Category: Automation Impact on Jobs

New UN agency set to monitor threats from AI and robotics

New UN agency set to monitor threats from AI and robotics

The Netherlands-based unit will research the impact of the technology on global society

A file image of a demining robot in France. File photograph: Jacques Demarthon/AFP/Getty Images The United Nations is to open a new office in the Netherlands to monitor leading-edge trends in the development of robotics and artificial intelligence (AI) – some elements of which were described last month as posing “the biggest existential threat” facing humanity.

The UN currently has a number of departments involved in research on the impact of AI and robotics on different aspects of the global economy, and the aim now is to […]

Is Donald Trump Accelerating Our Robot-Driven Future?

Is Donald Trump Accelerating Our Robot-Driven Future?

Plagued as it has been by technological and scientific illiteracy, few of Donald Trump’s detractors would accuse the administration of hastening any kind of robotic uprising. But when considering broad historical trends, don’t forget the law of unintended consequences. Many of the world’s most revolutionary technological developments conform to just such a pattern. Take GPS for example: Originally developed by the US military for use in the Cold War, it now aids commuters the world over. There are several reasons to believe Donald Trump is inadvertently hastening our robot-driven future.

The Trump Administration’s restrictive immigration legislation, and its potential impact […]

Do we need a robot tax for businesses?

Do we need a robot tax for businesses?

Cyber capital: taxing robots could help slow the pace of automation Credit: Getty Rob Waugh

Since Bill Gates made the case for taxing robots like human workers, governments worldwide have been weighing up how this would really affect the global economy

Self-driving lorries are going to be on Britain’s roads next year – part of a coming wave of automation that could see jobs such as drivers, security guards and even accountants swept away by a robotic revolution.This year, Bill Gates suggested a radical idea – that governments should tax these new robot “employees”, just like they do […]

Poverty as a math problem: Available jobs and incomes don’t add up to living wages

Poverty as a math problem: Available jobs and incomes don’t add up to living wages

Editor’s Note: This is the third column in a six-part series under the theme “Poverty is a math problem (and so much more).” In the spring of 2012, the Chronicle of Higher Education published a special section titled “From Graduate School to Welfare.” Among the essays in this section was “The Ph.D. Now Comes with Food Stamps,” which revealed that in recent years the number of Americans with advanced academic degrees receiving federal aid of some kind had increased by approximately 300 percent.

A few years later, in the midst of America’s supposed economic recovery from the financial crisis of […]

Trade, Automation and Job Losses

Trade, Automation and Job Losses

Some experts argue that the next wave of technological advances will replace many existing jobs but will also create new ones. Other experts disagree, arguing that the new wave of technologies is different (in terms of speed, scale and force) and will replace human jobs at a massive scale, leading to a “jobless future.”

The 2017 edition of the World Trade Organization’s flagship publication, the World Trade Report, examines these issues highlighting how technology and trade affect labor markets.

Technological progress and openness to trade – the two most important drivers of economic advances and change today – are inextricably linked. […]

The Next Hot Millennial Trend: Never-Ending Labor in Dystopian Warehouses

The Next Hot Millennial Trend: Never-Ending Labor in Dystopian Warehouses

The death of retail, workers’ rights, and pension plans have sent migrant seniors into the arms of Amazon. What does this mean for a generation saddled with debt?

Allie Conti

Sep 27 2017, 5:25pm All photos by Jessica Bruder As online retail has become a way of life, the classic American shopping mall has been presented with seemingly inevitable extinction. Mom-and-pop stores succumbing to big-box competitors is an old story, but these days even retail behemoths like J.Crew , Sears, and Kmart are in trouble . One recent casualty on this front was Toys R Us, […]

Nearly a third of British workers would be happy to have a robot boss

Nearly a third of British workers would be happy to have a robot boss

Or maybe your boss is already a robot? With the Bank of England projecting that up to 15m jobs might be at risk due to robots, a new survey today reveals that nearly a third of British workers (31 per cent) would be happy to work for a robot boss.

● New research shows that one in ten think a “roboboss” would be “more efficient” than a human, with men more likely to accept a non-human boss than women

● In the UK, Welsh and Northern Irish workers were most open to working for a robot● The majority of working Brits […]

Rather than taxing robots, we should be redesigning jobs

Rather than taxing robots, we should be redesigning jobs

The future is not human or machine; it is human and machine Credit: Nic Delves Recent years have seen a succession of scare stories about the impact of AI on future employment. And figures as diverse as Bill Gates and, this week, Jeremy Corbyn have called for a tax on robots . But the hype about them taking our jobs is based largely on human conjecture. It misses two things.

Firstly, in terms of outlook, if we take action to prepare for the future of work, the digital transformation gives us a real opportunity to improve the life chances of […]

Rise of the robots could help printers

Rise of the robots could help printers

Robots could replace 4 million jobs in the British private sector in the next decade, according to new research, but analysts argue that robotics and automation could help rather than hinder print. ABB Robotics’ YuMi robot, which can operate safely alongside humans A poll conducted by YouGov for the Royal Society of Arts (RSA), which analysed government datasets and asked business leaders and employers about the future of automation and artificial intelligence, found that up to 15% of the current workforce in the private sector could be replaced by robots.

Jobs in finance and accounting, transport and distribution, manufacturing, and […]

Should we really be worried about robots taking over insurance jobs?

Should we really be worried about robots taking over insurance jobs?

The ‘fourth industrial revolution’ has drastically changed the insurance sector, so much so that traditional risk assessment has been “eclipsed” by machine learning and real-time geo-intelligence, according to a new report from Axco.

The entire insurance lifecycle, right from the buying process, has been transformed by AI, robotics and big data – changes which look positive so far, presenting opportunities for growth in soft market conditions, the report claims.

“Substantial and unprecedented change” is sweeping across society as a whole, leaving the industry to face a new world of behaviours and risks, Axco’s managing director told Insurance Business – but should […]