The 4th Industrial Revolution, Internet of Things (IoT), and future challenges

 

 We are living in the era of the 4th Industrial Revolution. The word ‘smart’ is added to the front of most electronic devices, and connecting devices in different spaces has become a daily routine and a virtue for efficient work processing. The Fourth Industrial Revolution, first claimed by Klaus Schwab, the founder of the World Economic Forum, in an article for Foreign Affairs in 2015, is no longer a world of imagination or unknown territory. In this way, the 4th Industrial Revolution has penetrated deeply into our lives, but the reality is that the social foundation to welcome the new trend has not yet been established. In this issue, we will look at the definition and current status of the 4th Industrial Revolution and its representative technology, the Internet of Things (IoT). And with the advent of a new paradigm, let's look at the problems we face and the challenges that need to be solved.

  The 4th Industrial Revolution, smart connecting to the world

 The 4th Industrial Revolution, also known as the next-generation industrial revolution, is a name that expresses major technological trends observed across various technological fields. The 4th Industrial Revolution includes various technologies such as the Internet of Things (IoT), which has led technological trends with its emergence, cloud computing, and artificial intelligence. These technologies make it possible to smartly connect multiple objects and utilize them to their full potential. That is why the 4th Industrial Revolution is called the era of hyper-connectivity, hyper-intelligence, and hyper-convergence.

 The term ‘Industrial Revolution’ captures the overwhelming penetration and destructive potential of the latest technologies. The previous industrial revolution achieved automation of repetitive physical labor, but the 4th Industrial Revolution goes further. The 4th Industrial Revolution implements large-scale automation of all tasks, including repetitive intellectual labor. Furthermore the 4th Industrial Revolution can greatly improve efficiency and flexibility in the producting process, as well as enhance the value of goods and services. The transition to ‘smart’ factories that operate autonomously without human physical labor has already been recognized as an important challenge in many countries, including Europe.

*Intellectual labor: As opposed to physical labor, it refers to knowledge-based, intellectual work.

 “ A world that changes with technology “

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  Under the development of the 4th Industrial Revolution, smartly connected objects are changing the paradigm of existing transportation (ex. autonomous vehicles), energy (ex. smart grid), cities, medicine, and agriculture. Behind this development, there are also economic and social problems that appear one by one, just like the industrial revolution in the past. For example, the automation of intellectual labor requires that the meaning of human labor be redefined and its value established in line with technological trends. Also, new jobs are created and existing jobs disappear that shakes the balance of the labor market.

 Change is spurring companies to rethink their business models and adapt to new forms of competition. In addition, policymakers in each country are tasked with forming a foundation and system so that all economic entities can adapt to the new trend. The details of the task are as follows.

 <Tasks of the 4th Industrial Revolution>

. Design workforce training and investment methods to enable workers to adapt to new trends

. Design ways to support and regulate new digital infrastructures

. Design a Legal Framework to Compete in the Digital Age

. Design appropriate legal frameworks to protect cyber security and consumer rights

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Technology trends in Internet of Things (IoT)

  The 4th Industrial Revolution is also called the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT). It can be said to be a name that shows the influence of the Internet of Things, which has led the 4th industry. The Internet of Things is broadly divided into the following three categories.

 <3 types of IoT technologies>

. Core technologies: Technologies that can transform any object connected to the Internet into a smart device.

. Enabling technologies: Technologies with legitimate utility used with connected objects (analysis, security, artificial intelligence, location, power supply, 3D systems, user interface)

. Application domains: Areas that can utilize the potential of connected things (home, individual, business, manufacturing, infrastructure, vehicle)

  Over the past three years, the growth rate of patent applications for the Industrial Internet of Things (IoT) has been 54% (see Table 1), exceeding the overall patent application growth rate of 7.65% over the past three years. In particular, in 2016, more than 5,000 inventions related to autonomous driving objects were filed with the European Patent Office, proving that the Internet of Things is a trending technology. Among them, the 3D system artificial intelligence and user interface fields have grown the fastest over the past three years, and the number of corporate filings in application fields closely related to these technologies accounted for the largest portion of the total number of applications related to IoT technology.

 The increase in IoT inventions all occurred in three categories: core technologies, enabling technologies, and application domains. While application domains and core technologies account for a large proportion of inventions, the number of inventions related to enabling technologies is considerably small (see Table 1). In addition, in recent years, the number of inventions of core technologies has grown more rapidly, almost outpacing the number of applications.

