Tag: academic

AI won’t replace humans, just like computers didn’t

Experts are confident that artificial intelligence will operate hand in hand with humans in the workplace, not take their jobs.

With everything else that’s been going on in our busy lives, it’s been easy for humans to forget about the oncoming technological storm. As automation creeps into factories, workplaces and homes, artificial intelligence is making itself part of day-to-day life in numerous industries. Already deployed in devices used by three-quarters of global consumers, self-learning machines are observing the way we live, and copying the way we complete tasks.

In many ways, we’re already letting the machines take over…Should we fear this […]

Helping today’s students to become tomorrow’s thriving employees

Helping today’s students to become tomorrow’s thriving employees

FOR most people, the year 2028 is very distant. But when you consider that 18 years have already passed since the prospect of a new millennium had the world in a panic over what would happen to their computers and data, the next 10 years are sure to fly by at a similarly eye-watering pace.

Although the number of days a year is constant, the pace at which the world changes every day is guaranteed to keep accelerating. And although it’s possible that predictions of driverless cars, wearable cellphones and voice-controlled appliances will have become reality by 2028, the one […]

Inclusive Growth? The Unequal Contribution of Globalisation and Automation to Local Jobs

Inclusive Growth? The Unequal Contribution of Globalisation and Automation to Local Jobs

Photo by Remy Gieling on Unsplash Welcome to REDI-Updates. REDI-Updates is a bi-annual publication which will get behind the data and translate it into understandable terms. WM REDI staff and guest contributors will discuss various topics, with this first publication focusing on how inclusive growth can be a tool to tackle regional imbalances across the UK. In this article, Dr Raquel Ortega-Argiles and Nikolaos Terzidis discuss some of the factors behind the declining employment of low skill workers compared to high skilled workers and uneven wage growth across different skill groups.

In recent decades, employment restructuring in the industrialised […]

Will a Robot Take Your Job? It’s a Matter of Adaptability, Researchers Say

Will a Robot Take Your Job? It’s a Matter of Adaptability, Researchers Say

Technology Increasing automation will likely hit people with limited skill sets the hardest. “Robot-proof” jobs will likely require greater education, interpersonal skills and adaptability.

As many offices and factory floors sit empty during the pandemic, the picture of these human-free facilities makes it easy to imagine those spaces filling up with robotic replacements.

If that were to happen, it’s not clear when: Some reports claim that up to half of all jobs in the U.S. are at risk of being automated, and the pivot might come in just a few years or decades from now . But when thinking about […]

Robots and the gender pay gap in Europe

Robots and the gender pay gap in Europe

Robotics and automation. Whilst robotization can benefit a number of industries and occupations, it also has the ability to worsen pay disparities between men and women.

Men in medium and high-skilled occupations disproportionately benefit from robotization when compared to other demographics.

It is vital governments increase their efforts to equip women and men equally with the skills most relevant for future employment, write three economists. Recent advances in automation and their implications for the economy and society are central issues in global policy and academic debates (see Baldwin 2019, Klenert et al. 2020). Despite the comprehensive examination of the […]

What do AI users really think it’s capable of?

What do AI users really think it's capable of?

(Image credit: Shutterstock / Ryzhi)

It’s safe to say we’ve been distracted for the last few years. While a tumultuous political, social and economic landscape has seized Britain, in the background a technological revolution has been taking place. No longer a futuristic concept, artificial intelligence (AI) is making its way into our lives right now.

Self-learning machines are already found in devices and cloud services used by three in four global consumers. They’re also dictating which media we consume, how we communicate with each other and what our jobs entail. Could human intelligence soon be replaced?Perhaps not. There are a […]

This is the effect robotics is having on the gender pay gap across Europe

This is the effect robotics is having on the gender pay gap across Europe

Robotics and automation. Whilst robotization can benefit a number of industries and occupations, it also has the ability to worsen pay disparities between men and women.

Men in medium and high-skilled occupations disproportionately benefit from robotization when compared to other demographics.

It is vital governments increase their efforts to equip women and men equally with the skills most relevant for future employment, write three economists. Recent advances in automation and their implications for the economy and society are central issues in global policy and academic debates (see Baldwin 2019, Klenert et al. 2020). Despite the comprehensive examination of the […]

3 Reasons Why a University Degree is a Mere Waste of Money and Time

3 Reasons Why a University Degree is a Mere Waste of Money and Time

Why a University Degree Is A Waste of Money In The Modern Age A destitute man trudges along a street in the Zimbabwean capital Harare, pulling a home-made cart loaded with scrap metal to sell. He is a university graduate. 32-year-old Hillary Mbedzi(not real name) holds a degree in Sociology, but eight years after he graduated, he still has no formal job. “My degree is just a worthless paper. It has not helped me to find employment,” Mbedzi says.

Growing up in Zimbabwe, one of the biggest lessons you are taught by your parents is to go to school, take […]

The macroeconomic effects of automation and the role of COVID-19 in reinforcing their dynamics

The macroeconomic effects of automation and the role of COVID-19 in reinforcing their dynamics

Over the last decade, automation has increasingly been adopted as a full substitution of capital for labour—as opposed to a standard form of labour-augmenting technological change. Figure 1 illustrates this trend, charting the stock of operative industrial robots worldwide over time, based on International Federation of Robotics data (IFR 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019). The number of industrial robots increased by factor of three over the course of a decade, rising from a little over one million operative units in 2010 to a projected 3.15 million units in 2020. Over the same time, robots reportedly became capable of substituting for, […]

Michael Crow: crisis should herald cooperation and differentiation

Michael Crow: crisis should herald cooperation and differentiation

The coronavirus pandemic has caused widespread disruption to higher education across the globe. But for Michael Crow, regarded as one of the most reform-minded university presidents in the US, it is just one of many shocks that the sector must come to terms with.

“Covid is just a sign of global complexity, a sign of global interconnectedness,” said Professor Crow, president of Arizona State University , which will next month be hosting a virtual conference on online education with Times Higher Education as a partner. “It’s a shock, a negative shock, but there are also other shocks that will be […]