As the Fourth Industrial Revolution, represented by AI and robotics, deepens, its impact on productivity development and even the fate of humanity is becoming increasingly evident. Unlike the first two industrial revolutions—steam power and electricity—this time the core of technological change shifts from empowering groups to empowering individuals. The first two revolutions positioned modern organizations, such as enterprises, at the center of societal operations, giving rise to disciplines like management and organizational behavior, fundamentally altering social forms and lifestyles, driven by a significant increase in collective productivity. From this perspective, the Third Industrial Revolution, represented by information technology, is merely the prologue to a new round of transformation. The capabilities of individuals are being widely and profoundly amplified, with immense potential for the future, and the ensuing social changes may far exceed our current imagination.This fundamental transformation is difficult to fully depict with our current understanding. This article attempts to explore possible future scenarios from three aspects:1. Value Creation and Occupational Scenarios
- Overall, humanity is expected to achieve unlimited energy and material circulation. Unless faced with common threats such as extraterrestrial life or major infectious diseases, the frontier of technological development will shift towards expanding living space, such as becoming a multi-planetary or even multi-stellar species.
- For individuals, personalization will become an important resource on both the demand and supply sides. Basic needs for survival, safety, and health have been sufficiently met, and the main driving force of social production will come from the realization of personalized demands.
- While many jobs will disappear, more new jobs will emerge. These new opportunities stem from the further segmentation of intellectual labor: low-end intellectual labor may be replaced by AI, while high-end intellectual labor—such as intuition, integration, aesthetics, imagination, and abstraction—will give rise to countless new professions in areas like language, emotion, space, music, and even grand problem perception.
- The nature of work will also change. An interesting perspective is to review the evolution of tools used by humans: from wood, stone, and metal to paper, pen, and computers, in the future, people will leverage AI to extend their brains, connecting various robots through the cloud to achieve more free and efficient creation.
2. Life Forms and Lifestyles
- Individuals will become the center of the world for the first time. AI brings knowledge equality (not intelligence equality), and robots greatly expand individuals’ ability to change the world. Previously, the center of the historical stage has been groups, ethnicities, nations, and organizations, but now individuals will have the opportunity to break free from dependence on stable organizations and begin to achieve self-reliance (albeit still reliant on infrastructure).
- Real-world activities will gradually become more entertaining and athletic, with human life focusing more on intellectual domains.
- The physical and psychological distance between people may become greater, long-term partnerships may decrease, and concentrated child-rearing may become a common choice. People’s demand for private space will also increase.
- The methods and content of education and learning will undergo fundamental changes. The current system mainly trains “parts” for organizations, while future education should pay more attention to the needs of both the whole and the individual.
3. Superstructure and Social Forms
- Existing stable organizational forms, such as companies, marriages, families, and nations, will be questioned and may gradually disintegrate, replaced by more temporary organizations or dynamic networks.
- Humans will still exhibit collectivism when facing major challenges, but internal structures will tend to be flatter and more turbulent, reducing the likelihood of large-scale conflicts.
- Concepts like nation and ethnicity will gradually become symbolic and historical, turning into nostalgic labels similar to “tribes” or “nobility.”
- Mainstream ideologies will continue to diversify, but conflict will no longer be central; instead, how to maintain diversity will become a key issue.
There are three key technological nodes in this transformation process:
- Unlimited energy: breakthroughs in solar energy, controllable nuclear fusion, etc.;
- Widespread AI: extremely cheap computing power, comprehensive digitalization of life;
- Expansion of living space: such as the reality of Mars colonization.
At the same time, several key conflicts need to be addressed:
- Technology and society accelerate change, but the ability of natural persons to change themselves diminishes with age, and the extension of human lifespan may exacerbate this contradiction;
- The current superstructure’s limitations on productivity;
- Humanity may face collective nihilism.