Category: Automation Impact on Jobs

Op-Ed: Why leaders need to embrace, not fear, the digitised future of work

Op-Ed: Why leaders need to embrace, not fear, the digitised future of work

By Valter Adão, Chief Digital and Innovation Officer, Deloitte Africa

The machines are coming for our jobs. This is a dystopian vision of the future of work popularised by the media and perpetuated in boardrooms across the globe.

South Africa is not immune from this misperception and here it has created a climate of fear and paralysis. Leaders, both civic and corporate, hesitate to encourage and incentivise the very digitalisation needed to sustain and grow our economies out of a misguided fear of job losses and the ensuing civil backlash.Ironically, the exact efforts to protect jobs from technology may end […]

Opinion: If the Democrats keep saying crazy things about the economy, Trump will win again

Opinion: If the Democrats keep saying crazy things about the economy, Trump will win again

Elizabeth Warren and Andrew Yang exchange a high-five at the Democratic presidential candidates debate. With felonies flying fast and furious at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue this week, it may seem a curious time to write about how Democrats running for president are saying kind of crazy things.

But they are.

Because Andrew Yang, Bernie Sanders and (sometimes) Elizabeth Warren are radically misdiagnosing problems in the U.S. economy, they are off — often miles off — in prescriptions for reform.The sheer amount of loose talk about how capitalism is failing is stunning. This myth-making scares workers in the present, and sparks proposals that […]

Basic income can’t do enough to help workers displaced by technology

Basic income can’t do enough to help workers displaced by technology

A driverless truck being tested in Russia in 2018. The October Democratic presidential debate featured something that many activists would have considered impossible just a few years ago: a lengthy debate between leading presidential candidates about a universal basic income , a policy that would give all l adult Americans a basic cash benefit every month.

Andrew Yang , the nonprofit chief and entrepreneur who is currently polling ahead of senators like Cory Booker and Amy Klobuchar, has made a $1,000-per-month basic income for everyone between the ages of 18 and 64 — which he calls a “Freedom Dividend” […]

The Future of AI & Cybersecurity

The Future of AI & Cybersecurity

“…multiple malicious AIs competing for digital resources”

Debates over the benefits and risks of AI are now a day-to-day occurrence in the media, writes Professor Ben Azvine, Head of Security Research, BT. Many of these discussions focus on the potential negatives – from existential threats to employment via the automation of jobs, through to AI being used for the creation of ‘deep fake’ videos. On the other hand, we’re already benefiting from the positive effects of AI with automated assistants, while future benefits like self-driving cars are now only just over the horizon. Professor Ben Azvine, Head of Security Research, […]

India’s unemployment problem may worsen as robots snatch away jobs

India’s unemployment problem may worsen as robots snatch away jobs

With prices falling thanks to China scaling up, mid-sized companies here are now able to afford robots, and they have gradually begun to displace humans on factory shopfloors

A decade back, Vienna-based Wienerberger, the world’s largest brick-maker, decided to take its first step into Asia and chose India over China. It spent ₹250 crore in building a factory in Kunigal village, 70 kilometres to the west of Bengaluru, next to a dry lake rich in clay. Today, the plant produces 70,000 blocks of hollow, chocolate-smooth blocks a day, the equivalent of 6 lakh conventional bricks.

Wienerberger India’s building block […]

Predictive Scheduling Is Bad for Workers, Good for Self-Checkout Kiosks

Predictive Scheduling Is Bad for Workers, Good for Self-Checkout Kiosks

In the gig-economy era where flexible work schedules have become the norm, certain cities like Chicago and Seattle haven’t got the message. In July, Chicago passed a predictive scheduling law, which makes employers post their schedules well in advance for hourly workers and then fine or penalize employers for making any changes to the set schedules. While the law is well-intended, the results are disastrous, according to a new study by the American Consumer Institute.

The study estimates that predictive scheduling regulations, if adopted nationwide, would make business operations more costly, reduce economic output by $44 billion, and lead […]

Andrew Yang, Snake Oil Salesman

Andrew Yang, Snake Oil Salesman

Entrepreneur Andrew Yang speaks at the New Hampshire Democratic Party state convention in Manchester, September 7, 2019. Andrew Yang, the tech entrepreneur and gadfly, has definitely cleared the bar for a successful cause candidate.

Not only has he exceeded expectations for his polling and fundraising, not only has he developed a cult following, not only has he got people talking about his signature idea, the universal basic income, he actually has other candidates expressing openness to it.

It’s too bad that Yang’s idea is a foolish response to a non-problem. Worse, Yang is trying to persuade people to fear and oppose […]

Andrew Yang’s (phantom) robot menace

Andrew Yang’s (phantom) robot menace

Enlarge Image Andrew Yang, the tech entrepreneur and gadfly, has definitely cleared the bar for a successful cause candidate.

Not only has he exceeded expectations for his polling and fundraising, not only has he developed a cult following, not only has he got people talking about his signature idea, the universal basic income, he actually has other candidates expressing openness to it.

It’s too bad that Yang’s idea is a foolish response to a non-problem. Worse, Yang is trying to convince people to fear and oppose something that we need more of and that is a key to economic progress and […]

Andrew Yang Is Full of It

Andrew Yang Is Full of It

Andrew Yang’s dystopian warnings about automation and mass unemployment have mostly been a quirky and harmless sideshow throughout this year’s Democratic primary. Like many tech types and TED Talk fans, the former businessman believes that the United States is living through an age of technological upheaval that has already devastated manufacturing work and will soon render millions of other jobs obsolete. His plan to address this grim future is to offer every American a $1,000 per month basic income—he calls it a “freedom dividend”—which he hopes will prevent society from unraveling as everyone from truckers to doctors see their […]

Automation: A threat for RMG workers or an opportunity for the sector as a whole?

Automation: A threat for RMG workers or an opportunity for the sector as a whole?

An automated spreading machine at Pacific Jeans. Photo: WSJ The fourth industrial revolution is under way and bringing with it a series of upheavals—robotics, automation, machine learning, and artificial intelligence are gradually making their way into the production process all over the world. However, such major breakthroughs in the production process will have negative effects on the job market and the Bangladesh economy, as the introduction of machinery in the production process has a higher probability of affecting unskilled and semi-skilled workers adversely compared to skilled workers. According to the government’s a2i project and the International Labour Organisation (ILO), […]