“Automation has been the cornerstone of the global economy going back more than two and a half centuries, when a quartet of inventions – the spinning jinny in 1764, the steam engine in 1775, the power loom in 1785 and the cotton gin in 1794 – radicalized the production and transport of goods and set the foundation for a largely uninterrupted arc of economic growth that continues through today.  Every subsequent era of entrepreneurship and invention, from the communications revolutions of the mid19th century to the automobile of the early-20th century to air travel and mass manufacturing of the mid-20th century and the emergence of computer systems in the late-20th century, has been driven by three similar concepts which define automation: • New and/or improved devices which lead to higher speed and greater quality of production • Sharp reduction in the cost of production based on the higher productivity of the devices compared to human labor • The freeing up of human labor from tasks which can be performed quicker, better and cheaper by the devices The next wave of automation, while being based on similar principles and having similar effects, goes a step further in impacting human actions, from the improvement of mere human labor to the improvement of the thoughts and judgment long considered the definition of what it is to be human.  Intelligent Automation allows individuals, enterprises, governments and societies to apply the power of infinitely repeatable, highvelocity, highly reliable, machine-driven processes not only to the routine tasks which have defined automation since its inception, but also to highly-complex tasks which require real-time judgment and decision-making based on the processing of multiple, variable and conflicting inputs…” 

Contributors: Avasant
Categories: Industry Articles, SIG U Resource
SRC Type: Artificial Intelligence, Disruptive Digitization