The first two industrial revolutions brought us machines that facilitate mass production the third Industrial Revolution also known as the digital revolution probably started in 1947 with the invention of the transistor it delivered computers that help us process information the internet and mobile phones which help us communicate effectively and generally speaking enabled us to be more productive the fourth Industrial Revolution won many believers already started brought about by the Internet of Things artificial intelligence and so on comes with so-called smart machines which instead of increasing our productivity might well replace us altogether this may sound like a lot I'd or even Malthusian fantasy in light of the fact that people feared the same things as of the very first English revolution and why let it destroy lots of jobs and let's say agriculture many more were created and in the end all of us are better off while there's nothing wrong with being optimistic based on historical arguments we do need to keep in mind that past performance is not necessarily indicative of future results or in other words the infamous this time it's different statement might eventually be true there are two main possibilities one just like in the past more jobs will be created than destroyed this would be the optimistic one but also to this time more jobs might be destroyed and created so implementing something like the universal basic income could prove to be necessary at least temporarily as cliche as it may sound all we can do is wait and see hope for the best but prepare for the worst