2020 YEAR-END ISSUE | INNOVATION & TECH TODAY 61
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zonezone CESedge computing edge IT service environment.
“We strongly believe 5G is a game-changing
technology that when fully implemented will
help us support better hospital operations as
well as provide the highest-quality patient and
staff experience,” said Senior Vice President and
CIO Dr. Shafiq Rab of Rush University Medical
Center and the Rush System for Health.
In a nutshell, thousands of cities, towns, and
metropolitan areas are hooked up to 5G, while
rural America is catching up — the typical order
of any technology rollout. What might surprise
some is the rollout has been happening for two
years. In late 2018, AT&T announced its 5G
network went “live” in parts of Atlanta,
Charlotte, Dallas, Houston, Indianapolis,
Jacksonville, Louisville, Oklahoma City, New
Orleans, Raleigh, San Antonio, and Waco. In
mid-2019, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Nashville,
Orlando, San Diego, San Francisco, and San Jose
joined the group. Then, in December 2019,
Verizon flipped the switch to make 5G available
to over 5,000 cities and towns that total more
than 200 million residents. While 4G will
continue to be available for the foreseeable
future, phone manufacturers are jumping on the
5G express. As of October 2020, Apple, Asus,
Google, HMD Global (Nokia), Honor, HTC,
Huawei, LG, Motorola, OnePlus, Oppo,
Realme, Samsung, Sony, and Chinese
juggernaut Xiaomi all offer several different
5G models.
In the manufacturing world, we’re already
seeing the disruptive and transformative
capacity of 5G play out in robotics. While many
chafe at the once futuristic but now very present
reality where robots can and will replace
humans in some jobs, those dealing with high
manufacturing volume and customer demand,
like Amazon’s shipping and distribution
departments, find them indispensable in
keeping up. While dystopian movie producers
and the paranoid fringe focus on the potential of
so-called “killer robots” to wreak havoc on
society, that’s a worry whose time really has not
yet gone beyond the box office. How about the
positives of 5G-powered robotics? Like robots
that provide every type of service, solution, or
entertainment function? Or those already
cleaning living room floors and mowing yards?
If you’re a working single parent, think of your
latchkey kid coming home, opening the door —
and a robot notifying you that your kid’s home,
while helping your kid with snacks and
reminding them of homework assignments.
These types of specific-use cases will be
commonplace soon in business, manufacturing,
medical, and home settings — particularly in
the retail and service sectors. The intrinsic value
of robots is they perform the tasks and functions
we don’t like to do. Repetitive solutions can be
learned.
What are the biggest issues as we evolve into a
5G world? The same two subjects that keep us
awake at night, whether concerning technology,
business, or our personal lives — privacy and
security. “Some of us are extremely private and
wish to remain that way; others are more open
about information sharing. We have to find
where our comfort zone lies, and be willing to
accept privacy isn’t as easy to come by, or for
millions of citizens, as important as it used to
be,” notes Tech Cat podcast producer and CNN
tech correspondent Lori H. Schwartz.
The first place to increase your security is on
your phone — by switching default settings.The average consumer buys a connected device
and doesn’t change the default settings. Keep in
mind those settings are initially programmed to
serve the manufacturer as well as the consumer
— especially when it comes to things like
physical location, personal data mining,
spending habits, search patterns and the like.
5G will also bring up new ethics questions and
challenges we’ve never faced. This includes a
growing transformation in the types of jobs
coming available — and those going away, many
industry or sector stalwarts for decades. In a
way, it’s similar to what happened when
automation began moving into manufacturing
in the 1990s. It eliminated, to a great degree,
very big job categories — physical assembly and
factory floor jobs on the assembly line, for
example. The same happened throughout the
manufacturing sector, so when someone argues
that our manufacturing presence was weakened
because of the jobs being outsourced, they were
— to technology and automation, far more than
to other countries. On the flip side, today’s
average sixth grader who graduates college, or
gets some sort of post high-school training, is
going to enter a job market in 8-10 years in
which up to 50 percent of the jobs do not exist
yet. Think back ten years: could you have
imagined some of the job opportunities
available now? Like making six or seven figures
being a social media influencer? Or running
multi-million dollar click bait companies off
your phone?
Now that 5G is becoming more prevalent, look
for all sorts of new job categories to pop up. Q
Lori H. Schwartz also contributed to this article,
with excerpts from her forthcoming book, The
Tech Cat.