Category: Automation Impact on Jobs

Want to Make an Advanced Robot? Beware of these Repercussions

Want to Make an Advanced Robot? Beware of these Repercussions

The artificial intelligence age is here marching ahead to increase human productivity in multiple ways, transforming everything from transportation to education to healthcare. Some enthusiastic computer scientists even think humanity will find a “master algorithm” that will fix our politics and make lives “longer, happier and more productive.” In the grandest of these visions, smart computing machines could automate all of the scientific discovery.

As automation deploys itself into more and more uses, many people worry about the future of their work and the security of their jobs. Ever wondered what will happen if millions of human workers no longer […]

Globalism v Nationalism: Do we protect the worker or the product?

Globalism v Nationalism: Do we protect the worker or the product?

With globalised wealth where it is, I’m unsure the route of globalism we’re taking cannot continue. With that being said, returning the power totally back to the worker is not the solution either.

Trade has always existed; it’s done through every possible format and method, by water, land or air. It’s part of how we grow and prosper.

The first globalising influences were the European empires, which stretched their trade empires from one side of the planet to the other. Through these, the empires were able to start influencing markets and economic conditions from the other side of the […]

Back to school: To prepare workforce of the future, India must radically revise its education system

Back to school: To prepare workforce of the future, India must radically revise its education system

Schoolchildren assemble a robot at the launch of an Innovation Hub at Sir M Visvesvaraya Industrial and Technological Museum in Bangalore. | AFP India will soon have the youngest and largest workforce in the world, adding roughly 12 million people to the 15-29 age group annually. The flip side is that only 2.3% of the country’s workforce is formally skilled . Automation is predicted to reduce jobs relying on physical labour across all sectors, thereby increasing the demand for higher cognitive skills such as critical thinking, creativity, communication, decisionmaking and collaboration. It is expected that by 2030, nearly 9% […]

The robots are not coming for your job. With a few exceptions

The robots are not coming for your job. With a few exceptions

Shoppers leave the Amazon Go store after checking out on January, 22 2018 in Seattle, Washington. (Photo by Stephen Brashear/Getty Images) There are serious flaws in the theory that the ‘jobpocalypse’ is nigh, and technology is not about to replace New Zealand workers anytime soon, according to a new book.

‘Machines as ministers to man’, screams the US newspaper headline.

Apart from the slightly old-fashioned language, the banner could be describing the conventional modern wisdom that an army of new technologies is amassing on the fringes of the workplace ready to revolutionise human employment as we know it.It is in […]

As Auto Industry Embraces AI, Why Japan Picturing the Technology as Job Saver?

As Auto Industry Embraces AI, Why Japan Picturing the Technology as Job Saver?

New York city witnessed the grand celebration of International Auto Show to display how the automotive industry has excelled in the fields of industrial automation, car-making while adopting artificial intelligence to enhance efficiency.

The employment of cutting-edge technology brings us to the concern of the human workforce. Like any other industry, the auto sector is leading in the usage of new age manufacturing technology which surely effects the existence of labor force.

Away from this Machine Vs Human discussion, Japan is flipping the conventional debate. Instead of considering AI as a job killer, the country is embracing technology in order to […]

Jobs, lies and automation

Jobs, lies and automation

The glee of using terms like ‘disruption’, ‘digital transformation’ and ‘industrial revolution’ to provide optimistic forecasts of technology’s wonderful impact must be tempered with the reality that they can cause job displacement and human misery through unemployment. There’s an unseen force silently stalking employees and killing off their jobs. And we need to act urgently, or we’ll face the wrath of a disenfranchised workforce desperately running from the threat of unemployment.

Automation, robotics, IoT, artificial intelligence all form part of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, often used as a war cry for progress and political gain, but, like every industrial revolution […]

Robots stealing our jobs? Don’t panic, author says

Robots stealing our jobs? Don't panic, author says

A human tendency to revel in grim, dystopian future-gazing, and give too much credence to self-interested Silicon Valley "futurists", has led to fears that robots and artificial intelligence systems are about to take half of all human jobs.

But Kiwi World Bank economist and author Kinley Salmon gives human workers at least 25 years breathing space before any "labour-light" future threatens.

And he scorns the more extreme job-loss predictions touted by some of the biggest names in New Zealand and world business, seeing no signs of the robot revolution coming through in official unemployment or productivity figures. SUPPLIEDWorld Bank economist and […]

The Amazon/Walmart Whole Paycheck Tracker: Glimpsing The Future Of Automation And One-Day Delivery

The Amazon/Walmart Whole Paycheck Tracker: Glimpsing The Future Of Automation And One-Day Delivery

This week both Amazon and Walmart were offering up pictures — albeit with very different levels of detail built in — of how the immediate retail future will take shape. Amazon laid out what its decade-long march to fully-automated warehouses will likely look like, while Walmart didn’t offer up a specific plan (or a due date) so much as hint that something “groundbreaking” is coming.

Outside of the previews of the future this week, the world also got a glimpse at what the last few laps in the race for the consumers’ whole paycheck are shaping up to be — […]

Forced Retirement – automation, outsourcing, and an ever-present threat to long-term job security

Forced Retirement - automation, outsourcing, and an ever-present threat to long-term job security

There is a skill floor in employment. The issue is that below the skill floor an employee produces negative productivity. They’re simply not worth it.

Automation has always pushed the skill floor up in every industry it has been successfully deployed in. There have been many waves of automation and there is still employment. So what’s different this time? Two things: neural networks and general automation.

Neural networks can automate a significant number of tasks that are beyond the ability of us to automate programmatically. NNs must be trained but once they are they vastly exceed any prior technique of automation […]

AI Is Changing The Frontline Worker’s Role — And How You Train Them

AI Is Changing The Frontline Worker's Role -- And How You Train Them

When it comes to artificial intelligence (AI) in the workplace, headlines like, ”Will Robots Take Our Children’s Jobs?” make it easy to get distracted by the fear-factor narrative. It’s not that AI won’t change the employment landscape — according to McKinsey , it will certainly impact the jobs of workers whose roles require them to perform physical activities or operate machinery in a predictable environment. In fact, almost one-fifth of the time spent in U.S. workplaces involves performing such tasks, most commonly in sectors like manufacturing, food service and retail.

So, it’s the frontline workers in these sectors that have […]