“Let’s embrace it”

More than an impressive structure, India Mill symbolises the rise – and eventual decline – of the first Industrial Revolution. Darwen was once home to Samuel Crompton, inventor of the spinning mule, which transformed cotton production from a skilled, home-based craft into factory mass manufacture. Despite fierce early resistance, technology prevailed.

As the cotton boom faded under overseas competition, political pressures and further technological change, India Mill’s role declined. It closed as a factory in 1991 and today houses a range of businesses, including the Hakim Group and the TV Licensing Centre.

All interesting history, but so what? Well, while the Industrial Revolution that the India Mill symbolises is now over, today we are in the middle of another: 4IR (or Industry 4.0). This new revolution is based not on steam power, but on the power of three emerging technologies: artificial intelligence (AI), gene editing and advanced robotics. Such technologies have the ability immeasurably to improve our lives. But like its predecessors, 4IR carries with it the potential to transform the way we work, creating new crafts and ending the need for old ones.

What works, as people like Samuel Crompton found two centuries ago, is to embrace and help shape the new technologies rather than mourn their existence

Unlike the first Industrial Revolution, its effects will not merely be on those who work with their hands. White collar professionals too will feel its force. When I was chief legal ombudsman, I watched while whole swathes of activity previously done by trained lawyers was, in effect, taken over by computer software: house conveyancing, for example. What previously required intensive (and expensive) legal input, is now largely automated, with trained lawyers only intervening at one or two critical points to assure themselves that there are no hidden glitches. Yes, some are losing out: the proportion of law graduates who now end up working as lawyers is less than 20%. But for those who are adapting to the new world, wages are booming, and job satisfaction is increasing.

Fortunately, for all that the number of university courses is increasing, there are no signs that there are too few jobs for newly-qualified optometrists. But like law, optometry can no more resist the coming of change than could the Luddites of the 1820s. What works, as people like Samuel Crompton found two centuries ago, is to embrace and help shape the new technologies rather than mourn their existence. In law, the smarter members of the profession are already looking to exploit the potential of the AI to free themselves from the drab, repetitive nature of some legal tasks to focus on the interesting, exciting bits of the job. As this edition of OT shows, optometrists and optometry technology are doing the same. Change is coming, and that provides the profession with huge opportunities. Let’s embrace it.