The open meeting ‘Integrated, End-to-End Technologies for the Sustainable Development of Countries: Prospects for Industrial International Cooperation in the Era of Industry 4.0’ was held on the final day of the Global Manufacturing and Industrialisation Summit on 11 July 2019.
The panellists noted that the whole world is rapidly moving towards the fourth technological revolution. New virtual reality, mixed reality, and augmented reality technologies are already fully becoming a part of our daily lives.
For example, the use of virtual headsets to train technical personnel for aircraft maintenance and other equipment has cut the time it takes to train a qualified specialist in half. Architects can create and discuss their projects virtually, and then fully realize their ideas in any country using 3D printing technology. Virtual urban design centres will allow citizens to see the plans of architects and builders virtually in advance, and then give feedback and evaluate projects before final decisions are made. Such technologies reduce the costs of architects, builders, and managers several times over.
The speakers discussed possible threats to humans from robotics and were unanimous in their opinion that robots created by humans will not post a threat to mankind since humans will be ones writing the programmes for such robots, while machine intelligence significantly improves the quality and efficiency of communication at all levels of the management and production flowchart.
Experts also spoke about the problem of creating artificial intelligence (AI). They said that the world does not currently have any unified view or approaches on this issue. No one knows whether AI will be the same for the whole world or if each country will have its own AI and, moreover, whether it will be protected. Can different types of AI properly communicate with each other? In this regard, the issue of copyright protection and the patenting of new technologies are extremely important. The experts believe that governments should not restrict joint research and developments in this area.
As the discussion concluded, the delegates said that the world needs to actively work together and engage in productive international cooperation in the era of Industry 4.0, whose main goal is to minimize routine processes and reduce dependence on human errors.
