Category: Automation Impact on Jobs

Replacing work with work: New oppportunities for workers cut out by automation?

Replacing work with work: New oppportunities for workers cut out by automation?

Technology is making work less manual and routine, and more interactive and creative-cognitive. But not all those who lose routine jobs will find new non-routine, interactive, and creative-cognitive jobs. Technology is shaking up labor markets around the world. Increasingly intelligent machines are taking over routine jobs. Three-D printing is making many traditional, labor-intensive production processes obsolete. In total, almost half of all jobs may be at risk in the United States due to automation. Job losses are no longer just limited to blue collar occupations, but increasingly also affect high-paying white collar jobs such as in insurance, in the […]

Automated Trucks Threaten Millions of US Jobs

Automated Trucks Threaten Millions of US Jobs

Self-driving vehicles are coming on strong, faster than anyone knowledgeable thought a few years ago. Self-driving vehicles are being tested for real world use, and highway laws are being rejiggered to accommodate the new tech future.

NBC News Channel 02/06/2017 1:26

Self-Driving Semis Hit the Road in Texas But driving is a major jobs category, as shown by the map below, taken from an interactive NPR graphic in the 2015 article Map: The Most Common Job In Every State . Millions of driving jobs still exist in the US because it’s one gig that could not be outsourced to China, […]

MALPASS | A.I. : Benefit or Hazard?

MALPASS | A.I. : Benefit or Hazard?

For decades, pop culture has been fascinated by robot servants. It always seemed so far off, having a robotic servant to help in our day to day lives. Look at the Jetsons, they needed to have stratosphere, saucer houses before they had a robot maid. It makes it strange to think that we now live in a society where robotics not only exist, but are the norm. I’m not talking about independent, Turing Test beating automata, but increasingly intelligent machines are finding their way into day-to-day life. Self-checkout registers have gone from a novelty to a familiarity in the […]

It’s time to prepare for your very own robot co-worker

It’s time to prepare for your very own robot co-worker

Forewarned is forearmed: According to the International Federation of Robotics’ report late last year, 2015 saw a whopping 15% increase in sales of units across the world, by far the highest level ever recorded for one year. — Reuters Move over humans, the robot revolution is here.

Even as a debate rages worldwide over the danger technology poses to employment rates, with Microsoft founder Bill gates recently saying that robots stealing human jobs should pay income tax, the surge in their use at workplaces seems unstoppable.

According to the International Federation of Robotics’ report late last year, 2015 saw a whopping […]

End of jobs

End of jobs

A friend, who was an office-head, once recounted a poignant story about his stenographer. A vendor had come to his office to demonstrate the use of a speech-recognition software that would allow a note to be dictated directly to the computer. After the vendor had left, the steno asked him, “Sir, does that mean my services are no longer needed?” Stenographers are no longer recruited in any office.

In 2014, a writing software called Quill was developed by an American company; it could convert numerical data into a written story, accomplishing within seconds what it took experienced analysts weeks of […]

Bill Gates: This is why we should tax robots

Bill Gates: This is why we should tax robots

Robots are taking human jobs. But Bill Gates believes that governments should tax companies’ use of them, as a way to at least temporarily slow the spread of automation and to fund other types of employment.

It’s a striking position from the world’s richest man and a self-described techno-optimist who co-founded Microsoft, one of the leading players in artificial-intelligence technology.

In a recent interview with Quartz , Gates said that a robot tax could finance jobs taking care of elderly people or working with kids in schools, for which needs are unmet and to which humans are particularly well suited.He argues […]

Bill Gates calls for robot tax to slow rate of automation

Bill Gates calls for robot tax to slow rate of automation

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates thinks governments should tax robots that replace human labor as a means of slowing down the spread of automation.

The world’s richest man says that a ‘robot tax’ could be used to generate revenue that would finance re-training people for jobs that only humans could do, according to Quartz .

These jobs include taking care of the elderly and teaching kids in schools.‘You ought to be willing to raise the tax level and even slow down the speed’ of automation, says Gates.The rate at which robots will replace human labor is likely to accelerate in the next […]

Some surprising (to me) facts about plastics employment

Some surprising (to me) facts about plastics employment

I have a finger on the pulse of the plastics industry. I visit companies, talk to executives on the phone, meet them at conferences and shows. I also read tons of stories about them, written by our staff and others.

But once in a while I see something surprising about plastics processing. That’s happened twice in the past month. Maybe these snippets will surprise you, too.

The first came in our January podcast, which we call Plastics News Radio. Steve Toloken, our news editor-international, interviewed Bill Carteaux, president and CEO of the Plastics Industry Association.Carteaux has been in the plastics industry […]

Trump’s promise to bring back manufacturing jobs seems like a false dream

Trump's promise to bring back manufacturing jobs seems like a false dream

Susan Stacy moves a tube to sort recycled plastic bottle chips being processed at the Repreve Bottle Processing Center, part of the Unifi textile company in Yadkinville, N.C., Oct. 21, 2016. America has lost more than 7 million factory jobs since manufacturing employment peaked in 1979. Yet American factory production, minus raw materials and some other costs, more than doubled over the same span to $1.91 trillion last year, according to the Commerce Department.

Susan Stacy moves a tube to sort recycled plastic bottle chips being processed at the Repreve Bottle Processing Center, part of the Unifi textile company in […]

Face It, Meatsack: Pro Gamer Will Be the Only Job Left

Face It, Meatsack: Pro Gamer Will Be the Only Job Left

Zohar Lazar Look at economic data closely and the trends aren’t pretty: People with elite backgrounds are hoovering up an increasing share of new income and wealth. Automation is obviating more and more jobs. In the years to come, we’ll need new forms of employment. Let’s crystal-ball this: Will there be a new way for the working class of the future to earn a paycheck? Sure. Playing videogames.

That’s the bold prediction of Edward Castronova, an academic at Indiana University who studies the economics of online games. In a white paper released last fall, he argues that within 20 years, […]