Page 113 - Trust in ICT 2017

Trust in ICT 2

Economic
Agricultural Industrial Information Knowledge
Growth
Society Society Society Society

Innovationn
Knowledge

products
Information

products

Technology
Industrial
products
Raw Materials

Agri products

Societal Transformation

Figure 1 – From agricultural society to knowledge society

From agricultural society to knowledge society

To understand the evolution from the agricultural era to knowledge society, people interact with their
environments and utilize technologies to satisfy their needs. During the agricultural revolution, people
experienced a rapid improvement in agricultural production and farming technology. Farmers learned more
practical and efficient farming technologies by using wheel and fertilizer. In the industrial revolution, the
introduction of new power-driven machinery and other energy sources brought about a rapid and significant
change of production. The steam engines, textile mills, and large scale equipment are capable of producing
massive amounts of products.
Recently, in the information society, revolution is shifting from products to ideas and knowledge as shown in
Figure 1 [6]. The ICT infrastructure is rooted to enable information society. The shifts are from hands-on skills
to literacy skills and from industrial engineering to knowledge engineering. The decentralized and collective
knowledge of the humankind will be a key factor to realize the new society. The power resides with people
in charge of storing, sharing, and distributing information. New technologies and new knowledge products
will be widely investigated to get new market opportunities.
What is the value of knowledge in information and communication technology?

For the value of knowledge, there are some statements: "All knowledge is of itself of some value" in Samuel
Johnson in 1775, "The worth and value of knowledge is in proportion to the worth and value of its object" in
Clodridge in 1825 [7]. Recently, and in relation to business, Firestone wrote "Thought, not money is the
real business capital" [8]. Firestone observed that knowledge about how to produce products is more
valuable than the products themselves. The value of knowledge exceeds the business values of industrial
products and goods. Moreover, the shifts from tangible knowledge to intangible knowledge will be
revolutionized by the way that knowledge is power in its own right.
In the information and communication world, characters, images, and symbols as well as audio/video signals
can be used to indicate meaning and can be thought of as delivery of data. The transfer of data can be viewed

105