Uzair bin Farid

Pakistan lacks the necessary infrastructure and foundational basis to initiate the automation process, says Exponeur founder Haider Ali Baig while talking to WealthPK. The founder of Exponeur – a Dubai-based tech start-up – said the process of automation is 50 years late in case of Pakistan. For the automation process to be instituted in any industry, it is important that we have the necessary infrastructural foundations laid down for its proper functioning, he added. “Automation is a process that requires uninterrupted supply of energy and internet connectivity. In Pakistan, the industry is still struggling to get a consistent rate and steady supply of energy.”

“Similarly, there must be high speed and interruption-free internet available to the operators of automated systems. In Pakistan, generally the internet connectivity speeds are on a par with 2G,” Haider said. Haider further elaborated that the automation process will take place when the industrial sector will feel the need to institute the process of automation. “Unless our industrialists and businesses feel the need to automate, we will not see any significant progress towards automation in our country. Our industry is still operating on the old lines of ‘Seth Culture’ where the traditional modes of production and business are employed without any regard for innovation and global competition.”

Responding to a question about the possible fallout of the automation process, he said in any scenario the people who will be laid off because of the process of automation will inevitably find some other job. “Whatever happens, a machine can replace the tasks and job of a man but it can never replace the man. Therefore, it is not always helpful to think along fatalistic lines,” he remarked.

He continued, “Technology has helped man evolve and reach its higher potentials. The process of automation represents one such step in the process of technological evolution which is emblematic of the intellectual prowess of humans themselves.” “Instead of thinking about the negative consequences of the process of automation, we need to engage in deliberation about how we can use this process to our benefit with a resulting normal distribution of prosperity for all the people.”

Haider said the emerging dynamics of the fourth industrial revolution are creating a totally new landscape for employment and production techniques in the industrial sector. “The IT revolution has enabled big companies to monopolize the use and sale of data which inevitably garners for them enough resources to introduce such technologies which are totally reliant on automated systems needing no human intervention.”

“Such developments in technology and data have started to usher in an age of ongoing industrial progress which is totally antithetical to the dynamics of the first industrial revolution where all the production is centred on the efforts of thousands of workers labouring in the industry.” “The fourth industrial revolution will rely on automated systems, data, clean energy, and AI. It is therefore important that public policies are made to make sure that the process of automation initiates in Pakistan as soon as possible with a redistributive mechanism that evenly shares the resulting wealth for the prosperity of all people,” he added.

Credit: Independent News Pakistan-WealthPk