Author: automata

Robots could kill many Las Vegas jobs

Robots could kill many Las Vegas jobs

Aeolus, a robotics company, demonstrates what its robots can do at CES 2018 in Las Vegas earlier this month. SAN FRANCISCO (CNNMoney) – Elvis just started a new, somewhat boring job. When a guest at the Renaissance Hotel in Las Vegas needs a toothbrush or an extra towel, he brings it to their room.

Three-feet tall and covered in decorative stars, Elvis is a robot. And while it doesn’t replace any human employees at the moment, it is a sign of what’s next for Las Vegas. Underwater robots to measure Antarctica climate threat

Earlier this month, Las Vegas hosted […]

Billionaire Bill Gates on the impact of A.I.: ‘Certainly’ we can look forward to longer vacations

Billionaire Bill Gates on the impact of A.I.: ‘Certainly’ we can look forward to longer vacations

There have been some dour predictions about the potential of artificial intelligence from some high-profile technologists. For example, billionaire tech entrepreneur Elon Musk has said AI will be more dangerous than North Korea. Legendary physicist Stephen Hawking says that AI has the potential to be the " worst event in the history of our civilization ."

But billionaire Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates has added a bit of levity to the conversation. Gates says AI will mean longer vacations.

"Well, certainly we can look forward to the idea that vacations will be longer at some point," says Gates, speaking to FOX Business […]

Economic Survey 2018: Arvind Subramanian bets 1-2 states will roll out of universal basic income soon

Economic Survey 2018: Arvind Subramanian bets 1-2 states will roll out of universal basic income soon

Arvind Subramaniam Chief Economic Advisor (CEA) Arvind Subramanian today expressed hope that at least one or two states will implement the idea of universal basic income (UBI) in the next two years.

Subramanian in the Economic Survey 2016-17 had mooted the idea of universal basic income or a uniform stipend paid to every adult and child, poor or rich.

"I can bet … within the next two years, at least one or two states will implement UBI," Subramanian told reporters here.Universal basic income (UBI) will guarantee all citizens enough income to cover their basic needs and would be easier to administer […]

For Pretium Resources Inc. (PVG), It May Be As Good A Moment

Pretium Resources Inc. (NYSE:PVG) seems to be forming a pattern of major movements, providing only some crumbs of outlook for market participants trying to figure out its next move. Now trading with a market value of 1.38B, the company has a mix of catalysts and obstacles that spring from the nature of its operations. Everyone seems to have their own opinion of this stock. But what do the numbers really say? We think it’s a great time to take a fresh look.

Pretium Resources Inc. (NYSE:PVG) Fundamentals That Matter

It’s generally a good idea to start with the most […]

Economic Survey Bats for Replacing Subsidies with Direct Income Support in the Farm Sector

Economic Survey Bats for Replacing Subsidies with Direct Income Support in the Farm Sector

New Delhi: The Economic Survey 2018, prepared by Chief Economic Adviser (CEA) Arvind Subramanian and his team, restated the need to usher in direct income support in the farm sector instead of providing subsidies. The report finds that climate change may result in significant reduction of annual agricultural income.

The Survey had last year talked about the need to implement Universal Basic Income (UBI) but was quashed by policy makers stating the country is not yet ready for it.

“Minimising susceptibility to climate change requires drastically extending irrigation via efficient drip and sprinkler technologies (realising “more crop for every drop”), and […]

Should Move to Fewer Yet more Productive Farms and Farmers, Says Economic Survey 2018

Should Move to Fewer Yet more Productive Farms and Farmers, Says Economic Survey 2018

New Delhi: Negating the popular belief of more the merrier, the Economic Survey tabled in the Parliament on Monday by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley stated that India needs to move towards fewer farms and farmers but more productive ones.

“So the irony is that the concern about farmers and agriculture today is to ensure that tomorrow there are fewer farmers and farms but more productive ones. In other words, all good and successful economic and social development is about facilitating this transition in the context of a prosperous agriculture and of rising productivity in agriculture,” said the survey.

The survey also […]

The High-Tech Poorhouse

The High-Tech Poorhouse

A man on the street in Newark, NJ. Tony Fischer / Flickr We live in what legal scholar Frank Pasquale has called a “scored society.” Corporations and governments collect unprecedented amounts of data about us — our habits, our histories, our beliefs, our desires, our social networks. Machine learning algorithms parse that data to assess our worthiness for public benefits, for jobs, for loans, for insurance, and for suspicion in the criminal justice system.

The rich are not exempt from this reality, but it’s the poor and working class who are most endangered by it. Predictive policing algorithms launder racial […]

This 27-year-old mayor is bringing universal basic income to his city

This 27-year-old mayor is bringing universal basic income to his city

What is The Optimist Daily?

The Optimist Daily is simple and FREE : we (actual human beings) scour the web to find the BEST solutions that are working RIGHT NOW to make our world a better place (not fluff, not hype, not spin, NEWS). We summarize the articles into digestiable bites and send you five of these important stories in an email every weekday. If you want to know more – voilá – you can click through to the full article! We just take the time-consuming part of finding the articles off your hands.

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TAXPAYERS AGAINST POVERTY Lobbying for a universal basic income paid for by land value tax/annual ground rent. No citizen without an affordable home and an adequate income in work or unemployment..

TAXPAYERS AGAINST POVERTY Lobbying for a universal basic income paid for by land value tax/annual ground rent. No citizen without an affordable home and an adequate income in work or unemployment..

WE CANNOT GO ON AS WE ARE! Land is the source of immense unearned wealth growing at one end of UK population, while the number of people hungry, homelessness, rough-sleeping and ill grows at the other

A proposal for a Universal Basic Income funded by a land value tax/annual ground rent

Dr Angela Donkin of the Institute of Health Equity wrote in the first of nine blogs published by Taxpayers Against Poverty on health equality; "Income can impact on health in different ways. Income impacts on health directly, for instance, because of insufficient money to heat your home […]

Becoming more human

Becoming more human

I learned about a new website recently. The site willrobotstakemyjob.com determined, well, how likely it is that a robot will take your job. It picked up a lot of attention, and lots of people typed their career into the search engine to see if they were about to be replaced. Cashiers have a 97 percent chance of being replaced; pastors, on the other hand, have a 0 percent chance. Despite the fact that Christianity won’t be replaced by Robotology any time soon, I’m still concerned about the changes technology is causing in the employment landscape of the U.S. Where […]