All zeros and ones

The ability to capture, store and model data is fuelling the technologies associated with the fourth industrial revolution, which many believe will lead to a future owned by corporations

- AKSHIT SANGOMLA

0N MAY 26, 2022, US researchers unveiled a pacemaker that dissolves in the human body after completing its job. The four wireless of the pacemaker monitor vitals such as temperature, oxygen levels and the heart's electrical activity. The device then analyses the vitals and decides when to pace the heart and at what rate. Doctors can wirelessly access the information on a tablet or smartphone. The pacemaker is a near-perfect example of the ongoing fourth industrial revolution (4IR), which, simply put, is the use of different technologies to blur the boundaries between the digital, physical and biological worlds.

Another example of this blurring of worlds is the reproductive ability of the first living robot, called xenobots, demonstrated in October 2021 by a team of US scientists. Xenobots, which are less than a millimetre long, were created in 2020 from the stem cells of the African clawed frog and can be programmed using artificial intelligence. When the researchers put the xenobots into a petri dish, they were able to gather hundreds of tiny stem cells inside their mouths and create new xenobots a few days later. Once perfected, xenobots could be useful for tasks like cleaning up microplastics and regrowing or replacing dead cells and tissues inside human bodies.

There are similar innovations taking place in the fields of agriculture, manufacturing, mobility (autonomous vehicles), retail stores and almost the entire services industry.

Such inventions, which often seem like science fiction becoming real, are what make the ongoing 4IR different from the earlier three industrial revolutions.

The first industrial revolution used water and steam power to mechanise production (1800s). The second used electric power to create mass production (early 1900s). The third used electronics and information technology to automate production (late 1900s). The 4IR, which is building on the third revolution, has data at its core.