(Kwak Byong Sung, President of Korea Institute of Energy Research)

Artificial intelligence (AI) robot Sofia granted citizenship from Saudi Arabia, the Google Autonomous Driving Car running more than 1.126 million km in the world, and the Adidas Speed Factory producing 0.5 million pairs of sneakers annually only by around 10 regular employees. These sweet spots of the 4th industrial revolution accomplishments are already found in our lives. Energy has also become the fastest-changing and growing industry thanks to the 4th industrial revolution. The introduction of the fourth industrial revolution technologies such as Big Data and AI contributes to the reduction of renewable energy generation cost and the expansion of zero energy building. The 'zero marginal cost of energy' society, which allows everyone to enjoy clean energy with the development of ultra-small distributed generation system and renewable energy, no longer sounds like a dream.

But behind the sweet achievements of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, there are serious concerns over jobs. Amazon is already carrying out Career Choice program to give workers a chance to change jobs, which implies that Robot and AI can replace humans. The University of Oxford in the United Kingdom predicted that 63 percent of jobs are expected to disappear and the World Economic Forum (also known as the Davos Forum) expects as many as seven million jobs will be gone forever.

On the one hand, some observe that science and technology innovation will present an opportunity to evolve jobs. In fact, most of the agriculture population moved to the manufacturing sector due to the first industrial revolution. The second industrial revolution brought a shift to the service industry. Looking ahead, problems over jobs replaced by AI should be solved through “invest people”.

The method of Invest People should also be transformed within a big picture of the future industrial ecosystem that will be transformed through the fourth industrial revolution. The key is the transition from an educational system for nurturing short-term of single expertise to an educational system that fosters the capability of convergence based on a variety of expertise. Future jobs will become more diversified, intelligent, and personalized. There is a limit to the cultivation of human resources with uniformized technology-based education. The transition to an education system that integrates new values such as creation, cooperation, fun and meaning as well as technology convergence will induce and accelerate the emergence of convergent occupations. It will also lead to the emergence of new jobs that will address issues including the aging population, climate change, and energy issues.

For example, in order to activate brand new jobs such as 'smart energy designers' to help cope with climate change problems and energy efficiency, and 'energy sharing platform operators' to help reduce energy marginal costs by building prosumer-based energy trading systems, there should be efforts of cultivating human resources that encompass various interdisciplinary fields such as energy, environment, economy, and law.

However, it is doubtful whether there are any facilitating conditions for raising convergent talent in Korea. There is still a division called major and department. In the UK, industry professionals and professors from various fields are operating a student-tailored doctoral course support center, which provides students with professional and integrated education. Several professors guide students together. It nurtures superior innovation agents with a so-called 'context access ability' that naturally absorb diversity.

We should also change the frame of thinking centered on 'students' or 'people' instead of 'technology development'. It should be transformed into an educational system that fosters a master-artisan like talented people who can think in a flexible and converged way.

In the 1970s, there was a successful case in which short-term industrialization was achieved by attracting excellent scientific talents scattered abroad to government-funded research institutes. But now, the role of the research institutes is changing from 'fast follower' to 'the first mover'. In order to survive in the era of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, where a structure of ‘winner takes it all“ will be further strengthened, the transition to the first mover is further required. It is most important to develop talent development capabilities to the highest level in the world. The Medici family in Italy did not spare any efforts to help experts of different fields communicate with each other. The family is famous for breaking down the walls of different fields and creating great synergy by fusing talent. Such efforts led to the birth of artists such as Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, and Dante, and laid the foundations of the Italian Renaissance. The establishment of a new human resource development system that will create 'Medici effect' that maximizes synergy through convergence between diverse fields will be a key solution for Korea to lead the new Renaissance era of the Fourth Industrial Revolution.