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Summary of the TED talk by Olivier Scalabre:
Our global economy has stopped growing. This creates tensions (more people, less to go around).
Manufacturing revolutions (mid-19th century steam engine, beginning
20th century mass-production model, 1970s first automation wave) lead to big
growth thanks to improved productivity (i.e. the efficiency of a person, machine,
factory, system, etc., in converting inputs into useful outputs).
Offshoring factories has not worked because cheap
labor didn't stay cheap for long.
We've made our factories larger, making a lot
of one product, stockpiling it to be sold on demand. This helped productivity
for a while, but it introduced a lot of rigidities in our supply chain.
Innovation
in the tech sector hasn't done much for productivity either.
A fourth manufacturing revolution is underway: major technologies are entering
the manufacturing space; it will boost industrial productivity by more than a
third and create growth. It will change globalization.
By 2025, advanced manufacturing robots, programmed to perform complex,
non-repetitive tasks, will result, compared to today, in an increase in productivity,
output and growth of 20%. Plastic and metal manufacturing (25% of global manufacturing production)
is being improved by 3D printing (e.g. aerospace companies are now using 3D
printing, resulting in 40% more productivity, output and growth).
Imagine a world where you can buy the exact products you want with the
functionalities you need, with the design you want, with the same cost and lead
time as a product that's been mass produced, like your car, or your clothes or
your cell phone. The new manufacturing revolution makes it possible.
Not only
will manufacturing become more productive, it will also become more flexible. Our factories will be smaller, operating on a multi-product, made-to-order basis. It will
create a macroeconomic shift: our factories will be relocated into our
home markets. In the world of scale customization, consumer proximity is the
new norm.
Globalization will enter a new era. The East-to-West trade flows will be
replaced by regional trade flows: East for East, West for West. The old model was insane: piling up stocks, making
products travel the whole world to reach consumers.
The new
model, producing just next to the consumer market, will be much better
for our environment.
In mature economies, manufacturing will be back home,
creating more employment, more productivity and more growth.
We'll have to massively re-train our workforce. We need to teach manufacturing
again at university. Only the countries that will boldly transform will be able
to seize this growth.
China and other
emerging economies won't be the factory of the world anymore. It was not a sustainable model; it is already as expensive to produce in Brazil as to
produce in France. By 2018, manufacturing costs in China will be on par with
the US. The new manufacturing revolution will accelerate the transition of those
emerging economies towards a model driven by domestic consumption, creating growth there.
The fourth manufacturing revolution means
more wealth distributed to all of us and a better future for our children.
For further reading, click on the "comments" below!
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/what-will-happen-when-robots-take-our-jobs-ai-pglfwmxmw
ReplyDeletehttps://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/josh-glancy-our-app-addiction-is-turning-us-into-pampered-halfwits-hz00vzjk7
ReplyDeletehttps://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/01/the-fourth-industrial-revolution-what-it-means-and-how-to-respond/
ReplyDeletehttps://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2011/11/07/reshoring-onshoring-the-opposite-of-offshoring-anyway/#17f9e45f58b8
ReplyDeletehttps://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/06/china-new-silk-road-explainer/
ReplyDeletehttps://futurism.com/images/universal-basic-income-answer-automation/
ReplyDeleteSome questions M. Scalabre's TED talk raises:
ReplyDelete> Who supports this 4th industrial revolution (how utopian is it)?
> What are the consequences for TNCs, whose profits come from selling goods on a world market (not just a regional one), of this 4th industrial revolution?
> Will mega-sized harbour facilities become redundant?
> Is the One Belt One Road Initiative a useless idea (in Scalabre's world)?
> Will only highly skilled workers and engineers (those who create and control the AI, the robots and computer systems) and factory owners (owners of the algorithms) have jobs?
> Who will own the means of production (the shareholders, the State, workers’ cooperatives)?
> What will happen to the low-skilled workers?
> Will AI, etc., make us redundant (create a class of “useless” citizens) and lazy (will robots take over)?
> Will the 4th industrial revolution get rid of income disparity?
> Is universal basic income desirable (and the promotion too of a social economy, cf. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_economy)?
> Will the taxes on industry be enough to finance UBI?
> Is growth (based on exploiting limited natural resources) a viable model (is zero-growth, with fairer distribution of goods, not a more realistic model and more eco-friendly)?
> What are the political decisions that need to be made to make Scalabre’s vision a reality (does Macron’s government share this vision)?
> Do you want to train at university for a manufacturing job?
> How far do you share Scalabre’s vision?
> Is globalization as we know it coming to an end and how will it probably evolve?
> What would you like the world to be like in 20 years’ time and how do you think we can get there (how would YOU make globalization "enter a new era”)?
In the question "how does "big business" make profit?", is it the "big business" of capitalism or of the 4th industrial revolution?
ReplyDeleteAdrienne from the SO
"Big business" means the multinational firms. If Scalabre's vision becomes a reality, will TNCs still exist, since they make their profits from a world-wide market (Scalabre says onshoring, etc., will boost regional production and consumption, not a globalized market)?
Delete