.(International Federation of Training and
Development Organizations and University Forum for Human Resource
Development, 2016) (Ford, 2016)
The innovation in communication systems, the obvious revolution will be the born of
The Fifth Generation(The 5G), which could help controlling the robotic machine
operation in a more flexible way. (Jennifer L. Schenker, 2018) Effective
communication can help increasing productivity, efficient communication enables
clear instructions informative message and logical explanation transmission between
managers and employees using the new communication strategies. (Pawel Kijko,
2017)
Artificial Intelligence, machine learning, driverless cars, and virtual reality doesn’t
need human intervention in the coming future, advanced software will make it
capable to get better results by using sophisticated algorithms. The rise of new
technologies and communication system innovation will help companies to alter the
operation and building new relationship between manager and employees. (West,
2018) Increasing revenues by using new technology for better outcome.
New technology in communication system and the wide use of computers utilize
communication infrastructures and online for 24/7. Relationship between manager
and employees will be tenser because of the social control issues monitored by the
systems, on the other hand, there will be a lower barrier to communicate across
different sectors with more freedom. By reducing the budget of employment, wide
range of remote business could be easier to access, individuals could manage the time
more flexible, part-time jobs, job sharing or having two or more jobs at the same time.
This could increase job mobility and speed career advancement, flexibility, and
satisfaction, reduce job stress. Communication and media technology are creating a
new producing chain, multimedia and information producing and transmitting could
help more employees work for communication system infrastructure and e-commerce.
(Lee, 2014)
More and more digital forms of content expressions make is easier and cheaper
copying and information distribution. This is a sword with double side impacts. For
the advantages, content provider could distribute information at a lower budget cost,
the customer and audience could easily get access to wide range of contents all over
the world. (Lee, 2014) Conversely, it may disrespect someone’s intellectual property
rights during this process. In order to solve this situation, government and related
organisation should take actions or set law to protect, also regulations on unsuitable
content spreading on internet. The rapid growth of computer and communication
system has drawn many attentions about public and personal privacy, how to avoid
personal information and public or government privacy not to be abuse and illegal
propagate is a huge threat.
In the digital age, companies and organisations are ambitious to find ways to use
advancing technologies, promoting business and gain more competitiveness. To
integrate those new technology into the exist work process is the key. Enables
employees using the latest technology strategy especially Information
Communication Technology(ICT)
to reach higher performance levels. (Gerten,
Beckmann and Bellmann, 2018)
Information and communication technology and digitization are ubiquitous in our
society. Digitalization has penetrated all aspects of our lives. Robots and software can
imitate human beings. Professors Van call this an intimate technological revolution.
The digitalization of society has promoted humanity. The range of capabilities
provides us with a variety of opportunities. (Van Est, R. 2014)
Digitalisation
The Internet of things (IoT) and robotics are primarily permeating our physical world.
Based on the global network, the Internet of things connects the physical world with
the virtual world of the Internet. With the advent of the Internet of things, we are on
the verge of a new era in which objects and people can exchange information. With
the development of communication system and network, it is closely related to robot
technology. The increasing use of ICT also means digitizing the interactions between
people and between people and organizations through augmented reality and virtual
reality. Digital penetration into our daily life, shopping, entertainment,
communication, and even online work, on our communication lifestyle has a huge
impact, a great impact on People's Daily life, just as we cannot leave the mobile
phone, which forms a link between the real world and the virtual world. Virtual
reality and augmented reality technologies have accelerated this relationship, allowing
people to seamlessly connect with friends and family through virtual reality.
(Royakkers et al., 2018)
Today, barriers are changing in many industries, and digital competitive markets are
emerging. Facing the new environment, enterprises should understand the new market
form and make appropriate response to adapt to the new round of competition brought
by digitization. The development of digitalization is quietly changing the operation
mode of the industry. For the emerging industries trapped in the industrial barriers
and struggling to find a way out under the traditional industrial development mode,
the advent of the digital technology era and the formation of the digital competitive
market is undoubtedly a breakthrough in the development of the ceiling.
Some of those traditional enterprises may fear the changes brought by digital
technology, and digitalization is clearly not the end of traditional enterprises. With
digital technology as an effective tool and through synergies, coupled with
communication systems advancing with The Times, the potential of existing
enterprises can also be developed. (Hanno Schokiltsch, 2018)
Artificial Intelligence
"A machine is not a person, a machine has its unique advantages, it has its strengths,"
Kaplan suggests.(Kaplan, 2015) Similarly, in the future, we will use intelligent
machines to do things that humans are not good at. We are just expanding the scope
of application to expand the scope of our work. After all, the purpose of the invention
of artificial intelligence is to serve the well-being of human society. I hope it will not
become a tool to destroy human beings. What we hope to see in our society is that
artificial intelligence has liberated all human labour, both mental and physical. It is no
longer necessary for human beings to work for economic purposes. Everyone has
plenty of things to enjoy themselves or has time for research and experiments in order
to make human society better. Everyone is free to choose what they want to do and
how they want to live. Everyone has at least the most basic social security. People
who want to make money can continue to make money. The world's social wealth and
resources can be reasonably distributed, artificial intelligence for human work,
provide material security for human life.
