“New digital technologies are bringing changes that are much more rapid and comprehensive than in the past to the way we live, work, and interact with one another. The idea that the recent advancement in digital technologies has reached qualitatively distinct stage of digital revolution is becoming more widely accepted,” explained Bohyun Kim, chief technology officer and professor for the University of Rhode Island Libraries, Kingston, during the "New Technologies of the Fourth Industrial Revolution: AI, IoT, Robotics, and Beyond” on demand presentation at the American Library Association's 2021 Annual Conference and Exhibition. The talk was based on Kim's new open access book Moving Forward with Digital Disruption.

“The newest technologies are indeed blurring the lines between the physical, the digital, and the biological domains,” Kim said, citing World Economic Forum founder Klaus Schwab’s 2016 book The Fourth Industrial Revolution, and pointing to examples such as extended reality (augmented, mixed, and virtual reality), machine learning, Internet of Things (IoT) devices, synthetic biology, and 3-D bio-printing. These and other technologies “are also disrupting almost every industry in every corner of the world, transforming entire systems of today’s production, governance, and management.”

EXTENDED REALITY

For example, the sale of Google Glass augmented reality glasses to the public was discontinued in 2015 due to privacy concerns, but the company unveiled Google Glass Enterprise Edition 2 for commercial users in 2019, because employees at several major companies including DHL, Boeing, and GE continue to use them in manufacturing and logistics processes.

“AGCO, a farm equipment manufacturer, has about 100 employees using custom Google Glass,” Kim said. “Employees can get a reminder about the series of tests that they need to perform while assembling a tractor engine. They can locate and access information related to the assembly or part. They can scan the serial number of a part and bring up a manual, photos, or videos…and they can do these [things] with their hands free.” AGCO reported that the use of Google Glass had made quality checks 20 percent faster, and also helped with training new employees. Similarly, NASA uses Microsoft HoloLens headsets to render its ProtoSpace computer-aided design mixed reality program, which “is used to find flaws in [a] design before a physical part is built,” Kim explained.

“The adoption of extended reality has begun in a variety of areas including education, healthcare, manufacturing, aviation, engineering, shopping, and even internet search,” making the physical and digital domains more enmeshed, Kim said. Projects such as the Open AR Cloud—which describes its mission as driving “the development of open and interoperable spatial computing technology, data, and standards to connect the physical and digital worlds for the benefit of all”—are speeding up this process, she added. “Extended reality has the potential to transform people’s activities both online and offline into something completely new.”

BIG DATA AND IoT

Kim moved on to discuss Big Data and IoT, linking the two topics since IoT devices—such as “smart” thermostats, voice assistants, remote heart rate monitors, or predictive maintenance devices—now generate a huge volume of machine-to-machine data. The International Data Corporation (IDC) estimates that 7 billion IoT devices are currently in use, and 41.6 billion internet-connected devices (including IoT) will generate 79.4 billion terabytes of data in the year 2025.

“Big Data is defined as high volume, high velocity, and high variety information assets that demand cost effective and innovative forms of information processing that enable enhanced insight decision making and process automation,” Kim explained. “The tools and technologies for storing, retrieving, and analyzing [Big Data] are an indispensable component of the trend…. What makes Big Data different from ‘just more data’ is this ability to apply sophisticated algorithms and powerful computers to large data sets in order to reveal correlations and insights which were previously inaccessible through conventional data warehousing or business intelligence tools.”

SYNTHETIC BIOLOGY AND 3-D BIO-PRINTING

Scientists “are transforming biological processes into digital ones using genetic circuits and biological parts,” Kim said during the next portion of the presentation. Kim explained that synthetic biologists “are interested in making biochemical processes such as gene synthesis and protein production more like computer programming…. Genes in a cell include instructions to build a particular type of protein. Ribosomes, which include RNA, read those instructions and build…the protein” to those specifications. “So genes and ribosomes are analogous to programs in a production machine” with cells as molecular machinery that produce chemicals. “Synthetic biology studies how to synthesize the genes to program cells in order to produce proteins and beyond. It aims to build biological parts, devices, sensors, and chemical factories, which can then be used to make pharmaceuticals, renewable chemicals, biofuels, food, and so on.”

Researchers are also working with 3-D bio-printing technology to build whole tissues and even organs, Kim added. “This brings biology even closer to the digital realm,” she said, noting that in 2016, scientists at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center, City and State TK, succeeded in bio-printing living ear, bone, and muscle tissue structures using a specialized 3-D bio-printer. In a related field, SynBio seeks “to repurpose living cells as substrates for general computation.” Biological circuits and parts are not yet sufficiently modular or scalable, Kim said, but it’s becoming possible to envision a future in which living organisms and nonorganic matter interface and interact seamlessly, and living organisms serve as an interface for everyday electronics.

DISRUPTION AND TRANSFORMATION

Kim also discussed how artificial intelligence (AI) is behind a new phenomenon of machine-generated content.

“The impressive results of machine learning and deep learning prompted many industries to adopt artificial intelligence in areas traditionally viewed as exclusively human domains, such as journalism,” Kim said. “The Washington Post, USA Today, Bloomberg, Reuters, and Buzzfeed are all experimenting with [AI] technology in news writing. Machine learning applications are creating news stories and other content for humans to consume. [It] sounds like a sci-fi story, but it is most certainly happening right now.” These applications lower the cost of content creation, and enable these media organizations to target many small audiences with local or niche content.

Separately, voice-activated digital assistants and autonomous driving technology are familiar examples of services produced by machine learning and AI. “From new ways to generate value in e-commerce through brokering connections at a massive scale, to partly or fully machine-created services and content, digital technologies are disrupting the area of production.”

In addition, digital technologies excel at creating connections between a large number of people on the web to facilitate activities or transactions, Kim said. “This creates the potential to decentralize the governance role of third-party authority or even eliminate it altogether,” with blockchain technology at the center of this possibility.

Best known as the technology behind Bitcoin and other digital currencies, blockchain is a distributed ledger system. Traditionally, third party authorities such as banks have provided governance for important transactions, such as transfers of money, real estate purchases or sales, and any type of credentialing, from academic degrees to marriage certification. As a distributed ledger that doesn’t rely on any outside party with existing authority, “blockchain can serve as a trust protocol that enables transactions on the Web to be validated, authorized, and recorded in a secure manner using the distributed network and the hashing process only,” Kim said.

OPPORTUNITIES AND CHALLENGES FOR LIBRARIES

“How do we ensure that libraries survive and succeed through these changes, now and in the near future?” Kim asked. “We know that libraries have been actively embracing technology. Many libraries offer makerspaces, VR studios, research data management services, AI labs, and so on. These new services and spaces enable library users to discover and become familiar with emerging technologies, which often also become part of their work and social lives. There is no doubt that in order to stay relevant to the evolving needs of library users, libraries must continue to invest in technology-related offerings and innovate library services and programs.”

Librarians shouldn’t view these investments as something that competes with traditional library services or programs, she said. New technologies, and helping patrons or students understand them, offer a way to help a library achieve its mission, not change it.

Kim added that technology does not always produce social good; it can have negative social consequences. As institutions that aim to generate and increase social good in the communities they serve, libraries and library professionals must be attuned not only to the benefits, but also the limitations of new technologies, and the disruptions and problems they might cause.

“No matter what technology the library adopts and no matter how it changes the library’s services, programs, and other offerings, the library’s mission—to empower people through knowledge and to facilitate and support their information-seeking and learning activities—does not change,” Kim said.