Category: Automation Impact on Jobs

How will robotics propel our economy?

How will robotics propel our economy?

Today’s reality is beginning to look a lot like the realm of sci-fi movies.

We may not have flying automobiles (yet), but driverless cars are already roaming beyond the streets of Silicon Valley. Airborne drones help farmers increase yields and reduce crop damage, and warehouse robots are the workhorses of the most efficient e-commerce distribution channels. Automation is changing the way we do business, the way we work and the way we live.

Technology has always been an essential driver of human progress, enhancing quality of life on an individual level and economic productivity for our society as a whole. The […]

How Robots, Automation Will Impact Employment in the U.S.

How Robots, Automation Will Impact Employment in the U.S.

Thirty of the world’s top scientists are scheduled to meet at the University of California at San Diego in February to discuss the toughest challenges in robotics and automation.

Henrik Christensen, director of the Contextual Robotics Institute at UC San Diego, discusses the impacts of robots in the workplace. (K.C. Alfred/San Diego Union-Tribune/TNS)

(TNS) — Thirty of the world’s top scientists are scheduled to meet at the University of California at San Diego in February to discuss the toughest challenges in robotics and automation, including how to make driverless cars safe for a mass audience.The experts are being brought together […]

‘Why Are We Doing This to Ourselves?’ Readers Respond to the Threat of Automation

‘Why Are We Doing This to Ourselves?’ Readers Respond to the Threat of Automation

How do we deal with the job losses caused by automation? Offer a universal basic income? Halt the march of technology? Shorten the workweek? Get more education — or a different kind of it? Raise the minimum wage — or lower it?

Get used to these questions.

Readers had a lot to say in response to an article about what many economists believe is a crisis of our times: how to support the people who are out of work because their jobs have been or will soon be automated. It is a bigger long-term cause of job loss than trade, offshoring […]

Will 2017 be the turning point for robots and jobs?

Will 2017 be the turning point for robots and jobs?

Can Donald Trump prevent robots from taking over our jobs? Evan Vucci / AP Photo A new year generally starts off a bit like a shooting star, trailing a dazzling series of predictions, some of which are more likely to come true than others. So too with 2017. Some of the most powerful prophecies for the year involve technology and innovation, their effect on jobs and the need for political solutions to manage transition.

What is tomorrow’s world expected to look like? Different, certainly. Economists say there will be many more driverless vehicles on the roads (both cars and lorries), […]

46 percent of Idaho jobs could be automated in 10 years — Which jobs could be affected?

46 percent of Idaho jobs could be automated in 10 years — Which jobs could be affected?

Technology has already impacted Idaho’s work force, changing how jobs are done throughout industries. The state may be a long way out from life as portrayed on "The Jetsons," but one study projects that many jobs are at high risk of becoming mostly automated in the next 10 to 20 years.

Automation isn’t necessarily a bad thing, however. Clear Springs Foods in Buhl has found that machines can help employees.

“It’s really made people’s jobs easier,” spokeswoman Callie Grindstaff said. “We’re really trying to inform people that manufacturing is way different than it used to be.”Machines that de-bone trout and perform […]

Paul Wallace: Don’t fear the robots; they won’t kill jobs

Rogue One, the latest in the Star Wars franchise, has had mixed reviews but features one undisputed star: K-2SO, a gangly robot with the best lines. Movies of the distant future always tap into current anxieties – and the latest alarm is that the robots are coming. Droids may not conquer the world, but they will take over its work – white-collar as well as blue-collar. Could these filmmakers know something we don’t?

Previous scares, such as when Time magazine reported on “the automation jobless” in the early 1960s, were just that. But many technology gurus insist that this time […]

Obama Thinks AI Will Create Jobs

Obama Thinks AI Will Create Jobs

The recently released White House report on "Artificial Intelligence, Automation, and the Economy" takes a surprisingly positive stance on the rapid growth of artificial intelligence. According to the report, "a strong case can be made in favor of increasing federal funding for research in AI."

"As we look at AI, our biggest economic concern is that we wont have enough of it," says Jason Furman, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors. "AI will help make the pie bigger. We want to make sure that everyone benefits from that pie, and that includes steps like modernizing the social safety net, […]

What can governments do when jobs run out?

What can governments do when jobs run out?

As automation makes more jobs redundant, policymakers cannot put off discussing universal basic income as an option. (Shutterstock image) Martin Ford writes in the Rise of the Robots: Technology and the Threat of a Jobless Future that around 47% of total employment in the US, around 64 million jobs, have the potential to be automated perhaps within a decade or two. Europe is already facing a crisis of jobs. Youth unemployment in Italy stands around 36% while it is nearly 44% in Spain. Thanks to offshoring and automation, we are seeing a polarisation in the labour market that is […]

We're Frogs and Automation is Boiling Water

We're Frogs and Automation is Boiling Water

If you put water on the stove and heat it up, it will at first just get hotter and hotter. You may then conclude that heating water results only in hotter water. But at some point everything changes – the water starts to boil, turning from hot liquid into steam. Physicists call this a “phase transition.”

Automation , driven by technological progress, has been increasing inexorably for the past several decades. Two schools of economic thinking have for many years been engaged in a debate about the potential effects of automation on jobs, employment and human activity: will new […]

Semi Automated Weapons.

Machines want your job! Well, they would if they could feel desire. [1] I guess I really mean that your employer wants your job. Not for him/her self, or even for some idiot nephew/niece. S/he wants it for a machine. Liable to get it too. Only about 13 percent (1/8-1/7) of job losses are the result of foreign competition. The rest are the result of automation cutting the need for workers. [2]

Thus, in 1962, about 530,000 people worked in the American steel industry. In 2005, about 130,000 people worked in the American steel industry. That’s a 75 percent […]