Category: Automation Impact on Jobs

The anxiety about robots stealing jobs is overblown. Policymakers need to focus on more immediate threats

The anxiety about robots stealing jobs is overblown. Policymakers need to focus on more immediate threats

Uhoh: Pepper, the Japanese android. Image: Getty. “The robots are coming to take our jobs”, the Evening Standard told Londoners in December 2016. In case that didn’t depress their readers enough, the article went on to spell out the coming doom: “The sheer pace of change in computational power and grinding efficiencies of automation will alter or eliminate many of our jobs, far faster than we anticipate.”

And then, to ensure the anxiety was sufficiently widespread, they reminded their middle-class readers that “many of the relatively fortunate in the professional class in London will face upheavals too”.

Anxiety about the impact […]

More Malaysians may lose jobs to automation in future, says report

More Malaysians may lose jobs to automation in future, says report

A robot ‘YuMi’ prepares hot coffee at the launch of the Bachelor of Engineering Program in Robotics and Automation Engineering of the Panyapiwat Institute of Management Bangkok, Thailand last month. Automation is likely to replace more than 70% or all semi-skilled and 80% of all low-skilled jobs in Malaysia in future. – EPA pic, May 3, 2017. MORE than half of jobs in Malaysia face a high risk of being lost to automation over the next two decades, with more Malaysians affected than foreign workers, says a report by the Khazanah Research Institute (KRI).

Four of five of these jobs […]

The Parts of America Most Susceptible to Automation

The Parts of America Most Susceptible to Automation

Isaac Brekken / AP Economists expect that millions of American jobs are going to be replaced by automation in the coming decades. But where will those job losses take place? Which areas will be hardest hit?

Much of the focus regarding automation has been on the Rust Belt. There, many workers have been replaced by machines, and the number of factory jobs has slipped as more production is offshored. While a lot of the rhetoric about job loss in the Rust Belt has centered on such outsourcing, one study from Ball State University found that only 13 percent of manufacturing […]

Work gives our lives meaning. What will we do when robots have taken our jobs?

Work gives our lives meaning. What will we do when robots have taken our jobs?

I recently interviewed Dr. Zev Eigen, the global director of analytics at Littler , for an article about artificial intelligence and workplace communication. About halfway through the conversation, I jokingly asked, “Do you think my writing job could be taken over by AI?” I was sure he’d say no.

“Instead of a grammar helper in Microsoft Word, you could have something populated with AI…derived from information that you’ve already generated,” Eigen said. “It could take the ‘best hits’ of everything you’ve ever written, and then use that to formulate what your next paragraph is going to be.” In other words, […]

Living With Robots

Living With Robots

As if there were not enough uncertainty surrounding the slow-growth economy in the United Sates, robots now threaten to replace four in 10 jobs within the next 15 years or so. At least, that is, according to the latest estimate by Price Waterhouse Consultancy. When asked about robot mischief, U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said he isn’t worried, and that the problem isn’t even on his radar, at least for now.

Will we be displaced by robots? The short answer is: yes and no.

According to the Association for Advancing Automation, 136,748 robots were shipped to U.S. customers between 2010 to […]

15 Jobs That Will Be Gone in 10 Years

15 Jobs That Will Be Gone in 10 Years

Certain jobs are going extinct. | Justin Sullivan/Getty Images Pog designer. Beanie Baby trader. Lamplighter. Elevator operator. These are all jobs that have disappeared in recent times.

Things change — be it from technology advancing, an influx of cheap labor due to globalization or shifting immigration patterns , or even just a change in consumer tastes. Yet, despite the fact that many industries and jobs seemed doomed to the dust bins of history, many Americans remain stuck in denial — even when we should be looking forward to automation and robots taking the reins from humans .

Businesses come and go. […]

How San Francisco Plans to Fight ‘Job-Killing’ Robots

How San Francisco Plans to Fight 'Job-Killing' Robots

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CREDIT: Getty Images The tech industry collectively face-palmed when Trump’s treasury secretary said earlier this year that the threat of robots taking human jobs was "not even on our radar screen."

There is a growing evidence that robots and artificial intelligence could displace huge swaths of the American workforce in the next couple of decades, much sooner than the "50 to 100 more years away" timeline that Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said he expects.In San Francisco, where robots already run food deliveries for Yelp’s Eat24 and make lattés at a mall coffee kiosk , one politician is working […]

San Francisco is considering a once unthinkable measure to offset the threat of job-killing robots

San Francisco is considering a once unthinkable measure to offset the threat of job-killing robots

jane kim supervisor san francisco (San Francisco County Supervisor Jane Kim addresses a crowd during a "Yes on Prop 61" rally outside City Hall in 2016.Josh Edelson/AP)
The tech industry collectively face-palmed when Trump’s treasury secretary said earlier this year that the threat of robots taking human jobs was "not even on our radar screen."

There is a growing evidence that robots and artificial intelligence could displace huge swaths of the American workforce in the next couple of decades, much sooner than the "50 to 100 more years away" timeline that Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said he expects.
In San […]

San Francisco is considering a once unthinkable measure to offset the threat of job-killing robots

San Francisco is considering a once unthinkable measure to offset the threat of job-killing robots

jane kim supervisor san francisco (San Francisco County Supervisor Jane Kim addresses a crowd during a "Yes on Prop 61" rally outside City Hall in 2016.Josh Edelson/AP)
The tech industry collectively face-palmed when Trump’s treasury secretary said earlier this year that the threat of robots taking human jobs was "not even on our radar screen."

There is a growing evidence that robots and artificial intelligence could displace huge swaths of the American workforce in the next couple of decades, much sooner than the "50 to 100 more years away" timeline that Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said he expects.
In San […]

Millennials aren’t robot-proof

Millennials aren’t robot-proof

A new study says about half of millennials are interested in jobs that carry a risk of automation, an indication they, like older workers, are vulnerable to losing work to robots. (KATHRYN OSLER / Associated Press) About half of millennials looking for work are interested in jobs that carry a risk of automation, a new study suggests. The findings indicate the youngest and most educated generation in the American workforce isn’t necessarily more robot-proof than older workers, who tend to be portrayed as the primary victims of automation.

“Millennials show a considerable amount of interest in occupations that face a […]