Industry 4.0 — still a place for humans?

Economists predict that a fourth industrial revolution awaints us in the near future. This has nothing more to do with steam engines and also not assembly lines. It aims to develop cyber-physical systems. Well, and what the researchers have figured out once again, this we are trying to unlock.

Internet of Things — The key to the future project

Let´s melt cyber-physical systems in your mouth and its seems like you have beamed into a science fiction movie.
That’s not even a bad explanation, because it defines to link real objects and virtual processes to create a networked production.
The functioning is based on the background of the Internet of Things — IoT.
Driven by the Internet, the real and virtual world should coalesce ergo up to this Internet of Things. Whatever idealized image of the networked procuction the scientists have, just the formulation shivers down my spine.

And it is precisely this spine, of flesh and blood, my own body and mind, me as an individual, I am very worried about. Shure, the world is changing, things change, lifestyles change, but what is the next step up in the world of cyber-physical systems and the Internet of Things?

Meaning of life? Humans as programmer of the technology

My two Imaginations

No. 1: People as individuals destroy themselves by the Internet of Things unconscious

This hypothesis gains everytime I watch one of my favorite movies, WALL · E, again.
The story follows a robot named WALL-E, who is designed to clean up an abandoned, waste-covered Earth far in the future. And if you watched it you will remeber in any case the scene where people have become so dependent that they are seized up in their seats, moving around on man converyors , and probably can not even count to three?

Ohhh this scene will probably never delete from my memory, because it serves as an perfect illustration of the society, as I also imagine if the technology moving to the direction where everything is linked-up.
Humans as recognized sloths hand over their responsibilitys in an unnoticed moment and ZACK his freedom of decision directly with it, too. Into the garbage can with it!

In the state in which it is normally to let the technology decide for us and the whole stale debate over “personal data” and “internet security” quickly is forgotten, they get what they wanted.
The economy has already caused us to replace our body and mind against the Internet of Things.
Yeah, some people are crying out now: “Always these conspiracy theories!”. But conspiracy theories are only really fun when they are, at some point, the reality.

No. 2: People serves as programmers of technology

Do you think about how nice it would be, if your favorite menu would be cooked when you get home, today? If you’re not even have to move to get to work, because the home office is called for and hell yeah, tonight I nail once again my sex robot. Because this/she/he fulfill through interactive technologies and motion detection systems all my needs.

All this is still the harmless stage of my scenario. How would it be if you do not even have to get up to work because either the programmed robots makes your former work much more precise and your brain is useless or you’re one of the very clever type and your brain waves are linked directly with the tasks.
Awesome, sounds great! Never going out of the door again (do we still live in apartments?), never shower again, never move again and never this annoying small talk again.
But precisely then we have everything that makes us human, delivered. We are nothing more than the programmers machines that pretend us we take our “annoying” everyday situations and give us in return more time for the important things in life. The important things, such as … well … waiting … mhh.

Starting with the industrial revolution 4.0, up to to the meaning of life, it is not always quite as much as you thought at first.
Because no matter what will networking in our lives and the lives our children, we should at least always be on guard. Let you never push as an human individual in a world with an “- point O” ending, because we have only this world (or still more? Next conspiracy theory!) and this life.
We have to bear responsibility for all our decisions. For present and future generations who optimally still consist of a body and mind, and are not just a thing of the Internet.

Further reading
Will the “IoT” change us?