Category: Automation Impact on Jobs

GOP senator suggests we need fewer immigrants because robots are coming

GOP senator suggests we need fewer immigrants because robots are coming

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) arrives for a weekly Republican Party luncheon at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 17. (Jonathan Ernst/Reuters). Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) last week helped kill the bipartisan immigration deal in Congress. He didn’t think the bill went far enough in transforming the U.S. immigration system. Like President Trump, Cotton thinks the United States should cut legal immigration. The senator’s reasoning?

Well, part of it seems to be that robots are coming for our jobs.

“It can’t simultaneously be true that robots will take all the jobs & that the West needs millions of new immigrants to do the […]

The ‘Scary Side’ of AI

The 'Scary Side' of AI

Some say artificial intelligence is evil; others worry about AI replacing them. Is it scary to you?

According to Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and SpaceX as well as chairman at SolarCity, artificial intelligence (AI) is a " fundamental risk to the existence of human civilization," and "if you are not concerned about AI safety, you should be. [It is] vastly more risk than North Korea."

So, is AI safe? Is it a good thing or a bad thing?The potential for job disruption is another area of considerable AI concern. In a 2013 study , University of Oxford researchers estimated […]

Solar farms using backpacker labour: union

Solar farms using backpacker labour: union

Solar farms in Queensland are being built by backpacker labour rather than qualified electricians, a parliamentary inquiry has heard.

A Senate committee investigating the future of employment in Australia, including the impact of automation, held its first public hearing on Tuesday in Brisbane.

Electrical Trades Union Queensland acting secretary Peter Ong told the senators firms were favouring labour-hire companies instead of using electricians on industrial agreements with good pay and conditions."There should be 50 directly employed electricians building a solar farm," Mr Ong said."I have five electricians and 45 backpackers who are employed through labour hire and paid poverty wages."He said […]

Solar farms using backpacker labour: union

Solar farms using backpacker labour: union

Solar farms in Queensland are being built by "backpacker" labour rather than qualified electricians, a parliamentary inquiry has heard.

A Senate committee investigating the future of employment in Australia, including the impact of automation, held its first public hearing on Tuesday in Brisbane.

Electrical Trades Union Queensland acting secretary Peter Ong told the senators firms were favouring labour-hire companies instead of using electricians on industrial agreements with good pay and conditions."There should be 50 directly employed electricians building a solar farm," Mr Ong said."I have five electricians and 45 backpackers who are employed through labour hire and paid poverty wages."He said […]

International commentator Gwynne Dyer speaks in Springhill

International commentator Gwynne Dyer speaks in Springhill

Gwynne Dyer speaks to high school students in Springhill on Feb. 15. – Chris Gooding Students introduced to idea of Universal Basic Income

SPRINGHILL – Tax the robots, but first a few notes about American politics.

Grade 11 and 12 students from Amherst Regional High met up with their counterparts at Springhill High to listen to the insights of international columnists and commentator Gwynne Dyer on Feb. 15. Hailing from Newfoundland but now living in the United Kingdom, Dyer visited the Springhill High School as part of is lecture series ‘The Trump Era: Surviving the Populous Era.’President Donald Trump, […]

Walter E. Williams: Will automation really kill our jobs? (Daily Mail Opinion)

Walter E. Williams: Will automation really kill our jobs? (Daily Mail Opinion)

A recent article in The Guardian dons the foreboding title, “Robots will destroy our jobs — and we’re not ready for it.”

The article claims, “For every job created by robotic automation, several more will be eliminated entirely. … This disruption will have a devastating impact on our workforce.”

According to an article in MIT Technology Review, business researchers Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee believe rapid technological change has been destroying jobs faster than it is creating them, contributing to the stagnation of median income and the growth of inequality in the United States.If technology is destroying jobs faster than it’s […]

Why Ag Needs to Automate

Why Ag Needs to Automate

"Robots will harvest, cook and serve our food. They will work in our factories, drive our cars and walk our dogs. Like it or not, the age of work is coming to an end."

— Gray Scott, futurist philosopher

Mr. Scott had me through the first two sentences of his prediction about how robots will take over many of the daily tasks and work that humans have traditionally done. As for the third part of his statement about the age of work coming to an end, I seriously doubt it. But then, no one has ever accused me […]

SCB research centre predicts 650,000 jobs taken over by robots in the next 12 years

SCB research centre predicts 650,000 jobs taken over by robots in the next 12 years

About 650,000 jobs in automotive, food processing and electronic industries are like to be taken over by robots and intelligence robots in the next 12 years, according to a forecast of the Business and Economic Research Centre of Siam Commercial Bank.

The research centre said that although investment in the Eastern Economic Corridor (EEC) would steadily increase in the coming years, the number of unemployed would increasingly grow due to the introduction of automation system and intelligence robotics.

Mr Vitharn Charoenphol, senior director of the service business cluster of SCB’s research centre, predicted that, in the production sector, more […]

AI Transforms Supply Chain Activities

A 2013 study estimated that nearly half of American jobs would be replaced by artificial intelligence (AI) in the near future. Meanwhile, innovator and entrepreneur Sebastian Thrun declared that “no office job is safe.” However, Americans themselves are not too worried about it.

A recent LevaData survey of more than 1,000 U.S. adults revealed that while about two-thirds of Americans believe that AI will eliminate certain jobs—and more than half say the rise of AI will mean fewer jobs, period—21% are confident that AI won’t replace their job in the next ten years, and 41% say that they are confident […]

We should learn to work with robots and not worry about them taking our jobs

We should learn to work with robots and not worry about them taking our jobs

Humans and robots can work together to create jobs for the future. Credit: Shutterstock/Gennady Danilkin We have all heard the dire predictions about robots coming to steal our jobs . Some would even have us believe these silicon bogeymen are coming to kill us. It plays straight into people’s darkest fears about technology.

When futurists talk about things that haven’t happened yet, they are free to parade educated guesses as fact. But before we take their word for it, we might remember the old adage : "… in God we trust, all others bring data."

In a recent article, the MIT […]