Category: Automation Impact on Jobs

Solution to automation and the unemployment and wealth disparity it creates (VIDEO)

Many fear automation. Here is the truth, automation is the result of a knowledge base created and paid for by us all. As such we should not fear it but benefit from it. Automation is a good thing we should all benefit from

Automation is a good thing. But we need to ensure that our government passes the appropriate laws to ensure that it does not become the next competitor to labor.

The subject of the last Politics Done Right show of 2016 was supposed to be about why Republicans had to kill Obamacare quickly. It evolved into the discussion […]

Digital Technologies for the Greater Good | @ThingsExpo #IoT #M2M #DigitalTransformation

Digital Technologies for the Greater Good | @ThingsExpo #IoT #M2M #DigitalTransformation

Adam Smith wrote about rational self-interest, which posits we work together for the greater good when it benefits ourselves. Does this concept translate to robots, automation and employment? I think it does.

I believe most of us would agree that replacing large numbers of humans with machines that result in wide scale unemployment and suffering is not in our rational self-interest. Having massive numbers of jobs terminated by the Terminator does not result in a safer, healthier civilization or vibrant economy; therefore, it is not in our best interest.

Just because something is possible, does not mean it is good. A […]

John H Wolfe: Automation, globalization and Trump’s efforts

John H Wolfe: Automation, globalization and Trump's efforts

George Will’s column of December 29 (Making America 1953 again) sheds light on the United States’ diminishing manufacturing employment as well as the failure of government intervention to save manufacturing jobs.

Simply put, two factors are responsible for most of the manufacturing job loss since the 1950s. First, the U.S. was the only significant industrial economy that had not been devastated by World War II so there was little global competition for U.S. firms. Plants ran at full capacity and corporations were able to grant wage increases with the knowledge that they could pass on the cost to consumers. The […]

Trump’s Job Promise – Can He Build A Wall Around Automation?

Trump’s Job Promise - Can He Build A Wall Around Automation?

Moving through the 21st Century, automation, not aliens, has been the driving force in unemployment. Trump waived his magic “wall” wand over his rust-belt Cinderellas that eked out an electoral win with fears of minorities and foreigners, but can he build a wall around job automation? Will jobs be the measure of human worth in this century and beyond when machines will do more, faster, and better?

Trump squeaked into office by wooing white blue collar voters in the former industrial states and in coal country with the idea that he would kick start their manual labor-intensive economies. Factory jobs.

Even […]

U.S. manufacturing expected to lose 2.1 million jobs over next decade

U.S. manufacturing expected to lose 2.1 million jobs over next decade

A recent study says it’s not cheap imports that are to blame as much as it is simple progress in how we make things.

While cheap imports have affected local steelmakers, the main culprit in overall factory job losses is increasing automation in factories, according to the study by Conexus Indiana and Ball State University.

"Overwhelmingly, the largest impact is productivity. Almost 88 percent of job losses in manufacturing in recent years can be attributable to productivity growth, and the long-term changes to manufacturing employment are mostly linked to the productivity of American factories," Ball State Professors Michael Hicks and Srikant […]

Trump’s Job Promise – Can He Build A Wall Around Automation?

Moving through the 21st Century, automation, not aliens, has been the driving force in unemployment. Trump waived his magic “wall” wand over his rust-belt Cinderellas that eked out an electoral win with fears of minorities and foreigners, but can he build a wall around job automation? Will jobs be the measure of human worth in this century and beyond when machines will do more, faster, and better?

Trump squeaked into office by wooing white blue collar voters in the former industrial states and in coal country with the idea that he would kick start their manual labor-intensive economies. Factory jobs.

Even […]

How AI startups can affect employment

How AI startups can affect employment

Automation of jobs due to technology advancements is a well-known issue. In his 2016 State of the Union Address, U.S. President Barack Obama warned that technology “doesn’t just replace jobs on the assembly line, but any job where work can be automated.”

Obama was not the first U.S. President to be concerned about automation, however. John F. Kennedy in 1962 said that the major domestic challenge of the decade was “to maintain full employment at a time when automation … is replacing men.”

Despite these concerns, automation did not lead to quick and total job losses — neither in the 1960s, […]

How AI startups can affect employment

How AI startups can affect employment

Automation of jobs due to technology advancements is a well-known issue. In his 2016 State of the Union Address, U.S. President Barack Obama warned that technology “doesn’t just replace jobs on the assembly line, but any job where work can be automated.”

Obama was not the first U.S. President to be concerned about automation, however. John F. Kennedy in 1962 said that the major domestic challenge of the decade was “to maintain full employment at a time when automation … is replacing men.”

Despite these concerns, automation did not lead to quick and total job losses — neither in the 1960s, […]

Automation Trepidation

Automation Trepidation

Getting to know our new robot overlords. Photographer: Martin Divisek/Bloomberg Decades from now, when historians look back on 2016, they’ll of course take note of the momentous votes on both sides of the Atlantic. But if they’re interested in symbolism, they might find that an even more profound turning point occurred over the English countryside in early December, when a little flying robot buzzed though the air, alighted on a lawn and gently deposited a package for a happy customer.

It was the first real-world drone delivery for Amazon.com. And it offered a bracing glimpse of the glories — and […]

When robots take jobs, workers deserve compensation

When robots take jobs, workers deserve compensation

The largely forgotten fate of London’s watermen, who ferried passengers on the Thames for centuries before faster forms of transport stole their jobs, would seem of marginal relevance today. But the lessons of the past can often inform the decisions of the future. And as we fret about the rise of robots and the impact of artificial intelligence, the history of London’s water taxis can teach us something about how to ease disruption caused by new technologies. For many years, London’s watermen were the most numerous workers in the city. But complaints about their abusive practices forced parliament to […]