Category: Automation Impact on Jobs

Magazine excerpt: The fourth industrial revolution

Magazine excerpt: The fourth industrial revolution

Will any of today’s jobs still exist in 20 years? Will automation rewrite all our futures? The so-called fourth industrial revolution has profound implications for the world of work – and therefore the role of learning and development. We’re already used to robots undertaking repetitive manufacturing tasks, and smart applications determining our credit ratings, autopiloting planes and delivering functionality to our mobile devices. The next waves of development will see the combination of artificial intelligence (AI), robotics, big data, and cloud services.

The combined effect of these technologies creates the opportunity for machines to interact with humans by providing services […]

News Analysis: Robots to possibly bring severe repercussions to U.S. society

WASHINGTON, July 10 (Xinhua) — While industrial robots are predicted to replace millions of U.S. workers and suppress wage growth in the next decade, reforms in education and social safety net largely lag behind, said a renowned U.S. economist.

"There’s a real mismatch between our institutions and the technologies coming on board," Daron Acemoglu, an economist at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), told Axios Media, an American news website, in an interview published on Sunday night.

Industrial robots have taken over routine work from human hands in the past several decades. A paper published in March by Acemoglu and Pascual Restrepo, […]

Robots in Transportation

Robots in Transportation

Fear of robots taking away jobs is spreading, but is that really the case? Or will increasing automation bring new types of jobs to control and use their productivity? Maybe a little of both, but we don’t need to have a Luddite mentality. The benefits of automation can be sizeable, including performance, quality and speed improvement; error reduction; boosting economic growth and offsetting the declining working-age population.

Think about how robots are already being used today. The military employs them to transport soldiers, allow observations in situations where it would be too dangerous for a soldier to maneuver and defuse […]

Manufacturing in the United States

See the latest reader comments and hear John explain some of agriculture’s complex topics.

Robert Blain raises a point about manufacturing in the US:

"The zenith of American manufacturing might was the mid-60’s. We’ve lost 40% of our manufacturing jobs since 1979 and now we are in one heck of a jam coming up with the bucks to fund Medicaid. When a country loses a big chunk of its manufacturing backbone, the ability of government, businesses, and families to support themselves is severely undermined. China grew its industrial base (the primary recipient of the US industrial flight overseas) and is now […]

OPINION: Kendall Stanley — Machines, machines and more machines

Get ready for robocalypse.

The word doesn’t really trip easily off your tongue, but you’re probably going to be hearing plenty of it in the coming years and it’s getting the attention of bankers from around the world.

While the bankers at a recent conference weren’t looking at a dystopian future, they were worried that the economic upheaval of artificial intelligence may be more substantial than they’ve been thinking — way more substantial.“In the past, technical advances caused temporary disruptions but ultimately improved living standards, creating new categories of employment along the way,” noted the article on the bankers in The […]

Data reveal: how automation is suppressing wages

It’s the great economic conundrum of our day: if the unemployment rate is so low, why aren’t wages growing faster? The law of supply and demand tells us that as labor gets scarce, wages should rise. Yet, as we saw in the latest jobs figures on Friday , average U.S. hourly earnings have barely exceeded inflation for three years running.

What’s going on? The answer may lie in the Wage Growth Tracker (below), an alternative gauge produced by the Federal Reserve’s Atlanta bank. It substantiates what a lot of people have suspected: that older, higher-paid workers are leaving the […]

Axios Future of Work

Axios Future of Work

Hi and welcome back to Future of Work. Please invite your friends and colleagues to join the conversation .

Let’s dive right in with a question: 1 big idea: Could robots make us even more polarized?

Sam Jayne / AxiosOver the last decade or so, we’ve seen ordinarily apolitical topics polarize us into angry opposing mobs, among them vaccines, atmospheric gases and Russia. When there has been a super-strong view one way or another, it’s been sucked into the hothouse and associated with an ideology. Charges of fake news and a general deterioration of debate have followed. Checking my […]

Automation can make life better – and worse

Automation can make life better – and worse

The other day I was shopping at a large retail store with a shopping cart full of groceries and other items for the house and yard.

I had too many items for the express lane, but with only four other checkout lanes open, I was tempted to try it anyway.

Instead, I was steered toward the dreaded self-checkout area, which really doesn’t have enough room for everyone trying to use the registers there.I don’t mind checking out my own things – it can be quite convenient when you have only a few items. If you have a lot, it’s not so […]

Are automated orders at McDonald’s a game changer?

Are automated orders at McDonald’s a game changer?

New ordering kiosk at McDonald’s in Orange, Calif. (Jonathan Lansner/Orange County Register/SCNG) On a recent visit to a remodeled McDonald’s restaurant in Orange, I was greeted by the latest in burger-ordering technology.

A large self-service display that allowed me, with touchscreen technology, to have it my way without human interaction.

Automation continues to touch many parts of our daily lives – both as consumers and worker bees. Numerous questions swirl about what this latest wave of technology intrusion into the shopping arena and workplace will eventually mean.To me, a simple point of contention: Does it work?The McDonald’s system I was trying […]

North American robotics market growing and creating new types of work, says A3

North American robotics market growing and creating new types of work, says A3

The fast-growing North American robotics and automation market is creating new kinds of jobs, according to the Association for Advancing Automation , or A3.

The association says new technologies, such as collaborative robots and advanced vision systems are driving growth and diversity of employment in the sector.

Jeff Burnstein, who has a number of roles in the association including A3 president, says: “Automation technologies are fueling entirely new categories of jobs – really creating the jobs of the future – in addition to enabling companies to become more productive and create higher-quality products in safer environments.”The association has organised numerous […]