Patent application patterns in the 4th Industrial Revolution

  Of the 20 companies that account for 42% of all industrial Internet of Things (IoT) patent applications filed with the EPO from 2011 to 2016, most are located in Asia (see Table 2). In addition, innovation in core technologies is mainly achieved by a small number of large companies focusing on information and communication technology (ICT). On the other hand, in the field of enabling technologies and application domains, applications are not concentrated only in large companies, and the top applicants in this field include not only large companies but also companies from various industries.

  Since the mid-1990s, Europe, the United States, and Japan have been hotspots for industrial Internet of Things (IoT) technology innovation. Large companies from various fields in Europe, the United States, and Japan are major applicants in the IoT enabling technologies field. In Korea and China, IoT innovation began later than in the countries above, and to date, a small number of information and communication technology (ICT) companies are leading the IoT industry. It is a familiar fact, but in Korea, LG and Samsung control 90% of IoT application domains, and in China, Huawei and ZTE control 70% of the 4th Industrial Revolution patents.

 The 4th Industrial Revolution in Europe tends to be concentrated in Munich and Paris. France and Germany are the two most key countries in the technological development of the 4th Industrial Revolution. Germany, which has been at the forefront of the 4th Industrial Revolution since the late 1990s, has stood out in the manufacturing, vehicle and infrastructure sectors. Additionally, the technology profiles of Nordic countries, including France and Benelux, mainly showed specialized technologies in artificial intelligence, user interface, 3D processing, and security. Philips (Netherlands), Nokia (Finland), and Ericsson (Sweden) are the representative leaders for those technologies.

*Benelux: A general name for three countries, derived from the initials of three countries: Belgium + Netherlands + Luxembourg.

 And future challenges

  The development of IoT is expected to accelerate the advent of the 4th Industrial Revolution. The technologies of the 4th Industrial Revolution are already beyond what the existing legal system can respond to. For example, although it is claimed that self-driving cars are statistically safer than those driven by humans, the probability and occurrence of an accident cannot be ignored. However, criminal and civil legal liability in the event of an accident has not yet been clearly defined. Therefore, we need a legal system and regulations on responsibility that can hold the responsible party accountable. Going one step further, society will need to legally consider cases where software and networked devices can each become their own economic entities using distributed ledger technology.

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“What is Distributed Ledger Technology?”

 *Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT): Distributed network participants use encryption technology to jointly distribute the ledger on which transaction information is verified and agreed upon. As a management technology, it doesn’t require central administrator or central data repository. Additionally, to increase the reliability of data management, all participants within the distributed network replicate and share transaction information with each other according to the consensus algorithm. Because this transaction information is distributed and managed, counterfeiting can be prevented, and the representative implementation of this distributed ledger technology is blockchain.

*Refer to Naver Encyclopedia and Dictionary of IT Terms (provided by Korea Information and Communication Technology Association)

  A representative example of this distributed ledger technology is the protocol for the cryptocurrency IOTA, issued by the German non-profit foundation IOTA. IOTA is an upgraded version of existing blockchain technology and is a distributed ledger developed to process, execute, and settle transactions between devices required to implement the Internet of Things. IOTA achieves decentralization based on a consensus protocol that does not require central administrators. IOTA is operated by a proprietary technology called Tangle. This technology does not require separate miners and has the great advantage of no remittance fees because traders directly act as miners.

iota.org

iota.org

  In this way, we looked at the concepts of the 4th Industrial Revolution and the Internet of Things (IoT), which are familiar terms but difficult to define, and the future tasks we must prepare for. As in the text, issues such as ‘jobs that will be in the spotlight in the future and jobs that will disappear’ and ‘liability and legal basis in case of accidents’ are already actively being debated. We will need to pay attention to how workers who lose their jobs will adapt to the new technological environment, how technology and consumer rights protection laws will be established more systematically and fairly, and how cyber security technology will be strengthened. We hope that not only technology but also systems that respond to change will develop in a balanced manner so that everyone can happily welcome the wave of the 4th Industrial Revolution.

 

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. In the text, the contents of 'The 4th Industrial Revolution, connecting the world smartly', 'Technological trends of the Internet of Things (IoT)', 'Patent applications in the 4th Industrial Revolution', 'And future challenges (first paragraph)' are excerpted and referenced from Patent management: Protecting intellectual property and innovation 2021, Oliver Gassmann, Martin A, Bader, Mark James Thompson, Springer. And the other contents were written by WIPS.

. Korea Information and Communication Technology Association “Distributed Ledger Technology” – Refer to Naver Encyclopedia IT Glossary (Distributed Ledger Technology (naver.com))