The Humanist Perspective of Industry 4.0 – Keynote at EclipseCon France 2013
Hans-Jürgen Kugler, Chief Scientist at Kugler Maag Cie, reflects on the Internet of Things' change impact. Toulouse, France. 2013, June 5-6th.
BackHJ Kuglers presentation on industry 4.0 was one of the best keynotes I've ever seen. A lot of out of the box thinking.
In deed, connectivity is not only a technical topic, Machine2Machine communication is only one side of the coin: History shows that technological innovations often have more power to change society than politics. The Internet of Things will be such a force for change – essentially abolishing the industries we know today by replacing segmentation with an interconnectivity leading to emergent services of unprecedented levels. Whether this will lead to a renewed and all-inclusive humanism or to a 1984 style control scenario is up to us. Historically the Renaissance in Western Europe towards the end of the 14th century presents similar watershed with surprisingly similar patterns. And it was a similar combination of technology and community forces that allowed the humanistic ideals of the Renaissance to spread and influence society - until today. It was then – as it is today – the conflict between trust and fear, between shared purpose and the need for control, which determined the direction of development of both society and technology. The recent increase of open technologies and projects has lead to a revival of open communities, which embody purpose and trust as foundation. Can "Open Source" organizations be models for successful enterprises in Industry 4.0?
