Category: Automation Impact on Jobs

Five lessons from history on AI, automation, and employment

Five lessons from history on AI, automation, and employment

History tells us that in the long run, technology is a net creator of jobs. Is this time different?

Technology adoption can, and often does, cause significant short-term labor displacement, but history shows that in the longer run, it creates a multitude of new jobs and unleashes demand for existing ones, more than offsetting the number of jobs it destroys, even as it raises labor productivity (exhibit).

An examination of the historical record highlights several lessons. Here are five. 1. Employment in some sectors can decline sharply, but new jobs created elsewhere have absorbed those that have been displaced. All […]

The arts will be key for humanity to thrive in the coming artificial intelligence future

The arts will be key for humanity to thrive in the coming artificial intelligence future

A robot receptionist at Henn Na hotel in Japan. University of Canterbury associate professor AMY FLETCHER looks at the impact of artificial intelligence on our lives in the near future, and how best to prepare for the AI revolution.

OPINION: Artificial intelligence (AI) is coming, ready or not, and people around the world are concerned.

Former American Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said recently that humanity is "racing headfirst into a new era of artificial intelligence" without sufficient preparation for how that will impact the world. Dinosaur robots acting as receptionists greet a hotel employee demonstrating how to check-in […]

Watch: Ocado’s grocery robot can pick up more than 50,000 items

Watch: Ocado's grocery robot can pick up more than 50,000 items

Robots are very good at doing prescribed tasks over and over–welding the same joint, for example, or hanging a car door on a manufacturing line. But when you introduce variability, things get a lot more complicated.

That’s the challenge grocery fulfillment giant Ocado faced when trying to design a robot that could pick up every unit in its 50,000 item catalog.

It’s an important hurdle. Object-agnostic picking and placing robots will be necessary to move to truly lights-out autonomous fulfillment warehouses, which is the goal of just about every e-commerce fulfillment company in the post-Amazon world.Currently, much of the picking and […]

New book explores how to ensure AI has a positive impact on individuals, society, industries, business, the economy, and jobs

‘Beyond Genuine Stupidity – Ensuring AI Serves Humanity’

Published on 27 th November, ‘Beyond Genuine Stupidity – Ensuring AI Serves Humanity’ is the new book from Fast Future Publishing. It explores how Artificial Intelligence (AI) could have impacts across every aspect of our world – highlighting practical strategies to ensure a positive overall impact for humanity.

‘Beyond Genuine Stupidity – Ensuring AI Serves Humanity’ explores critical emerging issues arising from the rapid pace of development in Artificial Intelligence. The authors argue for a forward looking and conscious approach to the development and deployment of AI to ensure that it genuinely serves […]

Robots coming for our jobs, Sasse warns Iowans

Robots coming for our jobs, Sasse warns Iowans

A sign on a robotic welding machine at East Iowa Machine Company in Farley on Wednesday, June 10, 2015. (Stephen Mally/The Gazette) Sen. Ben Sasse wants to talk about the robots coming to take our jobs.

The Nebraska Republican delivered a speech this month in Iowa to the Family Leader activist group. It would have been a prime opportunity for the rising GOP star to talk about his nuclear family or his anti-abortion credentials in front of our state’s most conservative crowd. Instead, he warned Iowans about the impending labor revolution.

“We’re entering a world where there’s going to be a […]

Are robots about to take over our jobs?

Are robots about to take over our jobs?

Although many jobs are at risk of upheaval due to automation, humans still possess valuable skills unmatched by robots. As long as educational institutions adapt traditional curriculum, and stay ahead of the curve, people will always be able to find something to do.

Unless you’ve been living on Mars, you will be aware that the world is going through another bout of soul-searching about how robots could take our jobs. The concerns aren’t new. But they are now newly urgent.

Artificial intelligence programs such as Alpa Go have been trouncing humans in tasks that were once thought impossible for computers, […]

Why technology may lead to greater isolation in the workplace

Full implementation of AI may be further away than we think, but the planning starts now, say experts

New technology may well have created fewer physically demanding jobs, but its impact on the mental wellbeing of employees is still ‘up for grabs’, delegates at an Acas panel discussion heard last week.

Using Acas’s latest research paper, Mind Over Machines: New technology and employment relations , as a starting point, experts – including Mark Wilson, senior HR leader at Jaguar Land Rover, and Professor Leslie Willcocks from the London School of Economics – shared their views on how the introduction of […]

The clash between man and machine is capitalism’s ultimate challenge

The clash between man and machine is capitalism’s ultimate challenge

It’s time to put man before machine before it’s too late. Photo: AFP ‘A record-shattering US$450 million paid last week for Leonardo da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi is surely a reflection of how years of global money printing has fuelled asset-price inflation.’ Photo: AFP The stars of the European Union on banners flying outside the European Central Bank headquarters in Frankfurt, Germany. Photo: Bloomberg Ever wondered why so many tech billionaires are reaching for the stars with dreams of settling on Mars? Even acclaimed cosmologist Stephen Hawking reckons we only have 100 years left on Earth before Doomsday descends. Something […]

New report explores jobs and skills of the future

New report explores jobs and skills of the future

Robot colleagues and classes studying emotion – that’s how futurist Ross Dawson sees education evolving in years to come. Commonwealth Bank has released a ‘Jobs and Skills of the Future’ report, authored by Dawson, which sheds new light on the changing role of teachers.

The report details the ways that advances in robotics, artificial intelligence, data analytics and virtual reality might affect the classrooms of the future.

Dawson says one of the most significant changes will be a new focus on student capabilities, as opposed to skills.“In a changing world with developing machine capabilities we are effectively competing with computers, competing […]

Robots Are Coming For Our Jobs. Here Are 5 Ways To Prepare.

Robots Are Coming For Our Jobs. Here Are 5 Ways To Prepare.

Robots fetch merchandise at the Hudson’s Bay Company distribution center in Toronto, May 29, 2017. Robots are going to keep eliminating jobs. That’s the gist of the latest projections from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which attempt to predict the future of employment in the U.S.

The picture is one of declining manufacturing jobs. People in lower-earning jobs which don’t require a degree are likely to feel particularly squeezed, according to the predictions. Data entry and call centre jobs are also likely to be hit, along with other professions that can easily be automated by robots and algorithms.

Nearly half […]