This article is written by Alejandra Monerri Revuelta, a WES 2025 student journalist and writer for The Boomerang.
“The 21st century is when everything changes.”
With this quote from Doctor Who, Chief Economist of UBS Global Wealth Management, Paul Donovan, inaugurated the Warwick Economics Summit of 2025. Reflecting on what he described as “the fourth industrial revolution,” Donovan’s keynote speech served as both an inspiration and food for thought about the future of the working world.
So, what is the fourth industrial revolution? With the rise of social media, AI, automation and more, Donovan explained that there has been a “profound effect on how the world works” in that we are, in fact, reversing the changes of the first industrial revolution. Donovan explained that, because of technology, we have gone back to working from home like farmers growing crops or blacksmiths shaping tools, we have stopped travelling long distances, and we have a growing number of self-employed people. However, he emphasised that “technology is not what matters” for the fourth industrial revolution.
Paul Donovan emphasised that it’s about people. It’s not about the technology, but about how the people use that technology. And people are scared. This led to what he called “scapegoat economics.” People are finding excuses to blame for losing their jobs, like women working, immigrants or gay marriage being legalised. And that sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it?
Donovan explains that “prejudice is irrational discrimination,” and apart from being disrespectful, undeserved, and unfair, it actually has severe economic consequences. He identifies two groups as being especially targeted by prejudice: foreigners, and the LGBTQ+ community. In regards to foreigners, Donovan argues that they’re an easy target. After all, there’s the same old rhetoric of ‘they are not the same as us’. However, as International Organisation of Migration’s Deputy Director General, Ugochi Daniels, pointed out in her keynote speech at WES the next day, there are currently 30 million vacant jobs in the top 30 economies in the world, including up to 85% of vacant jobs in some European countries.
The second group he mentioned to be scapegoated was the LGBTQ+ community. Donovan argued that this was due to their success in activism in the past years, acquiring equal rights in some countries, though not without setbacks.
“If we are excluding people from the workforce,” Donovan expressed, “we are not going to have the best people in place.” Hyper-focusing on someone’s background is going to, firstly, lead to the loss of productivity, and, perhaps more importantly, to mono-cultural decision-makers, meaning that we will miss opportunities that may have been spotted by diverse thinkers.
Why don’t we take a look at history? Donovan brought up the example of Bletchley, the place in which people were tirelessly working together to crack the Nazi enigma code during WWII to lead the Allies to victory. Winston Churchill himself said to leave “no stone unturned” when looking for talent for this mission; women, people of colour, from lower economic backgrounds, even homosexuals, like the infamous mathematician Alan Turing, were a part of the team. And what did this lead to? To the development of computers and cracking the code, to not only winning the war but also shortening it by two years. However, by the post-war 1950s, Britain came back to the original model.
Alan Turing was persecuted, which led to him committing suicide in 1954. Women went back home. “Discrimination,” Donovan reflects, “destroyed the best computing department in the world,” which Britain was, in the 40s.
In the modern Western business world, we now have quotas to ensure diversity amongst college students and employees. But, my question is, don’t those hinder hiring the best of the best? And, isn’t that hyper-focusing on someone’s background?
Donovan explained that quotas exist to combat our unconscious bias, though he isn’t a fan of them. Firstly, because of ethical reasons, quotas can only exist for certain characteristics, like gender or race. However, when applying to a job, you aren’t asked about your sexual orientation or socio-economic background, except anonymously for collecting data of applicant diversity for analysis purposes. He clarified that he does believe that we need to find a way in which to decrease unconscious bias, however, that quotas also increase prejudice. Donovan instead suggested having quotas for the panel of candidates to interview rather than for employees.
It can eliminate the risk of not hiring the best of the best that quotas have while simultaneously decreasing an interviewer panel’s bias, there are still very real differences in background that affect performance. For example, your socio-economic background determines what kind of school education you receive, which determines what university you will attend, which in turn impacts your job prospects. It is important to mention that there has been a lot of improvement with need-based scholarship opportunities, and, as Donovan mentioned, nepotism becoming less and less popular across companies for internship opportunities.
Donovan also identified social media to be a more powerful tool than AI in combating bias. Because it increases the visibility of what is considered unknown, there is thus an increase in familiarity. Of course it could be argued that it does the exact opposite.
Algorithms determine the kind of content that you are exposed to on platforms like Instagram, which are tailored to your interests to keep you engaged. As William Brady argues in the Scientific American, rather than getting the full picture, you will only be getting the scope that the algorithms have determined you will find appealing and learn from, which creates a biased, extreme image as it reinforces your beliefs instead of challenging them.
However, Donovan’s perspective is that, quoting Little Britain, social media has led people to realise that they’re “not the only gay in the village.” Groups have been represented more and more thanks to platforms. It of course doesn’t completely solve the issue of algorithm radicalisation, however, it is a step toward decreasing bias.
Indeed, “the 21st century is when everything changes.” In this new landscape, we need to learn to adapt and to improve the world we live in. It is important to think critically about the information we consume, challenge our points of view
daily, and talk to those with whom we disagree as much as with those with whom we agree. It is also important for those with knowledge to communicate it effectively so that those without can learn from them. From economists to environmentalists, we are all teachers and students in something, and it is our responsibility to teach and learn as best as we can.
The views and opinions expressed in this article belong solely to the writer and do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of the Warwick Economics Summit.
References:
Tufekci, Zeynep. "Social Media Algorithms Warp How People Learn from Each Other." Scientific American, 11 Sept. 2015,
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/social-media-algorithms-warp-how people-learn-from-each-other/. Accessed 29 Jan. 2025.
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