Category: Automation Impact on Jobs

Robots could replace almost half of US jobs by 2036

Robots could replace almost half of US jobs by 2036

FILE PHOTO © Issei Kato / Reuters Automation through robots and other artificial intelligence could affect nearly half of all US jobs, a report from the Obama administration has found. Education and job-training programs could prevent the sea change from destroying the American economy.

Scientists and economic advisers within the executive branch studied the potential effects of artificial intelligence on the US workforce and economy over the next 20 years, as well as ways to prevent the technological advances from automation from potentially destroying job opportunities for Americans ‒ which they said it could, for up to 47 percent of […]

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 […]

Amazon striving to deliver soulless automation

I recently watched the grimmest Christmas story I’ve seen in a long time. It was Amazon video of its first drone delivery.

For the past several years, Amazon has been trying to deliver packages via drones. On Dec. 7, the company announced it had officially launched its program, known as Prime Air, in Cambridge, England.

In a short video posted to its website, the company showed the track the drone used to launch, the drone’s strenuous plod across a field, and the customer — a rotund, bespectacled man who had presumably decided it was too much trouble to go to the […]

The self-driving, Thiel-tastic, botnet crazy tech year of 2016

The self-driving, Thiel-tastic, botnet crazy tech year of 2016

Jefferson Graham counts down the 7 top tech innovations of 2016, starting with Pokemon Go, on #TalkingTech SAN FRANCISCO — The image was startling, but a look into what could be tech’s immediate future.

After being ostracized by the tech industry for most of the election year, there sat venture capitalist Peter Thiel, beaming, to the left of President-elect Donald Trump at the Trump Tower Tech summit in mid-December.

Looking on, a ring of glum-faced and pensive tech titans, including Apple’s Tim Cook, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Alphabet CEO Larry Page and Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg.Silicon Valley’s billionaire leaders had disavowed Trump […]

RA Mashelkar: “Automation to replace 69% jobs a serious concern”

RA Mashelkar: “Automation to replace 69% jobs a serious concern”

© Leading scientist and former CSIR chief, Dr RA Mashelkar explains the emerging technological scenario, the subsequent job losses and how to deal with it, in this interview with National Herald

India has seen a jobless growth in the last few years. According to Labour ministry data, around 1.2 crore people enter the workforce every year; however, in 2015, only 1.35 lakh jobs were created. In this backdrop, spontaneous disruption in technologies is set to soon debilitate jobs massively, which our policymakers don’t seem to be factoring in. In an interview with Sebastian PT , leading scientist and former […]

AI poses a threat to half of all jobs within two decades

(Photo: Getty) The Whitehouse has warned that up to half of all jobs are at risk of being replaced by AI Artificial intelligence (AI) could threaten almost half of all jobs in the next 10 to 20 years, as automation is poised to revolutionise future employment, according to a report.

While AI should be “welcomed for its potential economic benefits”, those benefits are unlikely to be evenly distributed across society, the Whitehouse report written by President Obama’s advisors found.

AI has been hailed as the lynchpin of the fourth industrial revolution, according to the World Economic Forum, and has been […]

Future of manufacturing production, jobs

One benefit of the political debate about trade is that it led to an overdue discussion of manufacturing.

But after more than a year of politicking, I’m afraid there’s still a great deal of confusion about the industry and its future. To help clear things up I’ll begin with a parlor trick.

Pick the year you think manufacturing production peaked in the U.S. or Indiana. Some of you will say 1928, 1945, 1975 and sometimes even 1999.The correct answer, of course, is 2015. Yes, inflation-adjusted manufacturing production peaked both in the U.S. and Indiana in 2015, replacing 2014 as the record […]

Growing Georgia factory holds lessons, cautions for Trump job promise

Growing Georgia factory holds lessons, cautions for Trump job promise

December 1, 2016 Fort Valley – Daniel Stripling looks at a job order screen on the assembly line at the company’s plant and headquarters in Fort Valley. The screens show what needs to be done on each bus, as each bus on the assembly line is typically different from others on the line. HYOSUB SHIN / HSHIN@AJC.COM FORT VALLEY, Ga. — As a welder’s sparks flew, a cage of silver ribs grew around the worker, as if Jonah’s whale had surfaced in Blue Bird Corp.’s factory and swallowed him up.

Down the 89-year-old company’s assembly line, dozens of metal skeletons […]

How Minnesota’s community and technical colleges are responding to the rise of robots

How Minnesota's community and technical colleges are responding to the rise of robots

William Hiniker is among a number of Minnesota workers who have returned to school to upgrade their skills in an increasingly competitive employment market. William Hiniker is pursuing an associate degree at Dunwoody College of Technology, and he’s pretty confident about his future.

“I know that once I finish this program, I can get a job pretty much anywhere I want,” said Hiniker, who’s worked as a mechanic at a Shakopee landscape company and served in the U.S. Army as a combat engineer. “There’s no doubt about it.”

In today’s slow-growth economy, that isn’t something many first-year college students can say […]

We must do something about jobs for young people in a world of automation

We must do something about jobs for young people in a world of automation

As technology advances and changes our economy, young jobseekers will bear the brunt of changes in the labour market. With the increasing automation of jobs traditionally occupied by young workers and professionals, a whole generation could face a dystopian future if policymakers fail to act.

A report by the Committee for Economic Development of Australia argues that a new wave of automation is allowing machines to “replicate aspects of human thought” . Classical economists as far back as Adam Smith argued that technological advancements and economic change go hand in hand , but the latest shift seems set to change […]