Category: Automation Impact on Jobs

Bill Gates: ‘Robot tax’ could help train human workers for new jobs

Bill Gates: 'Robot tax' could help train human workers for new jobs

Dive Brief:

Governments should tax companies that use robots, using those funds for worker training programs in other employment areas, said Bill Gates, in a recent interview with Quartz .

The Microsoft co-founder says a robot tax could help manage the job displacement expected from automation. "You cross the threshold of job replacement of certain activities all sort of at once," Gates said. The idea is that those individuals displaced from work by automation could be redirected or retrained to do jobs that are difficult to automate because they require a human touch, like providing care to the elderly […]

Bill Gates Calls For Robotics Tax To Offset Jobs Lost To Automation And Fund Other Types Of Employment

Bill Gates Calls For Robotics Tax To Offset Jobs Lost To Automation And Fund Other Types Of Employment

Yes, really. Quartz reports : 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 […]

Tyler Cowen: History says automation won’t be painless

Tyler Cowen: History says automation won't be painless

The Industrial Revolution initially cut wages by about 10%, according to estimates, and the transition lasted 60 to 70 years. The shift out of agricultural jobs aided humanity but it was bumpy, and increased automation probably will carry similar displacements.

"Why should it be different this time?" That’s the most common response when I raise concerns about automation and the future of jobs, and it’s a pretty simple rejoinder. The Western world managed the shift out of agricultural jobs into industry, and continued to see economic growth. So will not the jobs being displaced now by automation and artificial intelligence […]

Haunted by a future work shortage, Europe grapples with robots laws

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A growing number of policymakers, lawyers and economists in Europe are beginning to face up to the job-eating threat of automation, with the Finnish government trialling a basic monthly income for the unemployed, while French socialist candidate Benoit Hamon has given a tax on robots a policy platform in his presidential campaign.

Proposals to give robot workers legal status and make their owners pay social security for them were debated – and ultimately rejected – by MEPs last week. However, they did back an ethical framework for robot development and deployment and liability for the actions of robots, including self-driving […]

New York Times Reports Automation-Fueled Job Loss in the Oil Patch

New York Times Reports Automation-Fueled Job Loss in the Oil Patch

The automation job wrecker got a rare front-page spot on Monday’s New York Times , where the oil industry was the subject: Blue-collar worker Eustasio Velazquez, 44, succinctly described the situation of many when he observed, “I don’t see a future. Pretty soon every rig will have one worker and a robot.”

And that one worker will be a tech-trained guy running the oil-extraction machines from a comfy office. The roughnecks have been replaced by robots.

In Midland Texas, Ryan Grant helps guide the operation of his company’s oil wells by computer at a distance since drilling and pumping […]

Robot taxes and universal basic income: How do we manage our automated future?

Robot taxes and universal basic income: How do we manage our automated future?

4 pictures Automation and artificial intelligence are set to replace humans in a wider array of jobs than ever before, so how does society deal with it? As more and more jobs are becoming automated, the world faces a dramatic shift in the underlying structures of its labor economies over the next 20 to 50 years. The conversation is slowly becoming more prominent in the mainstream with several major figures highlighting the problem and proposing different solutions. Elon Musk maintains that the idea of a universal basic income is the best solution, while Bill Gates advocates for a robot […]

Workforce automation

Workforce automation

Photo Courtesy of I4U News Jose Rodriguez
CONTRIBUTOR

Automated systems are part of our everyday life workforce, from manufacturing to self-checkouts in a supermarket. The implementation of said systems replaces human workforce members, generating worries each time new technologies are introduced.
Recently Amazon introduced its new convenience store “Amazon Go,” which is said to open early this year in Seattle, Washington. This store promises to provide shoppers with a simple shopping experience without lines, check-outs or registers, all thanks to machine learning, computer vision and artificial intelligence according to Amazon.As these new technologies are introduced, questions and fears about the future […]

Could Bill Gates, Elon Musk, and Stephen Hawking all be wrong? Yes

Could Bill Gates, Elon Musk, and Stephen Hawking all be wrong? Yes

quotes Bill Gates, Elon Musk and Stephen Hawking as he warns There’s a rising chorus of concern about how quickly robots are taking away human jobs. He also cites an Oxford U. study In 2013, policy makers largely ignored two Oxford economists who suggested that 45% of all US jobs could be automated away within the next 20 years. But today that sounds all but inevitable. Gates, Musk and Hawking are the smartest humans in the world and I have cited them early and often in my innovation blogs and books. But, no disrespect, but none of them is […]

Cuban: Trump can’t stop rise of the robots and their effect on U.S. jobs

Cuban: Trump can't stop rise of the robots and their effect on U.S. jobs

Add Mark Cuban to the list of tech visionaries exhorting the need to address the advance of robotics and artificial intelligence.

"Automation is going to cause unemployment and we need to prepare for it," Cuban posted on Twitter with a link to an essay about the rise of robots in the workplace.

Employment and jobs have been a hot topic recently with President Trump’s emphasis on getting U.S. corporations to focus on jobs at home and his plans of tightening of trade and immigration policies to foster job growth. Automakers including Fiat Chrysler, GM and Ford, as well as Intel and […]

Automation Contributes To Decline In Oil Jobs

As oil prices plummeted, nearly 160,000 oil jobs, or 30 percent of the total workforce, have been cut since 2014. The rise in robots have ensured that those jobs will not be coming back.

The New York Times explored automation’s effects on employment in the industry, particularly in oil-dependent places such as Texas.

While oil production is trending upward, companies are hiring fewer people, and they are emphasizing brains (remote tech jobs) over brawn (blue-collar workers in the field). Artificial intelligence and machine learning make oil production safer, faster, and cheaper. Computers now direct drill bits that were once directed […]