of science and fiction in the ‘Singularity’. Others argue we are about to enter a “Fourth Industrial Revolution”: an era heralding the gradual fusion of digital, physical, and biological worlds (Schwab 2016). For many philosophers and theor…that we arrive at the point of raising the question how to make the One into something that holds up, that is, that is counted without being. Mathematization alone reaches a real [...] a real that has nothing to do with what traditional kno…
Klaus Schwab
economist · 2 mentions across 1 reading
In this course
Schwab is primarily known as an economist and futurist who theorized the "Fourth Industrial Revolution," a concept central to contemporary AI discourse that frames digital, physical, and biological convergence as an inevitable historical stage. In these readings, his work provides a macro-scale narrative framework that legitimizes the fusion of technological domains, enabling theorists to position AI not as disruptive rupture but as the natural continuation of industrial progress. The readings invoke Schwab's framing to ground speculative arguments about technological inevitability, though his presence here is more as orienting context than as a subject of sustained critique.
Background
Klaus Martin Schwab is a German mechanical engineer, economist, and founder of the World Economic Forum (WEF). He was the WEF's chairman from 1971 until his resignation in 2025.
Wikipedia →Mentioned in 1 reading
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