Category: Automation Impact on Jobs

Convenience-store squeeze shows deflationary dilemma facing Bank of Japan

Convenience-store squeeze shows deflationary dilemma facing Bank of Japan

Radio-frequency identification (RFID) tags are seen attached to boxes of Ezaki Glico Co. Pocky snacks at a FamilyMart convenience store in Tokyo on Feb. 23. | BLOOMBERG Takanori Sakai works the graveyard shift four nights a week at the FamilyMart store he owns in Himeji, Hyogo Prefecture, because he can’t afford the higher pay employees demand these days.

“More and more stores can’t secure a profit,” the 57-year-old said. Problem is, with competition just down the street, raising prices to cover higher wages risks turning off customers who have become accustomed to steady prices for a generation.

Sakai and his fellow […]

Prof Hrdy: When Inventions Kill Jobs

Prof Hrdy: When Inventions Kill Jobs

Prof. Hrdy has an interesting new blog post to accompany her paper titled Technological Un/employment . Her work focuses on the intersection between jobs and intellectual property – looking both historically and toward the future of automation. “[T]he impact of technology on employment has historically been “ skill-biased ”—demand for high skills workers rises; demand for low skill workers falls.”

Although I disagree with some aspects of Prof. Hrdy’s work. I absolutely agree that the Strong IP => More Jobs statements have been largely propaganda. It may also be true that “inventions humans make today could end up meaning there […]

Meet the fast food worker who never needs a day off

Meet the fast food worker who never needs a day off

Miso Robotics The concern that robots will take jobs is thrust back into the spotlight after a California-based burger chain has “hired” Flippy to be its latest grill cook.

According to KTLA-5, which was there for a preview event, Flippy is helping out Caliburger make California-style burgers and fries, providing a level of consistency to its cooked food.

“The key to success in the restaurant industry is consistency,” said John Miller, CEO of Cali Group, the company that runs the chain. “So anytime you go to a Caliburger anywhere, you know that the patty will be cooked exactly the same.”The […]

Meet Flippy the burger flipper, the solution to the minimum wage

Meet Flippy the burger flipper, the solution to the minimum wage

Caliburger , a fast food chain with an outlet in Pasadena, Calif., is now using a robot to cook their burgers. It’s called, in an outburst of inventiveness, Flippy. This is just what happens with a minimum wage: the incentive to automate is increased and thus workers lose their jobs.

Of course, every business tries to automate as much of its processes as it can. Who wants to pay wages when they don’t have to? The point is that robots, just machines, have costs. So too does a robot’s human substitute. Whether to automate depends upon the relative costs of […]

Facing a New Industrial Revolution – Alex Cook

Facing a New Industrial Revolution – Alex Cook

Right now, we might be in the midst of the biggest industrial revolution in human history. New research from Oxford University suggests that more than half of the jobs we’re doing now could be done by robots or computers within the next 20 years. Respected Chinese technologist Kai Fu Lee believes this could even happen within the next decade.

Meanwhile, most jobs which require a desk and a computer can now be outsourced to cheaper workers overseas. Christian employees reading about these developments fear a job market which may soon have no room for them. And Christian business owners will […]

Republican Senator Thad Cochran Says He Will Resign April 1

Republican Senator Thad Cochran Says He Will Resign April 1

Labor crunch, shrinking market drive investment in technology

This frustrates Bank of Japan now but could fuel growth later

Takanori Sakai works the graveyard shift four nights a week at the FamilyMart store he owns in Himeji, central Japan, because he can’t afford the higher pay employees demand these days."More and more stores can’t secure a profit," the 57-year-old said. Problem is, with competition just down the street, raising prices to cover higher wages risks turning off customers who’ve become accustomed to steady prices for a generation.Sakai and his fellow convenience-store owners are on the front lines […]

Meet Flippy, the job-killing, burger flipping robot

Meet Flippy, the job-killing, burger flipping robot

The concern that robots will take jobs is thrust back into the spotlight after a California-based burger chain has "hired" Flippy to be its latest grill cook.

According to KTLA-5 , which was there for a preview event, Flippy is helping out Caliburger make California-style burgers and fries, providing a level of consistency to its cooked food.

"The key to success in the restaurant industry is consistency," said John Miller, CEO of Cali Group, the company that runs the chain. "So anytime you go to a Caliburger anywhere you know that the patty will be cooked exactly the same."The robot is […]

Opinion: Robots help close the gap between designing and making

Opinion: Robots help close the gap between designing and making

Andrew Watts, CEO Newtecnic , discusses the construction industry’s move towards robotics and mass-customization that brings designers and makers together for positive disruption within and beyond the industry

Digitalization, robotics and automation, have produced significant quality and productivity benefits in manufacturing over several decades.

In construction, however, while digitalization has very successfully automated design, the disconnect between designing and making is ripe for an industrial revolution.And while innovative product manufacturers use technology to move from mass-production to mass-customization, the construction industry is only just picking up on DfMA (Design for Manufacture and Assembly) for repetitive mass production of […]

Robots, humans of the future

Robots, humans of the future

Ineffective and harmful policies

What, exactly, is robotics? For those unaware of the term, robotics is basically an interdisciplinary branch belonging to engineering and science inclusive of mechanics, electrical and computer science, etc. Robotics is concerned with the designing, construction, operations and the applicability of robots in the field. In addition to the above information, it manages computer systems for control purposes, sensory feedback and information processing of the robots.

The said technologies assist in developing machines to be substituted for humans and entirely replicate human actions respectively. Robots can be put into service for a multitude of situations […]

Tariffs: Trump’s Worst Idea Yet

Tariffs: Trump’s Worst Idea Yet

President Donald Trump speaks at CPAC 2017. Photo credit: Gage Skidmore Last Thursday Donald Trump announced an intention to slap a 25 % tariff on steel imports, as well as a 10 % tariff on aluminum imports. This may very well be his worst idea yet – and that’s saying something!

So why are these tariffs a bad idea? Comparative advantage is a real thing. I come from Sweden, a cold country in Scandinavia with a climate that most closely resembles that of Minnesota. Here’s the thing: If we really wanted to, we could grow watermelons. Sure, we’d need gigantic […]