Category: Automation Impact on Jobs

Commentary: The future of work – new underclass, dystopian reality?

Commentary: The future of work – new underclass, dystopian reality?

SINGAPORE: The dust will take decades to settle on the key issue of precisely how much technology and artificial intelligence (AI) will displace human labour.

But it is already clear the coming decades will see a sizeable proportion of jobs worldwide threatened and substituted by automation, machine learning, or a combination of both.

It is increasingly apparent too that jobs commonly reckoned to be “safe” at present may in fact be candidates for an AI takeover, with many knowledge workers themselves candidates for displacement.Research by McKinsey from 2015 suggests that current technologies alone could automate 45 per cent of the activities […]

Who’s Afraid Of Artificial Intelligence?

Who's Afraid Of Artificial Intelligence?

Can artificial intelligence replace the human brain?Will it? What role for humans in the future? (Photo credit: Shutterstock) “Humans were are not built to spend more than two hours looking at a screen or scrolling through excel sheets. Humans are best at being human. Artificial Intelligence will do the rest.”

Telling words from Jim Stolze, Co-founder of aigency (www.aigency.com) – an Amsterdam-based company that recruits AI and humans for work. Kind of an employment company run by three humans overseeing 59 robots (actually computers working on algorithms created at the University of Amsterdam to solve problems).

Stolze was addressing reporters in […]

Don’t West Virginia my Texas

Don’t West Virginia my Texas

West Virginia is in crisis.

The once proud and mighty United Mine Workers of America is now a shadow of itself, these days raging less against the boss and more against federal regulations designed to protect their communities. It has the highest rate of opioid-related deaths in the nation, and 17.9 percent of its population lives below the poverty line . In West Virginia, there is no need to fear a bleak dystopia; for many, it has already arrived. If West Texas oil field workers do not organize themselves to demand a fair transition from an extractive energy model to […]

Australians willing to accept pay cuts as Artificial Intelligence and robots threaten jobs

Australians willing to accept pay cuts as Artificial Intelligence and robots threaten jobs

In an effort to stay relevant, Galaxy’s Australian Futures Survey reveals proactive workers have:

• upgraded their skills (38 per cent);

• improved their performance (35 per cent);• worked longer hours (26 per cent);• looked for a new job (26 per cent);• worked in a casual role (21 per cent);• or accepted a pay cut (11 per cent).The future of work is a hot-button topic being tackled by the #WTF campaign, which aims to start a conversation about the big issues and encourage problem solvers to share their ideas.Readers can join in tomorrow on the What’s the Future, Australia? website (wtf.org.au) […]

Will you lose your job because of artificial intelligence?

Will you lose your job because of artificial intelligence?

Every week, whether in the press or blog posts, social media, and around our surroundings, we read or hear about artificial intelligence (AI) and its relationship with employment – and majority of that content tends to paint a negative relationship between these two subjects.

If it’s not Mark Zuckerberg advising tech giants to stop blowing AI dangers out of proportion, it is Elon Musk warning governments to regulate the sector before it gets out of hand or Vladimir Putin giving leadership to any country that leads in AI. But to the ordinary employee, the advancement of AI technology could pose […]

Developing countries left behind by automation, research suggests

Developing countries left behind by automation, research suggests

A substantial amount of jobs in developing countries are at risk of automation. At a time in which we as a society are making great strides with automation technology, the question looms of how this will affect jobs.

It’s important not to generalise too much about the effect automation will have either directly or indirectly, as to do so would be failing to consider the unique factors in each population that will mediate these effects.

A 2016 report published by the Oxford Martin programme on technology and employment in conjunction with Citi explains that countries such as Ethiopia (85pc), India (69pc), […]

California’s ‘Jobs of the Future Fund’ wants to tax workplace robots

California’s ‘Jobs of the Future Fund’ wants to tax workplace robots

Whether it’s immigration, health care, taxes or the environment, there are plenty of topics which drive voters. One that is not quite as much of a hot-button topic as it maybe should be? The impact of automation on employment. As we have covered here on multiple occasions , artificial intelligence and robotics is likely to have a massive impact on jobs , long before we need to start worrying about things like superintelligence and the technological singularity . With that in mind, a San Francisco official is actively pushing for a “robot tax,” and a more thorough examination of […]

Are machines coming for our jobs? Probably not

Are machines coming for our jobs? Probably not

Open this photo in gallery: Getty Images/iStockphoto The Terminator isn’t likely to come from the future to wipe out humanity, but rather to eliminate human jobs – or so the steady stream of forecasts and headlines suggests.

Most recently, the United Nations last month warned of robots and artificial intelligence destabilizing the world through the mass automation of work. In response, or rather in preparation, the UN is opening the Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Robotics think tank in The Hague to study the potential threat.

The warning follows a host of reports in the same vein, such as a widely […]

Here Are the Jobs Most Likely to Be Replaced by Robots, and Those That Are Safe

Here Are the Jobs Most Likely to Be Replaced by Robots, and Those That Are Safe

The question of the role of robotics and automation in our everyday lives is one that looms large over conversations about what the workplaces and economies of the future will look like. As technology has become embedded into our lives, it’s not so much a question of if it will affect the kinds of jobs people hold, but when, where and how.

A group of researchers from Ball State University in Muncie, Ind., conducted a study to better understand which U.S. industries and regions are most susceptible to change driven by automation. They also explored why the subject is such […]

Look Out Emerging Markets, The Robots Are Coming

Look Out Emerging Markets, The Robots Are Coming

The machines are coming! The narrative that no one will have a job by 2050 is nothing new – scholars, economists and other pundits have been painting the demise of the global workforce for a number of years. In 2013, the University of Oxford released a paper titled "The Future of Employment: How Susceptible Are Jobs to Computerisation?" that concluded that 47 percent of jobs in the U.S. are at risk of automation within the next 20 years.

Four years since the study and the unemployment rate is at its lowest point in over a decade. The narrative has grown […]