Three tiers of brave new world

As industries and businesses all over the world adopt various technologies to improve efficiency and customer service, Professor Chris Adendorff argues that the fourth industrial revolution is made up of three core factors.

These, he said, were artificial intelligence (AI), the internet of things and blockchain.

Innovation was being triggered by AI – intelligence driven by machines – which seeks to process and respond to data in a human-like way.

“The future robots are going to look exactly like you and I,” Adendorff said.

“You’ve seen Sophia, the first robot to receive citizenship by Saudi Arabia.

“Global spending in AI will rise from $8bn [R112bn] a year to $46bn [R645bn] by 2020,” Adendorff said.

“With the internet of things, you are looking at a world where anything and everything will be connected.

“It is all about technology and devices and we are just at the beginning.”

The professional futurist said this meant everything from cellphones, appliances, wearable devices and almost anything else you could think of would be connected to one another and the internet.

The final piece of the triangle, blockchain, is a mechanism to ensure accountability as well as information verification.

“Blockchain has been in the industry for about 20 years but has not really been exploited.

“When you look what happened to Bitcoin, you see why people realised that something needs to verify information.

“That’s why Sars started getting involved. Essentially, you could take your money out of South Africa, buy cryptocurrency and take your money anywhere in the world.

“You can take all your money and go. But countries run on tax.

“Blockchain is going to prevent that kind of thing and will solve the problem of manipulation,” Adendorff said.