Digital Industries – What will production look like in the future?
The world of work is in a state of upheaval. Digitalization offers entirely new opportunities to make work processes more efficient and cost effective. Artificial intelligence (AI) will increasingly shape working life in the future. “Intelligent” machines will take over many activities previously performed by humans. So it is hardly an exaggeration to speak of another “industrial revolution.” This is evident in the manufacturing sector, where digitalization is having a particularly strong impact.
“Industry 4.0,” the digitalization of factory work, is one of the major economic issues of our time. The automation of work processes, which has always been a defining characteristic of the industrial age, is receiving an additionally strong boost from global digital networking. The “robot colleague” is no longer a vision of the future, but in many places has long since become reality.
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An exciting look into the working world of tomorrow
This makes it possible, for example, to delegate monotonous or physically demanding tasks to machines, freeing up manpower that can be deployed more sensibly elsewhere. Of course, it also makes it possible for companies to save on personnel. Consequently, the advantages of the digital industrial revolution are also offset by disadvantages such as decreasing the number of available jobs.
It’s exciting to imagine what the working world of the future might look like. The poles are the cheerful vision of a world largely free from unpleasant tasks versus the gloomy prophecy of a robot dictatorship. Pretty sure things won’t turn out quite so nicely, but they won’t turn out quite so badly either. Robots will only play second fiddle in those areas where creativity, imagination, and empathy—specifically human qualities—are required. Jobs and certain job descriptions will certainly disappear, but many new jobs will also be created within the field of the new digital applications.
A highly interesting topic for photographers
However, it’s already clear that new problems for industry in the 21st century have emerged along with the new opportunities. The vulnerability of corporate networks to cybercriminals and industrial espionage demands effective protective measures that must be constantly developed to keep pace with this threat.
The digitalization of industry will affect us all in one way or another. This is another reason why it is a highly interesting topic for photographers. Combining human ingenuity with hi tech opens a broad and exciting range of topics that have great visual design potential. An evaluation of the best-selling concepts at Westend61 proves customers have a lot of interest in images on the subject of “new technologies.” Simply, the productive interaction between man and machine is appealing. However, it is also possible to have images without any models at all; the cool aesthetics of digital technology on their own can also be appealing.
