[WSMDiscuss] Advice on crits of the 4th Industrial Revo?

[Patrick Bond]

Hi dear allies,

What are the most interesting progressive (not Luddite) critiques of the 
4th Industrial Revolution, especially robotics, artificial intelligence, 
cybersecurity systems like blockchain and the like?

The Brazil-Russia-India-China-SA bloc meets here in Johannesburg in late 
July. Our local BRICS elites engage in virtually unregulated high-tech 
acts of surveillance, censorship and repression. Now, "4IR" babble is 
being promoted heavily here now.

I gather 4IR could destroy half the world's current employment in some 
sectors such as finance. A leading South African practitioner, Elon 
Musk, warns that AI could wreck humanity within the coming few decades.

As you see below, African dissemination of 4IR appears to be a very high 
priority for the BRICS' so-called 'Sherpas' (a term we would want to 
banish from such abusive deployment, out of respect for the Nepalese 
people's desires).

It is also a major project of BRICS Business Council chair Iqbal Survé, 
who has been relentlessly pushing 4IR rhetoric in his Independent group 
newspaper chain, in part through a proposed $4 billion "Sagarmatha" 
listing on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange.

Investigative journalists the illicit relations between Survé and the 
$150 billion Public Investment Corporation (SA bureaucrats' pensions) 
and prevented the deal from happening, but it is likely Survé will seek 
more capital to move his personal for-profit 4IR agenda forward, at the 
same time he and other BRICS elites try to confuse society with pro-4IR 
rhetoric.

What should we be saying about all this? A brics-from-below summit will 
be announced this week. Critical info will be vital, thanks comrades.

Patrick

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