The second machine age has begun: let us make the most of it
The growing participation of non-human intelligence in our personal and professional lives suggests that technology is pushing us towards an inflection point where computers, software and networks will play a larger role in our lives. In their first years of existence they complemented existing technologies; today they carry more developed capabilities that in some cases are replacing the work people do.
The idea of a second machine age was set out by Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee in a book published some years ago[1]. In it they note that the capabilities of processors and large computers have not finished surprising us, and that we should expect their potential to keep growing — which will affect how we see the world and how we do business.
That prediction shows up in the robotisation now under way and in the high speed of technological development. Robots handling end-to-end warehouse management, driving vehicles, translating texts, composing art and even carrying out some journalistic work were once impossible to imagine. Today robots are doing those tasks.
What elements accompany this second revolution, according to the authors?
The growing capacity to process data, thanks to more powerful and cheaper computing equipment.
Equally, the growing digitisation of information, which makes it easier to copy, store and move.
The innovation that results from the first two, such as search engines and analysis tools.
These elements are present to a greater or lesser degree within the large body of technology, data and information held by states. There are therefore opportunities for public services and administration to reach citizens more efficiently.
Let us look at the three elements in order to make the case for that opportunity more clearly.
First: there is considerable processing and storage capacity in the platforms that handle citizens' data — identity records, electoral rolls, statistics and censuses, health, education, energy and transport information — and equally in activities related to security and the fight against corruption and drug trafficking. All of those platforms exist; they are simply not integrated, and there is no strategy to optimise how they are applied. The capacity is available; it needs to be developed and integrated. Business Intelligence technologies make that integration straightforward, without radical changes to the state's transactional systems.
Second: on digitisation we face a number of difficulties, not because the need for it is misunderstood but because the large existing information system platforms were built without allowing for the future digitisation of data — which creates difficulties when it comes to sharing, storing and processing it. The challenge here is greater.
Third: innovation. Although it looks like the hardest of the three, it is worth noting that public organisations are full of good ideas and a desire to improve, while facing procedures and processes designed for a different kind of administration.
The opportunity to take up all three elements is simply tremendous, and data visualisation and communications technologies — now mature — should help us realise it. We have what matters most: the raw material, the platforms, the people and a civil society that expects efficiency. All that remains is to begin.
[1] The Second Machine Age: Work, Progress and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies. E. Brynjolfsson and A. McAfee. W. W. Norton. 2014.
