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Let’s not freak out about the “next major job killer” just yet

Let’s not freak out about the “next major job killer” just yet

Humans: still useful. Amazon Go, the company’s latest store concept , allows shoppers to take products off shelves and walk out the door without waiting in a checkout line or dealing with a cashier. Instead, sensors and computer vision keep tabs on how much to charge customers’ Amazon accounts for their purchases.

By ostensibly eliminating the need for any human interaction, many have concluded that Amazon Go must be, as the New York Post put it, “the next major job killer to face Americans.” About 3.5 million people in the US work as cashiers, according to the Bureau of Labor […]

Automation is inevitable. Here’s how to make sure we create jobs, not just destroy them.

Automation is inevitable. Here’s how to make sure we create jobs, not just destroy them.

In October, Uber-owned Otto announced that it had completed the first commercial driverless truck delivery in Colorado. In November, McDonald’s announced that it was rolling out touchscreen ordering systems nationwide. Now, Amazon is opening a new convenience store with no checkout lines and no cashiers.

Add it all up, and it looks like an apocalyptic future for low-skilled workers. Cashiers and fast food workers are near the top of the government’s list of the jobs that employ the most people in the United States, with 3.3 million and 2.9 million workers working at these jobs, respectively. Truck drivers account for […]

How to support yourself after the robot revolution

How to support yourself after the robot revolution

Steve Gardner

Here’s a startling prediction: if current labor trends continue, one out of three American men, ages 25-54, will be out of work by mid-century.

That’s what former U.S. Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers expects. “Job destruction caused by technology is not a futuristic concern,” Summers wrote this fall. “It is something we have been living with for two generations.”Contract jobs, gig work and robots have all made work more precarious. Silicon Valley pioneered many of the changes, and now some tech entrepreneurs believe they have a solution to the economic anxiety they’ve helped create.Put bluntly, it’s free money. […]

Now Another Canadian Province Wants to Give Everybody Free Money

Now Another Canadian Province Wants to Give Everybody Free Money

As the populous province of Ontario gears up to test the idea of a universal basic income—basically, free money for being a living human being —another, much smaller Canadian province is standing up and bravely saying, “ Me, too! ”

On Tuesday night, the Legislative Assembly of Prince Edward Island, or PEI, passed a motion urging the provincial government to forge a partnership with Ottawa to establish a basic income trial on the island of 147,000 people , which is on Canada’s Atlantic coast. According to the language of the motion , this is because the Members of Provincial Parliament […]

Silicon Valley’s Fascination With Universal Basic Income

Silicon Valley’s Fascination With Universal Basic Income

I am solely just a little bit embarrassed once I stumble throughout mental interest horses it appears everybody else is speaking about. I am a busy man, and proof on the contrary, I do not spend all my time considering or studying about weighty issues.

I used to be perplexed, then, at Fortune ‘s lately concluded convention in Rome when multiple brainy participant made figuring out references to "common primary revenue." In case, like me, you are not acquainted with it, UBI is a flat cost to a whole inhabitants. The rationale is twofold. First, paying everybody a sure sum […]

Automation is inevitable. Here’s how to make sure we create jobs, not just destroy them.

Automation is inevitable. Here's how to make sure we create jobs, not just destroy them.

In October, Uber-owned Otto announced that it had completed the first commercial driverless truck delivery in Colorado. In November, McDonald’s announced that it was rolling out touchscreen ordering systems nationwide. Now, Amazon is opening a new convenience store with no checkout lines and no cashiers.

Add it all up, and it looks like an apocalyptic future for low-skilled workers. Cashiers and fast food workers are near the top of the government’s list of the jobs that employ the most people in the United States, with 3.3 million and 2.9 million workers working at these jobs, respectively. Truck drivers account for […]

Technology is coming for your retail jobs

Technology is coming for your retail jobs

Amazon recently unveiled a new type of grocery store — one that doesn’t require cashiers at all. Called Amazon Go, the brick-and-mortar location uses sensors and gates to automatically identify what you bought, calculate your total and charge you for your purchases when you leave. It gets rids of pesky long lines in front of cashiers or self-checkout kiosks, but also more or less eradicates the need for checkout counters altogether.

While that’s exciting for loathers of long lines (like me), it also sounds like it could cause a decline in employment, just as automation wiped out millions of manufacturing […]

P.E.I. MLAs effusive in their support for basic-income pilot project

P.E.I. MLAs effusive in their support for basic-income pilot project

The motion to work with the federal government in hopes of setting up a basic-income pilot project on the Island was supported by all parties. (Kerry Campbell/CBC) The P.E.I. Legislature agreed unanimously Tuesday to have the province work with the federal government in hopes of setting up a basic-income pilot project on the Island.

The idea is to guarantee a minimum amount of money in government support each month to those living in poverty.

Green Party Leader Peter Bevan-Baker put forward the motion, which was supported by all parties.Bevan-Baker said a successful pilot project could reduce poverty, improve health and mental […]

In Oakland, people worry that good jobs are out of reach

In Oakland, people worry that good jobs are out of reach

A mural on the wall of a public high school in West Oakland conveys the message "Knowledge is Power."

There’s a lot of talk in Silicon Valley about “basic income,” giving everyone a fixed amount of money to meet basic needs. In a world of precarious work – gig work, part-time and on-demand employment – the idea of a guaranteed minimum income is attracting attention. The tech startup incubator Y Combinator , based in Mountain View, California, is funding a basic income test in Oakland, where the gap between technology haves and have-nots is increasingly visible.

In this once-working […]

Fast Food Automation, an Old Idea, Gets New Life to Bash Fight for 15

Fast Food Automation, an Old Idea, Gets New Life to Bash Fight for 15

Vox‘s Timothy Lee has written this column several times now. Putatively liberal outlet Vox spends a great many column inches trying to stop the national labor movement known as “Fight for 15” from increasing the minimum wage to $15 an hour. Its most frequent writer on the subject, Timothy Lee, is a former adjunct scholar at the libertarian Cato Institute, and is on the record opposing any minimum wage (when debating between $12 and $15, he doesn’t mention that he prefers $0), so it’s entirely predictable he would consistently argue against Fight for 15: “What Bernie Sanders Misses About […]