HPQ ESSAY DRAFT

“To what extent are we going through a global industrial revolution in the 21st Century?”

What I Plan to Achieve in my HPQ

I plan to outline the constant process of evolution that we, as humans, strive to achieve
through innovation and intelligence, through the use of new technologies to advance and
rapidly expand our industries, developing our global society at an exponential rate with the
help of new developments brought about by collaborative efforts to innovate and inspire new
inventions that we can use to our advantage in order to accelerate our growth as a global
community.

What is a revolution?
In order to understand the question of “To what extent are we going through a global
industrial revolution in the 21st century?” we must first establish what a revolution is. By the
standards of the Cambridge English Dictionary, a revolution is “a change in the way a
country is governed”.

What is industrial?
For the same reasons we must understand what industrial means. By the standards of the
Cambridge English Dictionary, the word industrial means “in or related to industry, or
having a lot of industry and factories”.

Types of Revolutions
The word revolution may often be associated with violence, war, dispute, and unrest.
However, the kind of revolution I will be referring to, an industrial revolution, is of a
different nature. This revolution is characterised by a collective advancement through the
development of industries and typically machinery and intelligence, used as a means to
improve efficiency of processes and increase industrial output and productivity for
individuals, firms, regions, countries and ultimately, globally.

Past Revolutions
The earliest recorded revolution dates back to 2730 BCE, taking place in Egypt under the
command of the “Priests of Horus”, which resulted in Egypt being partitioned into Upper
and Lower Egypt. Since then, we have had hundreds, if not thousands of revolutions where
people have brought around change through various means.

How can we classify revolutions?

One of the most important aspects of this question is: “what defines a revolution?” For
example, is there a requirement for a certain number of people taking part, or a metric for
measuring change as a result of the revolution? After researching on what a revolution
fundamentally is and seeing protests such as 2023 Iranian protests being classified as
revolutions, I have concluded that there is no specific number required, but rather there must
be a significant change as a result of the revolution.

Technological Advancements
We are at the outset of the 5th Industrial Revolution, according to Forbes. In the last 20 years,
since the start of the 21st century, we have seen an incredible expansion and development of
the world as we know it today. The iPhones were introduced, the internet is now available to
people all around the world, serving as a global connection point, social medias such as
Twitter and Facebook, the ideas brought to life by huge tech companies widespread across
different countries and continents in an attempt to win the “technology race”. We have had
the manifestation of an entire new sector, called the quaternary sector, which is the centre of
information and data. New machinery such as the invention of electric cars, for example,
have enabled us to be more efficient in our travel, providing numerous environmental
benefits. For example, a study carried out by “Duke University” claimed that each gallon of
gasoline purchased at a gas station cost $3.80 in health and environmental costs. The
implementation of electric cars can effectively combat this issue and eliminate these costs.
However, the question is centred around a global industrial revolution. Electric cars may
have been successfully implemented in many western countries, we certainly have not
reached a point of global introduction, with third world countries such as India, with a huge
population, the challenge of distributing this technology to everyone arises.
Another example of technological advancements being used to develop industries is the use
of technology in healthcare. Especially in the last 12 months. An example is a human liver
repaired using lab-grown cells, carried out by the NHS, made possible by data analysis and
constant iteration, and upgrading of technology. We have also seen, the use of technology to
significantly develop the military, where we have seen the improvements in tanks, invention
of nuclear weapons, and the ever-increasing resources and methods of warfare. This operates
on a global scale, as we can see that countries in both the east and the west have access to
advanced military applications.
Furthermore, one of the more recent advancements we have seen is the introduction of AI,
with language based models such as ChatGPT, voice cloning Ais, generative Ais, and many
more which are already being used in businesses to accelerate growth, with Ais carrying out
tasks that normally take hours in a matter of seconds. AI is available globally, thanks to the
IoT (internet of things) which connects all devices connected to the internet, allowing anyone
with an internet connection to access these AI software’s.
These points show us that we are indeed experiencing a revolution, in parts of the world,
certainly. This is because these developments are allowing us to develop our society, provide
solutions to complex problems, and help us socially, economically, politically,
environmentally and in many other ways. However, we must now take into account the key
word of this question, which is global.