No matter where artificial intelligence develops, the principle that robots (artificial
intelligence) serve human beings must be followed. And how to balance the ability of
artificial intelligence and master always close the artificial intelligence (that is, the
end of the "life" of artificial intelligence) will be a very important subject, perhaps
now design a backdoor, can shut down at any time when it's needed, artificial
intelligence, but it is to be able to learn and evolve, someday it caught your backdoor,
and you still don't know, the disaster will not far from the human. The destruction of
mankind is always the human themselves, cannot blame on the head of artificial
intelligence, after all, is the human invention of artificial intelligence, and human
desire and lazy driving the human artificial intelligence constantly with more
powerful functions. This is a question that needs urgent consideration. I even think
that artificial intelligence is not the technology that human beings should enjoy at the
present stage. At least, human beings should not use artificial intelligence until they
have evolved into pure mental bodies. After all, it is very dangerous to invent a
servant who is more powerful than the master. But the era of artificial intelligence has
come, it has entered our lives, on the phone, in our usual browsing shopping website,
they quietly monitor our every move. How to prevent artificial intelligence from
enslaving human beings has become an important subject. New industrial changes
will inevitably bring about new market opportunities, which are hard to foresee, but
certain based on historical experience.
Social life
With the wide spread of new communication technology with the proliferation of
mobile devices, the distance between human has been shortened. Which let people to
communicate anytime, anywhere. The coming revolution of communication system
will be the born of The Fifth Generation (The 5G), thus higher speed internet, and
advanced transmit protocols let people communicate more easily. Take an example of
Social media, which have both advantages and disadvantages of using it. Surprisingly,
people could find a friend out of contact for a long time and connect again. Also, will
bring distance to a previous closer family in mobile phone usage. Addicted to the
internet has become a severe problem among teenagers. (Human Kinetics
(Organization), 2010)
The nature of communication is the period of processing the information, it is crucial
to social life and a significant element of operation. (Lubrano, 1997) The development
in information transmission and communication systems has the impact to change
social relations significantly. The technology is the impetus for social evolution.
Witnessing the development of science and technology, the development of boosting
communication is beyond our imagination, and the trend is not going to stop. We are
facing the coming revolution of communication system, with the robotic and
intelligent machines accompanied. Wireless is substituting cable connections for basic
communication because of the Global System for Mobile Communications. It is
known that mobile systems have significant impact in social infrastructure. (Borcea
and Iamnitchi, 2008) mobilise
daily life and help building the newest digital economy.
Wireless communication strategies and the wide use of smart phones, accelerating the
speed of normal daily communicate time, everyone could be reached in a very short
time, which enlarge the use of better internet service and help gain more revenue for
the network provider. These evolutionary change benefits people in a large extent.
Technologies and communication provide many benefits in human’s daily life, even
in school for education to a large extent. During the time implementing new
information technologies and communication methods, it has been bringing strong
impact in educational systems. In the last decades, the importance of application of
new technologies become a central topic in education. Including curriculum, courses,
training professors and teachers, developing education institutions, regulation, and
management in the educational systems. How to integrate new information and
communication tools in education seamlessly has been researching for a long period.
The analysis is carried out from multiple perspectives, with emphasis on the
advantages of every single stage, and essential resources and the possible
consequences. OECD has drawn a imagine that information and communication
technologies if used in education, it will highly improve students’ results. (Mioara,
2012)
It also helps developing distant education, which could be accessed from even
in remote areas along with open learning.(Holmberg, 2005)
While digitalization brings convenience, it also leads to various social and moral
problems. Privacy is a major concern for the public and the government, especially
for personal data protection and digital security.
The threat of communication system in the Big Data Era and the Internet of Things is
that people are highly exposed at a no privacy situation, because of the location
service switched on, the allowance for mobile applications to photo albums. It is easy
to detect users’ personal information, date of birth, places and what users intended to
be private were often revealed to third parties such as advertisers and apps,
unbeknownst to the user. (Borchert, Pinguelo and Thaw, 2015)In March 2018,
Facebook became embroiled in a media scandal when it was revealed that Cambridge
Analytica, a data analytics firm that served the trump campaign, had obtained data
from 50 million Facebook users, and engaged in abuse. Facebook violated the user
agreement, caused an invasion of user privacy, early to the strong criticism of public
opinion. Facebook, the world's largest social network by users, has more than 2bn
monthly active users, so a massive data breach would be a sure thing. (Arjun Kharpal,
2018) Who will take control with the data become a question.
As one of the major software of social media, Facebook facilitates People's Daily
study and life to a large extent. People can communicate online or even have business
talks with friends from all over the world without barriers through social media
platforms. But for the large group of teenagers and students, the use of mobile phones
can also bring negative effects. The popularity and popularity in the virtual world are
inversely proportional to the personality in real life, which results in the behavioural
addiction to social networks and the defects of their own emotional regulation.
Because the Internet is a relatively free and unregulated environment, inappropriate or
illegal content can easily be seen by teenagers and students without any sense of selfprotection. (Hormes, Kearns and Timko, 2014) The social media management law in
Germany aims at "hate, inflammatory speech and false news content" on the Internet.
It integrates and revises a series of relevant laws and regulations issued by the
German ministry of justice since 2015 and puts forward stricter regulatory
requirements on social network platforms such as Facebook and twitter that provide
content services in Germany. (Katrin Bennhold, 2018)
Conclusion
The progress and development of science and technology should not have an adverse
impact on human beings, but when we overuse or use incorrectly, we forget the basic
rules and methods, it will have a negative impact.
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