Who Will the Fourth Industrial Revolution Really Benefit?

Each one of the previous industrial revolutions had devastating consequences for Africa. The experience by Africans of the First Industrial Revolution (1IR) was one of the intensification and increased brutality of enslavement. The transatlantic slave trade has been described by historians as a "triangular trade" that was fundamental to the 1IR. African people were captured and sold on to ships and transported across the Atlantic to become slaves on plantations in the Americas. The cotton that they produced was transported across the Atlantic to the burgeoning textile factories in the north of England. The Second Industrial Revolution (2IR) simply deepened the colonial domination of Africa by the European nations (despite the abolition of slavery). It is significant that historians conventionally date both the 2IR and the "age of imperialism" as the period from the 1860s to 1914. From the point of view of Africa, they are the same historical phenomenon. The dominant experience of most African countries in the Third Industrial Revolution (3IR) has been that of increasing socioeconomic marginalisation. According to the Foresight Africa 2020  Report, the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) is characterized by the fusion of the digital, biological, and physical worlds, as well as the growing utilization of new technologies such as artificial intelligence, cloud computing, robotics and 3D printing. Why should we expect that a 4IR would benefit this continent and its people, writes Ian Moll for the Daily Maverick.