**Abstract**

In this paper, key elements about the Fourth Industrial Revolution are set under examination. Concerns, challenges, and opportunities related to the Industry 4.0 are analyzed, and specific policies to deal with the challenges and take advantage from the opportunities are proposed. Other issues that are set under consideration in this paper are the rate at which the human labor is threatened by the technological achievements, the main factors that increase workers' exposure to the risk of automation, the jobs that are more at risk due to automation, and the basic factors that make political intervention necessary in order to deal with the unpredictable consequences of the technological progress such as the threat of a nuclear disaster and a possible income and social inequality gap widening. Finally, a special reference is done for the case of Greece.

**Keywords:** Fourth Industrial Revolution, industry 4.0, automation, technological progress, creative disaster, robots, artificial intelligence, STEM, true creativity, social intelligence

### **1. Introduction**

In the last decades, the technological progress was remarkable. The fast and major technological changes offer the chance to improve human life, but they also create concerns about the future. One of the biggest fears related to the new technologies is that the robots and the artificial intelligence will replace the human factor in work leading to the "technological unemployment." This is not the first time that people face the technological progress as a threat for their jobs. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, when another major wave of technological progress took place, similar fears had arisen, but they had not been proven right; technological achievements of these centuries finally drove to the creation of new jobs that had fully compensated the consequences of the new job-saving technology adoption ("capitalization result").

However, in view of the Fourth Industrial Revolution that has already begun in Europe and in the United States, the fear that the automation and the digitization will drive to the "End of Work" [1] wakes up again. A great discussion about the possibility of human factor replacement by machines and robots and a probable "creative disaster" have been emerged in a series of studies. Frey and Osborne [2] in their study support that 47% of jobs in the United States may be at risk of automation in the near future (see **Figure 1**). Bowles [3] in his study concludes that the proportion of sensitive-in-automation jobs in Europe varies from 45–60%,

### **Figure 1.**

*Employment by risk category in US.*

with Southern Europe being more exposed to a possible automation wave. The discussion about the consequences of the Industry 4.0 in World Economic Forum in Davos (2016) concluded that about 7 million jobs are at risk in the next 5 years with women being more affected.

There are various factors that could expose workers at the risk of automation. A low *work experience* is such a factor and mainly concerns young people who usually work as unskilled staff in routine positions that could be easily automated. *Low levels of education and training* is another crucial factor. Highly educated and highly specialized employees are less threatened by unemployment due to automation in contrast to low-skilled staff, whose tasks can be easily automated. The high percentages of people out of education, employment, or training (high NEET%) aggravates the situation since the difficulties of less-specialized workers to reenter into the labor market and get adapted to the new conditions will be great if they stay out of education, employment, or training for a long time. **Figure 2**<sup>1</sup> shows that there is a decreasing trend between educational level and the share of workers at high risk of automation; people with lower secondary education are the most exposed to the risk of automation, while highly educated employees with a Master's/PhD are the most protected against the risk of automation.

The *low degree of adaptation to automation* is maybe the most important among the risk factors of exposure to automation. Countries must acquire the mechanisms to help their citizens to be quickly and easily adapted to the new reality. In

**5**

<sup>2</sup> See [5–7].

whole.2

**Figure 2.**

*Fourth Industrial Revolution: Opportunities, Challenges, and Proposed Policies*

technologically advanced countries such as Japan, South Korea, and Singapore, men are increasingly working with robots in order to be highly adapted to automation reducing in this way the unemployment risk in comparison with other countries

The Fourth Industrial Revolution does not seem to threaten the human work as a

Employees are differently exposed to automation depending on the position they hold and on their tasks. *Routine jobs with a high volume of tasks* related to information exchange, sales, data management, manual work, product transfer and storage, constructions, and office work are more exposed to the risk of automation.

*Construction and Manufacturing* and *Wholesale and Retail Trade* are the professional sectors that are expected to be highly automated until 2030, with an estimated

other hand, the risk of automation is lower for *jobs with high educational requirements*, the tasks of which demand *high communicative and cognitive skills*. Such tasks cannot be defined in terms of codes and algorithms (Engineering Bottlenecks); they are more related to the perception, the ability to manage complex situations, multilevel activity and flexibility, and the *true creativity*, for example, any task that cannot be provided by a machine but requires critical thinking such as the ability to develop new theories, literature, or musical compositions. There are also tasks that require *social intelligence and comprehension* such as elderly care; for these tasks there is a strong social preference to be provided by human employees and not by robots. *Health and* education are the professional sectors with the lowest estimated rates of automation (around 8–9% for OECD countries). This is also clear in **Figure 3** according to which "Transportation and storage" and "Manufacturing" are the economic sectors that are more exposed to the risk of automation (up to 50%), while sectors such as "Human health and social

countries). On the

The heterogeneity of jobs even within the same professional sector is great.

**2. Professional sectors and jobs more exposed to automation**

automation of approximately 45 and 34%, respectively (for OECD3

<sup>3</sup> Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.90412*

where adaptation to automation is slower.

*Share of workers at high automation risk by education level.*

<sup>1</sup> See [4].

*Fourth Industrial Revolution: Opportunities, Challenges, and Proposed Policies DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.90412*

### **Figure 2.**

*Industrial Robotics - New Paradigms*

women being more affected.

*Employment by risk category in US.*

**Figure 1.**

with Southern Europe being more exposed to a possible automation wave. The discussion about the consequences of the Industry 4.0 in World Economic Forum in Davos (2016) concluded that about 7 million jobs are at risk in the next 5 years with

education, employment, or training for a long time. **Figure 2**<sup>1</sup>

protected against the risk of automation.

There are various factors that could expose workers at the risk of automation. A low *work experience* is such a factor and mainly concerns young people who usually work as unskilled staff in routine positions that could be easily automated. *Low levels of education and training* is another crucial factor. Highly educated and highly specialized employees are less threatened by unemployment due to automation in contrast to low-skilled staff, whose tasks can be easily automated. The high percentages of people out of education, employment, or training (high NEET%) aggravates the situation since the difficulties of less-specialized workers to reenter into the labor market and get adapted to the new conditions will be great if they stay out of

decreasing trend between educational level and the share of workers at high risk of automation; people with lower secondary education are the most exposed to the risk of automation, while highly educated employees with a Master's/PhD are the most

The *low degree of adaptation to automation* is maybe the most important among

the risk factors of exposure to automation. Countries must acquire the mechanisms to help their citizens to be quickly and easily adapted to the new reality. In

shows that there is a

**4**

<sup>1</sup> See [4].

*Share of workers at high automation risk by education level.*

technologically advanced countries such as Japan, South Korea, and Singapore, men are increasingly working with robots in order to be highly adapted to automation reducing in this way the unemployment risk in comparison with other countries where adaptation to automation is slower.