Widescale Global Revolution

In this part of my answer, I will explain to you how different parts of the world are currently
experiences different extents of industrial development, and how we can come to a
conclusion about how this adds up to an overall global revolution. For example, some
countries may undergo “technological leapfrogging”, which is when countries will take
advantage of technological advancements that have already been made available for years in
other countries, instead of going through various prototypes of the models before reaching the
most up to date version. An example is the smartphone. Smartphones have been introduced
only recently in the 21st century, and before that, we had multiple versions of the same
product, each time becoming more and more advanced, in the UK. However, in other
countries, they did not have those models, and have now “skipped” directly to the latest
smartphone models. This analogy represents the different stages that countries are at right
now, hence the global development gap.
On a different note, I would like to highlight the shifting of our global economy, towards an
attention economy. In Cal Newport’s book “Deep Work”, he mentions the importance of
adaptability in an ever-changing market, pushed forwards by technological advancements and
iterative processes of improving and creating new inventions. This is a clear indicator of a
revolution, since we are witnessing a huge change before our eyes and watching sectors such
as agriculture and manufacturing slowly diminishing, as tertiary and quaternary sectors
dominating. Everything has changed, highlighting the extent of this revolution, with the
invention of GMO crops, and the hydroponic and aeroponic techniques, which have been
driven forward through technology.
I will now link the expansion of dominating technology corporations to a global revolution.
Corporations such as Amazon have expanded across the globe, establishing headquarters in
multiple countries, becoming transnational countries and linking the world globally. This
allows them to provide services across the globe and allows for employment opportunities,
investment, marketing and other aspects to be regulated globally, pushing forward our global
economy.
When talking about an industrial revolution, it is necessary to reference the digitalisation we
are undergoing presently. This process of digitalisation has been categorized into Web 1.0,
Web 2.0 and Web 3.0. Web1 saw the invention of the world wide web and the first
broadcasting of images and wired connections introduced, which started in 1989, ending in
2005. After 2005 up until 2022, we saw Web2, where social media, wireless connections,
widespread home entertainment and establishment of entertainment software associations.
The relatively now addition is Web3, where we have seen and are still seeing is the rise of
cryptocurrencies, artificial intelligence and the decentralization of the internet. As you can
see, we are currently witnessing an evolution- a revolution, bringing about impactful change
in a short period of time. In fact, web3 is commonly referred to as the 4th industrial
revolution, surpassing the realm of previous possibilities with technology with 4 foundational
disruptive technologies: connectivity, data, and computational power e.g. cloud services, the
blockchain. analytics and intelligence e.g. advanced analytics, machine learning, artificial
intelligence, human–machine interaction e.g. virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR)
and robotics and automation. Lastly, advanced engineering e.g. additive manufacturing (such
as, 3-D printing), renewable energy, nanoparticles. This has lead to the need for reskilling of
our workforce with the increasing need for web development capabilities, which is a typical
characteristic of a revolution, as we have seen with previous revolutions such as the industrial
revolution, where the workforce was required to learn new skills to adapt. The CEO of
Western Digital, a successful technology company said in his words, “It’s not just about our
company being better and us being prepared for the future; it’s about all of our employees
being ready for that future—keeping them at the centre, having them highly engaged, all of
the reskilling, getting them excited about what the future holds.”

Conclusion to an effective evaluation

In conclusion, we are seeing a global industrial revolution to a partial extent; we certainly are
seeing phenomenal advancements in many industries, in a lot of countries but I believe that
globally, we have not yet seen a widescale revolution to its full extent. Whilst we are seeing a
global industrial revolution, I must make it clear to say that some countries are having a
lesser extent of a revolution than others, seen through the development gap and the
inaccessibility of technologies to many people around the world in remote or underdeveloped
regions. However, a revolution, as I mentioned in the start of my argument, does not have to
have a requirement for a certain number of people taking part, but rather a significant change.
However, the key word global defines the number of people taking part, suggesting that the
revolution must take place across the world. This means that we must see a significant change
across the world, which we have definitely seen in every region, with drastic developments in
recent years to support this revolution.