Cleanup On Aisle 9: Robots Arrive At Grocery Stores Near You

Cleanup On Aisle 9: Robots Arrive At Grocery Stores Near You

Stop & Shop’s autonomous robot “Marty” patrols a food aisle at the store in Clinton, Conn. (Robin Lubbock/WBUR) Stop & Shop’s parent company, the Dutch food retailer Ahold Delhaize, has started deploying robots named Marty to more than 100 Massachusetts locations.

Marty, a six-foot-tall pillar with googly eyes, roams the stores, beeping gently as it scans the floor for trash and spills.

At a Stop & Shop in Quincy, Marty spots a fallen price tag in front of a shelf of Easter candy. The robot’s cameras take a picture, which is then sent to a worker hundreds of miles away at […]

Technical change has probably meant loss of more unskilled jobs than globalisation

Technical change has probably meant loss of more unskilled jobs than globalisation

The long-term solution to loss of unskilled jobs is to ensure that those leaving education have the skills to work in a modern economy

Wherever manufacturing takes place, automation and computerisation have led to job losses among the least skilled, whose jobs are most easily automated In the week before Emmanuel Macron was elected president of France, he visited a factory near Lille which was closing, and, at the gates of the factory, he met the workers who were losing their jobs. Naturally many of them were angry, blaming globalisation for their pain.

Macron acknowledged that their factory was […]

The Future of Work

The Future of Work

What is it that makes work enjoyable and rewarding for some, while for others it is a torment? Representational pic Do you know anyone who genuinely loves their job, greeting each new work day with focused energy and joyful anticipation? Do you know others who dread going to work, can’t wait for the weekend and cringe at the sound of the alarm clock on Monday morning? What is it that makes work enjoyable and rewarding for some, while for others it is a torment? And why are so many people unemployed or underemployed, living under the constant stress of […]

Why Women’s Jobs are Disproportionately Threatened by Automation

Why Women's Jobs are Disproportionately Threatened by Automation

If the automation revolution is as bad as some researchers believe, almost half of all occupations in the United States are at risk of replacement by 2026. Truck drivers will be swapped out for self-driving AI. Manufacturers will use smarter machines instead of hands. Supermarkets will go cashier-free. Even more conservative projections acknowledge that some kind of transition is coming: The Bureau of Labor Statistics has projected that the overall number of jobs of the future will grow , but that 1.4 million current ones could soon become "redundant."

As it rages, the automation debate has tended to center on […]

Taking control of the robots

Taking control of the robots

Mention artificial intelligence (AI) to human resources managers and you are likely to be met with one of two extremes. Either the robots will take over the world and limit humans to a lifetime of unemployment and misery, or robots will take over the world and free humans for a lifetime of creativity and happiness.

Reality, of course, sits somewhere in the middle, but either way, the robots are coming; more than three-quarters (78 per cent) of HR departments expect to use machine learning in at least one HR process within two years, according to a report from management consultancy […]

Automation Tax vs Robot-Tax

Automation Tax vs Robot-Tax

The positive impact of developments in technology on the economy has historically outweighed the disruptive impact on employment. Society has benefited from the efficiency gains derived from the application of technology in production, while workers displaced by these technologies have largely been successfully retrained and employed in other jobs. However, the pace of development of the “Fourth Industrial Revolution” now presents a risk of mass displacement of human labour, particularly in tasks that are repetitive and menial. The “Fourth Industrial Revolution” is characterised by significant progress in a closely-linked cluster of areas such as robot dexterity, machine learning, processing […]

Fear the Economic Singularity

Fear the Economic Singularity

In dystopian science fiction, we are taught to fear the technological singularity – the time when artificial super intelligence advances to a point far beyond human intelligence, with a result that profoundly alters human existence. Vivid imagery of automated weapons of doom working to wipe out human civilization and take over the world – or the galaxy – have terrorized generations of sci-fi fans. Stephen Hawking, Elon Musk, and Bill Gates have warned of its approach. Ray Kurzweil says it will be upon us by 2045, and, as far back as 1942, Isaac Asimov was contriving rules for robots, […]

Workforce polarisation in Tasmania focus of latest Institute insight report

Workforce polarisation in Tasmania focus of latest Institute insight report

Workforce polarisation in Tasmania – growth in the share of high and low skill jobs and the hollowing out of mid-skill jobs – is occurring due to economic restructuring and the shift away from traditional industries, according to a report released today by the University of Tasmania’s Institute for the Study for Social Change.

The report Insight Seven: Workforce Polarisation in Tasmania: Implications for the future of work and training , by Research Fellow Dr Lisa Denny, explains the implications of economic restructuring and diversification in Tasmania’s workforce.

Dr Denny said while Tasmania’s economic performance is relatively strong, employment is growing […]

As I See It: The Useless Class

As I See It: The Useless Class

My father-in-law recently had a cancerous lobe removed from his lung. As surgeries go, it was relatively serious, but also relatively common. In an age of organ transplants, a lobe removal is no longer particularly noteworthy. What is notable, however, is that the procedure was performed by a robot.

Robotics is part of the so-called fourth industrial revolution that includes companionable fields such as AI and biotech. In aggregate, they are poised to radically transform the economy. But although the word “transformation” has become a new-age descriptor for optimistic change, its consequences are purely contextual. For every automated medical procedure, […]

Elon Musk’s “Giant Cybernetic Collectives”

Elon Musk’s “Giant Cybernetic Collectives”

Elon Musk often mentions cyborgs at events and during interviews. This concept is not just a funny remark, a sci-fi reference, or a way to throw around big terms to sound smarter. It’s an important paradigm, a lens we can look at the past with, and more importantly, a concept that will have a great impact on the future of our species.

Before unveiling the Tesla Model Y on Thursday night, Elon Musk walked us through the history of Tesla. In the beginning, there was only the original Roadster, and a relatively small team developed the Model S in a […]