Tag: academic

New minimum wage for horticulture workers marks a new phase for the industry

New minimum wage for horticulture workers marks a new phase for the industry

Source: Josh Hild/Pexels The timing is perfect for an economist. The horticulture industry is getting a new $25 per hour minimum wage thanks to a decision by the Fair Work Commission. The ruling, handed down earlier this month, comes just three weeks after the Nobel Prize in economics was awarded to David Card for his research about the impact of minimum wages on employment.

The impact of academic economics on the real world should not be underestimated. Card found, to the surprise of most economists, that raising minimum wages did not reduce employment nor increase unemployment.

Card can feel deeply intellectually […]

I don’t care, just tell me the answer!

I don't care, just tell me the answer!

Arashanapalli investigates how the expansion of technology has impacted our education system and the psyches of students. When it comes to technology and education, our preexisting negligence has been aggravated due to the onset of COVID-19. Students are reliant on their devices more than themselves and acquaint their identities in the grades they are compelled to work after. The precarious handling under the educational system drives students into an abyss of burnout and hollowed dignity.

In today’s fast-paced society, there has never been a greater demand for the speed of information access and retrieval. When it comes to needing a […]

Automatons of the world unite!

Automatons of the world unite!

In 1917, in the same month of the Russian Revolution that swept Lenin’s Bolsheviks to power in Petrograd, the New Statesman ’s founders, Sidney and Beatrice Webb,drafted Clause IV of the Labour Party’s constitution. According to the clause, the aim of the Party would be “to secure for the workers by hand or by brain the full fruits of their industry and the most equitable distribution thereof that may be possible upon the basis of the common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange and the best obtainable system of popular administration and control of each industry […]

Book of the week: The Story of Work by Jan Lucassen

Book of the week: The Story of Work by Jan Lucassen

The Story of Work by Jan Lucassen Fittingly, a vast amount of labour has gone into this book, said Christina Patterson in The Guardian . In it, Jan Lucassen, a Dutch historian, sets out to “chronicle the history of human work, from our first strides as Homo sapiens 700,000 years ago to the rise of the robot now”.

He begins his account in the hunter-gatherer period – which accounts for 98% of human history. Although less blissful than is often supposed (stalking mammoths was no picnic), hunter-gatherer societies were more egalitarian and cooperative than any that have existed since.

Around 12,000 […]

The AI road not taken

The AI road not taken

Does this have to be the way? Artificial intelligence was supposed to boost productivity and create better futures in medicine, transportation, and workplaces. Instead, AI research and development has focused on only a few sectors, ones that are having a net negative impact for humanity, MIT economistargues in “ Redesigning AI ,” a Boston Review book.

“Our current trajectory automates work to an excessive degree while refusing to invest in human productivity; further advances will displace workers and fail to create new opportunities,” Acemoglu writes. AI also threatens “democracy and individual freedoms,” he writes.

“Government involvement, norms shifting, and democratic oversight” […]

Sustaining manufacturing sector

Sustaining manufacturing sector

The manufacturing sector currently contributes 17 per cent of the value added to the country’s GDP as well as 90 per cent of exports. However, as is well-known, low-skilled and labour-intensive segment in the manufacturing sector still plays a significant part in the economic wellbeing of Bangladesh. Although only about 15 per cent of the country’s employment comes from this sector, it has made significant contribution towards bringing women into the labour force and is generating employment opportunities in an economy where large segments of workers remain self-employed. In fact, almost half of urban working women below the age […]

Are schools preparing students for the real world of today’s workforce?

Are schools preparing students for the real world of today’s workforce?

Although education is important, it is not the same as a working environment. Education equips people to learn and adjust, whereas training prepares them to work. The education system is failing to educate kids with the required skills as technology changes the labor market and solid middle-class jobs vanish.

An expert from education site Authority.org says that throughout colleges, students and faculty express similar concerns, presenting a picture of a secondary education system failing to keep up with the demands of the workplace.

There is a gap between what individuals expect they will require and what they have been taught in […]

How William Shockley’s Robot Dream Helped Launch Silicon Valley

How William Shockley’s Robot Dream Helped Launch Silicon Valley

The physicist envisioned robots replacing human workers

Photo: Robert W. Kelley/Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images Robot Dreamer: The physicist William Shockley [shown in a 1963 photo] had many interesting ideas during his long career but perhaps none quite so sci-fi as his vision of a robotic workforce that would replace humans on factory floors and in the home. His passion for robotics and automation would form the backdrop for his decision to leave a successful career at Bell Labs and strike out for the West Coast. There, in 1955, he founded the first silicon electronics lab of what would […]

Should Robots Pay Taxes?

Should Robots Pay Taxes?

In June 2021, we started considering the provocatively titled podcast transcript, “Can a Robot Be Arrested? Hold a Patent? Pay Income Taxes?”, posted on the IEEE Spectrum site . Steven Cherry interviewed Ryan Abbott, physician, lawyer, and professor, about these topics and referencing his 2019 book, The Reasonable Robot: Artificial Intelligence and the Law . We’ve discussed whether artificial intelligence (AI) systems could be charged with crimes or can hold a patent. Whether “robots should pay taxes” turns out to be the scariest question yet.

Touching upon the subject only lightly in the podcast, Abbott details the problem of taxing […]

Humane Work

Humane Work

Photo by Maxim Hopman The promise of the Bible is that Christ, the true-human, is making us fully and finally human again. This future reality must significantly and consequently inform all human activity. However, automation in the workplace is a primary, present threat to human dignity in the West. Robots, artificial intelligence, and machine learning replaced four million jobs in six 2016 swing states, all states won by President Trump.¹

As automation continues to play a role in the American economy, several factors must be considered in order to develop a theology of technology in the workplace. Rather than accepting […]