E-Skills

IoT

Jordy Van de Velde

Artevelde University College
E-Skills
Table of Contents
Introduction............................................................................................................................................. 1
Questions................................................................................................................................................. 1
What will happen in terms of jobs losses and skills as IoT makes devices and robots more
intelligent? ........................................................................................................................................... 1
What difference can governments make to ensuring IoT will be safe and secure, and is there a
serious potential threat to governments and states? ......................................................................... 2
What’s the biggest risk associated with the Internet of Things? ........................................................ 2
As technology gets smarter, will our abilities to think, feel and act be affected? .............................. 2
Are there ways to opt-out? ................................................................................................................. 2
Conclusion ................................................................................................. Error! Bookmark not defined.
Bibliography............................................................................................................................................. 3

Introduction
this report will be about something we call “the internet of things”. What is it? Simply said, it’s taking
everything in the world and connect it to the internet. An extensive variety of objects, information
and software is interlinked with each other over the internet. (McClelland, 2019)

We can talk about a lot of different aspects of IOT, but this report will focus on the dangers of IOT
and the implications on our everyday life as we now know it. Why? Books and movies like The Circle,
Minority Report, Transcendence, A.I. and many more, have made me wary of technology. That why I
decided to look into its benefits and dangers.

Questions
What will happen in terms of jobs losses and skills as IoT makes devices and robots
more intelligent?
Personally I think only several sectors will be affected in a tremendous way, others will need to learn
to work together with IoT and then some won’t even feel the influence of it on their current jobs. I
always thought machines only can take over automated things, but with every year passing by, I
slightly change my mind about, because every time technology gets smarter and smarter. Think
about how a robot or machine could be doing your job? In a lot of cases it’s already possible of
getting rid of human intervention. The sectors that’ll be first hit by AI will be transportation and
storage, manufacturing and wholesale and retail trade. Construction and art/entertainment will be
pretty safe for the near future, but if technology keeps evolving as fast as it does now, they should
start thinking about it as well (IoT for All, 2019).

Avoiding jobs losses is not possible, but diminishing the gravity of it is. If change occurs, additional
change will be needed. In this case, this change will translate itself into mass up-skilling and re-skilling
of the workforce. In that way, humans and machines/robots/devices will be able to effectively work
together (Cath, 2019).
What difference can governments make to ensuring IoT will be safe and secure, and is
there a serious potential threat to governments and states?
The first step is understanding the concept of Internet of Things. After that, governments cans start
working on a Code of Practice. Mainly to secure the consumer for external attacks and data
breaches. The UK government has already done this. One problem in my opinion, is that they made it
voluntary. Consumers entrust almost all of their personal data to online devices and services, so if
you want to make this safe and secure (and it should), than this’ll only happen if you make it
mandatory. This kind of Code of Practice could include things like “no default passwords”, a
disclosure policy, “keep software updated”, etc. On top of security, it’ll make it easier for consumers
to use (Middleton, 2018).

The biggest threat for government and states would be government-backed cyberattacks. For smaller
nations this would be a great weapon to blackmail critical services in larger nations. On top of that,
corporate-backed cyberattacks would enable trade wars to happen more frequently (Dodson, 2017).

What’s the biggest risk associated with the Internet of Things?

Security. IoT is not the same as the web. It doesn’t connect people, it connects smart machines.
Because almost everything is connected, it’s easy to hijack one device and get access to all the
others. And because it’s expanding in such a rapid way, there’s no time to keep up with securing all
of it. Hackers can easily break into home networks (because most share the same keys for all of their
devices) and look for unsecured IoT devices. All of this leads to privacy leaks, and in the worst case
scenario even to home intrusions. This is actually not exaggerated, because IoT bridges the virtual
space with the physical world (Writer, 2019).

As technology gets smarter, will our abilities to think, feel and act be affected?
I think it’s a bit weird that technology can affect how we feel and act. However, it definitely affects
our ways of thinking. If technology gets smarter, we can start talking about artificial intelligence. And
how does AI learn things? Because of humans. And if AI eventually surpasses the human intellectual
mind, why would it not be possible for humans to learn from AI? From my perspective, this won’t
happen in the near future. AI makes humans use their brains more creatively, so to say AI is
complementary to the human brain. In that way, it’s hard that it will eventually top the mind of
humans (Fuller, 2018).

Are there ways to opt-out?

No, and I’m pretty sure about it. Imagine living with a smartphone or a laptop nowadays. Seems
impossible, right? It’ll be even harder to do this after everything in our daily lives is interlinked with
each other. We’re getting so used to IoT without even noticing it. The more and more we’ll get
submerged with new technology advancements and IoT devices, the less probable it will be that we
can actually opt-out of this. On top of that, enterprises, entire sectors and even countries are
developing because of IoT. Taking that way would affect a lot at once.
Bibliography
Cath, E. (2019, March 25). Re-skilling and up-skilling for the AI age – an organizational challenge
demanding radical change. Retrieved from Diginomica: https://diginomica.com/re-skilling-
and-up-skilling-for-the-ai-age-an-organizational-challenge-demanding-radical-change/

Dodson, K. (2017, October 11). Top 3 Future Cyber Threats For State and Local Governments.
Retrieved from Cisco Blogs: https://blogs.cisco.com/government/top-3-future-cyber-threats-
for-state-and-local-governments

Fuller, S. (2018, February 10). The brain as artificial intelligence: prospecting the frontiers of
neuroscience. Retrieved from Springer Link:
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00146-018-0820-1

IoT for All. (2019, January 24). The Jobs AI Will Take Over First (By Sector). Retrieved from IoT for All:
https://www.iotforall.com/jobs-ai-will-take-over-first-by-sector/

McClelland, C. (2019, January 6). What Is IoT? – A Simple Explanation of the Internet of Things.
Retrieved from IoT for All : https://www.iotforall.com/what-is-iot-simple-explanation/

Middleton, C. (2018, October 15). IoT security: Government unveils Code of Practice – but it’s
voluntary. Retrieved from Internet of Business: https://internetofbusiness.com/iot-security-
uk-unveils-new-code-of-conduct-but-its-voluntary/

Writer, G. (2019, March 5). The 7 Most Common IoT Security Threats in 2019. Retrieved from IoT for
All: https://www.iotforall.com/7-most-common-iot-security-threats-2019/