The fourth industrial revolution is only just beginning!

Industry 4.0 was just a marketing hoax: Why only the breakthrough in "generative AI" is actually the big technological leap and driver for the fourth industrial revolution, which will bring fundamental changes to industrial production and society.

In a revolution, no stone is left unturned. This distinguishes revolution from evolution, in which one stone is laid on top of another until something new is created. A revolution requires an ignition spark, an external impulse, a triggering event - evolution requires a RealisationThe most suitable solution gradually develops on this basis.

That is why what we have known for a little over ten years as "Industry 4.0" was merely an evolution. The revolution is only happening now: With the exploding performance of Artificial intelligence (AI) in Industry 4.0. Why do I think that's the case?

Industrial revolutions are due to technological leaps

Each of the first three industrial revolutions can essentially be traced back to a technological leap that has massively changed production processes. These are not detailed technical improvements, but truly universal technologies that have gradually found their way into all areas of work and life.

The consequences were far-reaching changes in social processes and workflows. Entire occupational groups disappeared because they simply became superfluous. At the same time, completely new fields of work with previously unknown job descriptions emerged.

Everyone realises that all of this was missing from "Industry 4.0". Nevertheless, it is worth taking a look back: what were the decisive technological leaps that led to revolutions 1 to 3? Then it will become clearer why artificial intelligence or industrial AI is actually the starting signal for the fourth industrial revolution.

First industrial revolution: the steam engine

The First industrial revolution was of a mechanical nature: At its centre was the steam engine, which was decisively developed by James Watt in 1769 and enabled the transition from manufacturing to industrial mass production. It took a few decades for its use to become established - but once it did, it was indispensable. Every railway that moved mass-produced goods and the people who accompanied them from one corner of the world to another, every steamship on the rivers and seas was a moving and doing signal for the victory of the first industrial revolution.

Second industrial revolution: electricity

The second industrial revolution was electric. Here, too, it took a while for the invention to realise its revolutionary potential. The advantages of telegraphing messages from A to B, why an electric machine sometimes makes more sense than a steam engine, and the fact that electricity is ultimately more efficient than petroleum or gas for lighting: this was only recognised as the lowest common denominator at the beginning of the 20th century.

In the factories, the introduction of the assembly line by Henry Ford is regarded as the starting signal for electrically pimped production: the "mechanical assembly line" increased the productivity of automobile production immeasurably and made individual mobility - with the new invention of the combustion engine as the drive for the reinvention of the passenger car - affordable for broad sections of the population. The night watchman's son, who had lit the gas lanterns in the cities every evening, did piecework on the assembly line - or rather, he learnt the new profession of electrician straight away.

Third industrial revolution: the microprocessor

The third industrial revolution was digital. Regardless of whether you called it electronic data processing or information technology, in the 1970s computers began to work everywhere where previously only people had been at work.

The decisive technological leap in this digital industrial revolution was the development of microprocessors in the 1970s, which turned room-filling calculating machines into transportable devices. It is well known that this quickly became the universal technology of our time: From personal computers to programmable logic controllers, from the World Wide Web to electric toothbrushes ... when chip supplies from Asia began to falter during the pandemic supply chain confusion, the entire global economy began to stumble.

Industry 4.0? Digitalisation was just overdue

And then there's what we've known since the Hannover Messe 2011 as the Industry 4.0 know: It refers to the "comprehensive digitalisation of industrial production" - in other words, nothing less, but also nothing more than the widespread realisation of what began with the third industrial revolution.

Well ... it is the first revolution that has been proclaimed without a technical spark, without a real technological milestone. It is an honourable effort to give legs to a necessary, slow and long overdue step. Industry 4.0 simply lacked the universal technology that could change everything.

Artificial intelligence: catalysing the fourth industrial revolution

In today's Industry 4.0, this Technological leap now here. Since OpenAI released ChatGPT at the end of 2022, not a day has gone by without new, breathtaking AI tools. In one fell swoop, artificial intelligence has entered an area that was previously reserved for humans: finding creative solutions for unstructured specifications. The potential of generative AI in Industry 4.0 cannot yet be estimated.

Even if we are currently at the peak of the hype curve, on a "plateau of exaggerated expectations", and a crash is to be expected as a consequence; even if the suspicion that in five years there will no longer be 300 programmers in the world:in the world, because AI tools will then be able to write any code, has yet to be proven; even if the new profession of "prompt writer" is so new that there are not even any training courses for it yet; even if it is only beginning to crystallise which applications in industrial production can marry robotics and automation and make us forget the shortage of skilled workers - Industrial AI will be the universal technology that will turn over every stone and put it in a new place.

Industrial AI as the new industrial revolution: the development is irreversible

That is why we are launching the project www.industrial-ai.at

We do not yet know where AI applications will take us. We can only begin to foresee where industrial production in particular will change. But we are convinced that the development is irreversible. Whether there can be a moratorium on AI developments at all, what the European Union's AI Act will be able to regulate in practice: None of this is yet foreseeable.

We will inform, discuss, analyse and thematise. We want to make the opportunities visible, point out undesirable developments, present use cases and business models that make continuing education, which is still in its infancy, possible - because this is the only way to ensure competitiveness.

The Fourth industrial revolution starts now - with you and with us.