Category: Automation Impact on Jobs

Is Productivity Growth Becoming Irrelevant?

Is Productivity Growth Becoming Irrelevant?

LONDON – As the Nobel laureate economist Robert Solow noted in 1987 , computers are “everywhere but in the productivity statistics.” Since then, the so-called productivity paradox has become ever more striking. Automation has eliminated many jobs. Robots and artificial intelligence now seem to promise (or threaten) yet more radical change. Yet productivity growth has slowed across the advanced economies; in Britain, labor is no more productive today than it was in 2007.

Some economists see low business investment, poor skills, outdated infrastructure, or excessive regulation holding back potential growth. Others note wide disparities in productivity between leaders and laggards […]

Will a robot take your job?

Will a robot take your job?

taskmate robot BALTIMORE —

Robots taking over the world might sound like science fiction, but just how far from reality is it?

A new report by professional services firm Price Waterhouse Coopers predicts robots will take over 38 percent of American jobs by 2030.Take, for example, the "taskmate" robot that bevels the edges of a metal rod just like a human would do in a machine shop. One might imagine it would take a robotics engineer hours, even days, to program this multi-step task. Not so."I can teach you how to use this in 10 minutes. If you can play […]

Black muddy river: of jobs and computers

Black muddy river: of jobs and computers

While machines have come a long way and will continue to evolve, the human intervention has its own indispensable value. Photo: Reuters It is widely accepted that technology-driven automation, whether routine or “intelligent”, will lead to large shifts in employment during this century, much like the industrial revolution did in the 1800s. The industrial revolution also concurrently caused an unprecedented rise in the overall standard of living for many people, leaving them time to focus on work that was more creative. At least, that is the currently accepted version of history.

I recently watched a short, but information-packed video by […]

Automation: end of employment or the chance to do more?

Automation: end of employment or the chance to do more?

Automation is a hot-button topic at the moment and the concerns around it are not entirely misplaced. However, the anxiety on the issue misses one critical point.

Wholesale automation of certain tasks might actually free us up to do more rather than put us all out of a job.

Researchers at the University of Oxford recently surveyed 352 experts in artificial intelligence to get a grasp of when AI will surpass human intelligence. The results were worrying to say the least — it seems AI has a 50-50 chance of being able to beat us at everything within 45 years.We won’t […]

The Finance 202: ‘Made in America’ week belies weak manufacturing numbers

The Finance 202: 'Made in America' week belies weak manufacturing numbers

(c) 2017, The Washington Post.

Welcome to "Made in America" Week, the latest attempt by the White House to get back on offense by hammering a theme from President Trump’s economic agenda.

If past is prologue, drama from the health-care debate and new Russia revelations – reinforced by Trump tweets – will swamp the message. And the domestic manufacturing push starts out as a tough sell for a president whose retail empire outsources much of its production abroad. Ditto for Ivanka Trump, the president’s daughter and adviser, whose own company relies exclusively on foreign factories in Bangladesh, Indonesia, China and elsewhere, […]

Employment 4.0: bug, not feature

Employment 4.0: bug, not feature

India is at the nightmare scenario of 50% of the labour force generating 11% of GDP. Photo: Bloomberg In the US, 31% of workers are now self-employed, freelancing or in gig economy work. But India is ahead of the US; about 75% of our labour force meets the same criteria. Uber is in the news for the wrong reasons but platform companies like it have already changed labour markets in rich countries and the model will influence even poor-country labour markets like India in the long run. But we’d like to make the case that a) India’s huge self-employment […]

Come friendly robots and take our dullest jobs

Come friendly robots and take our dullest jobs

We are currently going through one of those periodic phases of “automation anxiety” when we become convinced that the robots are coming for our jobs. These fears are routinely pooh-poohed by historians and economists. The historians point out that machines have been taking away jobs since the days of Elizabeth I – who refused to grant William Lee a patent on his stocking frame on the grounds that it would take work away from those who knitted by hand. And while the economists concede that machines do indeed destroy some jobs, they point out that the increased productivity that […]

The re-manufacturing of American manufacturing

The re-manufacturing of American manufacturing

I’ve just ended a trip from a couple locations that were featured in two documentary films about jobs that are disappearing from America and about the demise of manufacturing here in the United States. “American Jobs” was produced by Greg Spotts in 2005 and “American Made Movie” was produced by Vincent Vittorio and Nathaniel McGill in 2013. With all the political rhetoric being thrown around haphazardly by politicians in Washington about the need to “make America great again!” and the importance of bringing jobs back to the states and keeping them here, especially manufacturing jobs, I decided to pay […]

Automation Will Make Having a Job No Longer a Reasonable Expectation

Automation Will Make Having a Job No Longer a Reasonable Expectation

And I think this will be incredibly healthy for societies, as I’m sure many of you here know very well the social pains of unemployment which only makes the financial struggle worse. The innovative new industries which in previous generations created jobs are now destroying them much faster. Netflix VS Blockbuster, the new internet era company is able to make much more profit with a small fraction of the employees. It’s not just low skill work that’s being automated either, office jobs are being rapidly replaced by software and AI. Now even very complicated tasks can be done faster […]

Population Aging 2017

Population Aging 2017

As political controversy flares in the US and our European friends prepare to “vacation” for the month of August, two parallel events are cutting through the summer heat and distractions as clear reminders of the global megatrend of population aging.

The first is the annual Alzheimer’s Association International Conference (AAIC), held in London next week, which will bring together Alzheimer’s experts, innovators, advocates and caregivers to develop strategies to combat the disease. https://www.alz.org/aaic/ Second, immediately following AAIC, the once-every-four-year International Association of Gerontology and Geriatrics (IAGG) conference https://www.iagg2017.org/ will convene about 6,000 from medicine, healthcare, economics, and retirement professions, including […]