Category: Automation Impact on Jobs

Can Uber Tame Its Brutal Soul?

Can Uber Tame Its Brutal Soul?

The NewCo Daily: Today’s Top Stories

Ivan Gushchin | Flickr Engineer Susan Fowler set off a firestorm last week with a post describing her experiences during a year’s employment at Uber. It was hard to tell which was worse to read about — the incidents of sexual harassment she described, or the inadequate (or nonexistent) response to her treatment by the firm’s management and human-resources team.

Uber, of course, has always been known for a brash, bare-knuckles culture. But Fowler’s account somehow broke through the industry’s indifference with telling, all-too-credible detail. Maybe it was the immunity seemingly granted “high performing” […]

Jobs Most at Risk of Being Replaced by Robots

Jobs Most at Risk of Being Replaced by Robots

How would you feel if your boss tapped you on the shoulder and said, in a deadpan voice, “Please gather your things and leave. Your job will now be performed by a model XQJ-37 Robo-Beeper.” You might say, “Beep you.” But it wouldn’t get you very far (and might result in a call for a security escort) because jobs by the millions are falling away to machines that can think faster, move more efficiently, and don’t complain or join a union when they’re asked to work overtime.

It’s a Good Time to be Creative

Industrial robots have been deployed […]

World Robotics Federation IFR: Why Bill Gates’ Robot Tax is Wrong

FRANKFURT, Germany–(BUSINESS WIRE)–

The following is a statement by the World Federation of Robotics IFR:

"Bill Gates´ latest idea to tax robots aims to solve a problem that does not exist: empirical analysis of economic data and forecasts shows that automation and the use of robots create new jobs by increasing productivity. This is in line with the historical experience of technological revolutions, last seen when computers and software automated the business world. To tax production tools instead of their profits would have a negative impact on competitiveness and employment. This is presumably why the European Parliament rejected the idea […]

Will automation take away all our jobs? | David Autor

Will automation take away all our jobs? | David Autor

Advanced US 119 Collection ONOFF

Report Subtitle Errors Here’s a startling fact:
in the 45 years since the introduction of the automated teller machine,
those vending machines that dispense cash, the number of human bank tellers employed in the United States has roughly doubled, from about a quarter of a million to a half a million. A quarter of a million in 1970 to about a half a million today, with 100,000 added since the year 2000. These facts, revealed in a recent book by Boston University economist James Bessen, […]

When Robots Take Bad Jobs

When Robots Take Bad Jobs

Workers at Otto, Uber’s self-driving truck company INDIANAPOLIS—James Ford worked at various printing presses for decades, eventually becoming head pressman at a bookbinding shop in Michigan. But the industry was changing, and as the work required fewer and fewer people, he searched around for his next career. He settled on truck driving.

“I want to see America and get paid for it,” he told me in December, in the cafeteria of Celadon Driving Academy, where he was completing a six-week driving course in order to get his commercial driving license (CDL). Celadon, which is also a trucking company, offers a […]

In a crowd of truths, we can discern and reclaim what it means to be human

In a crowd of truths, we can discern and reclaim what it means to be human

This is the second of two responses to an excellent article by Antony Slumbers , the first being this perspective from my mirrored room , in this instance offering that his views offer a far too presumptive picture of how technology will shape our work future. The paragraph headlines are from Antony’s original article. One person’s optimism is another’s pessimism. A decade ago the dream of liberated commute-free teleworking was, to many, the nightmare of enforced seclusion to the soundtrack of the dishwasher. The deployment of robots for the performance of menial tasks creating time and wealth for leisure […]

Why Automation Will Create, Not Destroy, Jobs

Why Automation Will Create, Not Destroy, Jobs

If you have been watching political tectonics on both sides of the Atlantic, you may have noticed that analysts are increasingly getting it wrong: “it” being economics, politics, and social trends. The all of it, wrong. Why is this?

Not in Kansas Anymore

We are now deep into a digital transformation, and a new way of thinking and working and living. The business models of our past are faltering. Legacy thinking is virtually unfit for this digital age. The reality is that the conditions within which humanity operates are not what they used to be. Yet, thousands of self-proclaimed […]

Herb Van Fleet: The paradox of robotic labor

Herb Van Fleet: The paradox of robotic labor

Amid the shrill and irritating noise of politics these days, there have been a few news stories reporting on the progress of robotics, especially robotic cars. Robots are just one of the engineering outgrowths that are part of artificial intelligence and high-tech automation systems. Besides cars, their applications run the gamut from the military, to manufacturing, to health care, to agriculture, to running the vacuum and cleaning the house. And engineers are hard at work finding and developing other artificial intelligence applications.

For private sector businesses, artificial intelligence and its emergent technology provide a path to higher profits while maintaining […]

Automation for the People: The Public, Technology and Jobs

Automation for the People: The Public, Technology and Jobs

A 2012 research brief by Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee at MIT renewed an old debate over the effect of new technologies on employment levels. They argued that, counter to the prevailing belief that new technologies and automation simply shift jobs into new sectors after a period of disruption, instead rapid improvements in technology over the past decades have left some workers completely behind, a trend that will continue to accelerate as computers capabilities expand. But what does the public think? Do Americans see technological threats to employment, and have their views changed since the days when robots first […]

How to stay relevant in an automated world

How to stay relevant in an automated world

Robots have been replacing humans for half a century. When people first started employing robots over their human cohorts, it was in the manufacturing industry. Decades later, robots have revolutionised the business of physical labour, proving more efficient and safer than flesh-and-blood employees. The next great leap for robot workers was basic automation-bots – which could handle relatively simple transaction-based customer-service jobs.

Booking a flight home used to involve talking to a travel agent, now it involves a few web pages and mouse clicks. Same goes for online banking, shopping and property. Now there’s a new breed of sophisticated ‘cognitive’ […]