FROM DIGITS TO ROBOTS: THE PRIVACY-AUTONOMY NEXUS IN NEW LABOR LAW MACHINERY

In his work on the Fourth Industrial Revolution, Klaus Schwab1 points at new developments taking place in our societies: they are driven by technology, not comparable to what has been seen before and, above all, they are disruptive. The term Industry 4.0, or the fourth industrial revolution, is referred to as announcing a new time. While it may be open to criticism and perhaps inherently based on speculation,2 Industry 4.0 is an interesting attempt to make sense of the approaching future.The point of the Fourth Industrial Revolution is that it refers to previous "industrial revolutions." The first industrial revolution concerns the liberation of humankind from animal power through the use of water and steam power, which gave possibilities for mechanization and made mass production possible. The second industrial revolution came with the invention of electricity and electric power, which brought new changes in life and work. The third industrial revolution brings us at the use of electronics and information technology. Digitalization is a term that is referring to this , although that is also associated with our current challenges. But the Fourth Industrial Revolution is argued to be different: the speed of technological breakthroughs is faster than ever and the transformations in our societies, including government, work, and production, are more radical. New technologies evolve rapidly, such as the Internet of things, data mining, blockchain, artificial intelligence, robotics, autonomous vehicles, 3D printing, or biotechnology.There are alternative ways to describe these new developments. An interesting heading is "the second machine age," providing an indication that we are at a similar time frame as when the first "machine age" arose with the introduction of the steam machine at the end of the eighteenth century, known as the first industrial revolution.3 What it all seems to point out is that a new line is going to be crossed, and one of the main drivers is technology.