THE FUTURE OF WORK: How Will Montanans Participate in the Next Industrial Revolution?

AuthorBraun, Michael

In 2018, a painting entitled "Portrait of Edmond de Belamy" was sold at auction for close to half a million dollars. At first glance, there was nothing that made this particular piece stand out from the rest of the lot, which included works by Andy Warhol, Jeff Koons and Banksy. But a closer look at the artist s signature (an algebraic formula) revealed what made this painting so unique and valuable--it had been created by artificial intelligence after being fed over 15,000 art images dating from the Renaissance to today. The auctioneer's dropping hammer on the machine-generated painting confirmed that the fourth industrial revolution is already well underway.

A number of nascent technologies, such as smart sensors, machine learning, augmented reality and blockchain, are rapidly converging. At the center of this discussion lies the question of whether the fourth industrial revolution will have created or destroyed more jobs. This issue may appear less relevant to Montanans, given the state's preponderance of the agriculture, timber and tourism sectors. Yet, it is imperative that we aren't misled by the "future of work" moniker, putting off till tomorrow what should be addressed today. Rather, we would be wise to heed the words of novelist William Gibson, who coined the term "cyberspace" nearly 40 years ago: "The future is already here--it's just not very evenly distributed."

The First Three Industrial Revolutions

The first industrial revolution (1760s to 1840s) was defined by an introduction to mass-production methods. With steam as the main propellant for automation, cottage industries such as textile production were displaced by mechanized factories. The weaving process, previously done in individual homes and by hand, now shifted to shop floors where power looms produced fabrics more rapidly and at a fraction of the cost of labor.

Montana was largely unaffected by this first boom, yet the Treasure State would occupy a leading role in the second industrial revolution (1870s to 191 Os). Butte's copper legacy electrified America and towns like Somers built the railroads facilitating the movement of people and goods across the nation.

The transistor, invented by Bell Laboratories in 1947, ushered in the third industrial revolution. Personal computing and software applications, charged by increasingly powerful microprocessors, changed everything from bookkeeping, drafting and design engineering, to word processing and typesetting. And with the advent of the internet, we witnessed the dawn of the information age, which is where we find ourselves today. Helping to stoke the engines of this particular wave were Montana-based laser and optics companies...

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