In this session, we’ll discuss Industry 4.0, which includes IoT and AI, along with a host of other tools and techniques. All these provide for, or at least promise, greater interconnectivity, ease of data collection and analysis, and overall improved productivity and competitiveness in the workforce. We’ll consider the basic concepts associated with each, and discuss the potential benefits, and risks associated with each. We will begin to try to answer some basic questions –

1. Are we putting the basic practices in place before “automating”?
2. Are we getting too much data/complexity and not enough actionable information?
3. Are we effectively managing the risk of being hacked, or of “hallucinations”?
4. Have we considered the energy consumption needed to effectively deploy these tools, especially AI?