The world is, some claim, on the verge of seeing another industrial revolution unfold. The first three transformed the way modern economies produce: mechanization, mass production, and automation. The next industrial revolution will blur the lines between the physical, the digital, and the biological, and leverage the emerging technologies of digitization and artificial intelligence. As history has shown since the late 18th century, when steam engines began powering factories in the West, industrial revolutions bring about significant turmoil, whether economic, political, or social.
In Southeast Asia, the question is not whether the so-called Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) will arrive on its shores, but when. The rise of technologies as varied as nanotechnology, quantum computing, and 3D printing may seem distantly futuristic when contemplated among the rice terraces of the Philippine Cordilleras or the Bagan temples by the Irrawaddy. Yet, it will only take years until 5G wireless technologies, a backbone to other 4IR technological disruptions, will be available in the cell phones of visitors to these Southeast Asian idylls.
First published in the Phnom Penh Post, Spotlight’s first article this week highlights young Southeast Asians’ optimism in their ability to finesse the disruptions to the job market that 4IR engenders. The majority of Southeast Asians under 35 believe technology will increase both the number of jobs available and allow them to earn higher wages. Interestingly, this optimism is inversely related to their level of education and whether the respondents live in countries like Singapore and Thailand where the government has made an effort to bring public attention to 4IR.
This optimism among young Southeast Asians vis-à-vis coming technological disruptions to the job market is out of sync with growing global concern that the quickening pace of technological change will result in rising inequality and joblessness. Spotlight’s second article this week by venture capital firm Sinovation Ventures chairman and CEO Kai-Fu Lee explains the reasons for this gray prospect and what governments in the developing world can do to mitigate 4IR’s negative effects. Countries that have not prepared their people well for 4IR must help them find their niches of excellence.
Who will win and who will lose in this brave, new 4IR-inflected world depends on who is prepared to take it on. Blind optimism is not enough to prepare Southeast Asians who on average have an educational attainment roughly equal to a middle school graduate. If Southeast Asians fail to benefit from, or—worse—feel exploited by, 4IR, governments throughout the region will need to find ways to face the substantial turmoil in the coming years.
