Tag: academic

Many SC jobs will be lost to robots. Is yours safe?

Many SC jobs will be lost to robots. Is yours safe?

Columbia’s “mom-and-pop hippie shop” has kept its doors open for more than two decades because it offers customers something online shopping and self-checkout kiosks can’t.

“We offer a human interaction,” James “Don” McCallister said Tuesday from his Five Points boutique, Loose Lucy’s. The polychromatic portal to the past offers tie-dyed clothing, tapestries, Grateful Dead posters and jewelry — all set against a classic rock soundtrack and the pervasive smell of incense.

“There is no reason people can’t get any of this stuff online.”McCallister is confident that he and his employees are safe, for now, from automation eliminating their jobs. Loyal customers […]

Experts Forecast Promising Future for Women in Era of AI

An artificial intelligence (AI) startup has used machine learning to scan scientific research and news stories in order to identify prominent scientists without any personal entry on Wikipedia, and found that many of them are women.

Researcher Jessica Wade, a physicist at Imperial College London in the UK, said Wikipedia presents an incredible gender bias, as 82 percent of biographies on its website are about men.

However, with the help of AI, this bias is decreasing and the information of female scientists will gradually be refined.The emerging technology of AI has gradually penetrated into all aspects of people’s lives, and caught […]

Rest Easy, Sort of: AI Will Create More Jobs Than It Destroys

Rest Easy, Sort of: AI Will Create More Jobs Than It Destroys

Artificial intelligence, robotics and the fourth industrial revolution are setting the stage for a massive, global expansion in job creation, according to a new report released by the World Economic Forum .

Entitled “ The Future of Jobs ”, the report predicts that although the new technology will wipe out 75 million jobs worldwide by 2022, 133 million new jobs will be created in their place. The Swiss organization behind the annual agenda-setting Davos summit claims that on the whole, the robot revolution will by far deliver a net positive contribution to employment. Smooth Sailing or Storms Ahead?

The […]

Automation in a low-wage country

Automation in a low-wage country

Robots are common in car production: VW production line in Puebla, Mexico. © Lossie/picture-alliance/dpa

Evermore industrial robots are being used in Mexico, where the potential for automation is great. To what extent robots will really replace low-wage labour remains to be seen however.

Mexico has historically been a low-wage economy. In the past, the USA’s southern neighbour mostly attracted foreign investors with low production costs which basically resulted from cheap labour. Among the members of the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development), a club of advanced economies, Mexico has the lowest minimum wage. It is a mere 88.36 pesos per […]

The jobs that are set to dissapear in Australia

The jobs that are set to dissapear in Australia

A MAJOR inquiry into the future of work in Australia has revealed the type of job that won’t be around much longer and what skills you will need. AT THE start of the twentieth century, almost a quarter of the Australian population worked in the agricultural sector. Today, that fraction is under 3 per cent.

Australia’s economy is now heavily reliant on the services sector, which represents more than 70 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) and employs four out of five Australians.

With a changing global economy and massive technology disruption, the future of the Australian workforce and the […]

‘There will be massive job disruption’: What the future of work looks like

‘There will be massive job disruption’: What the future of work looks like

worked in the agricultural sector. Today, that fraction is under 3 per cent.

Australia’s economy is now heavily reliant on the services sector, which represents more than 70 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) and employs four out of five Australians.

With a changing global economy and massive technology disruption, the future of the Australian workforce and the type of jobs that are available will continue to change.“The pace of change is increasing and the countries that manage this change and get out ahead of it will be the real winners,” Queensland Labor Senator Murray Watt told news.com.au.Senator Watt is […]

Report: Machines will handle 50% of workplace tasks within 7 years

LONDON (Bloomberg) — Machines and automated software will be handling fully half of all workplace tasks within seven years, a new report from the World Economic Forum forecasts. But the group said technologies such as artificial intelligence, robotics, and precision medicine, could create more jobs than they threaten.

In a study of executives and specialists across 12 industries, published Monday, the WEF concluded that this so-called Fourth Industrial Revolution could create 133 million jobs globally, while 75 million workers may be displaced.

Saadia Zahidi, head of the WEF’s Center for the New Economy and Society, said companies had “a moral and […]

25,000 robots and counting: Welcome to the fastest-growing segment of industrial automation

25,000 robots and counting: Welcome to the fastest-growing segment of industrial automation

Collaborative robots, usually called cobots , are now the fastest growing segment of industrial automation and are expected to make up 34% of all industrial robot sales (a ten-fold increase) by 2025. Universal Robots (UR), the company that helped pioneer the market — one that was largely nonexistent a decade ago — just announced its 25,000th cobot sale.

The news coincides with the start of the International Manufacturing Technology Show ( IMTS ), which began today.

Universal Robots has a 60 percent share of the cobot market, but rapid maturity in the sector has attracted plenty of rivals. In a topsy […]

Robots ‘could make 400,000 West Yorkshire jobs obsolete in 20 years’, says report

Robots 'could make 400,000 West Yorkshire jobs obsolete in 20 years', says report

The study suggested the changes will not necessarily mean a loss of jobs overall, but warned inequality could get worse. Robots and automated technology threaten to make more than a third of jobs in West Yorkshire obsolete within 20 years, a report has warned.

The West Yorkshire Combined Authority study said more than 400,000 jobs in the region are at risk, with low-skilled and manual work potentially worst affected by automation.

The study suggested the changes will not necessarily mean a loss of jobs overall, but warned inequality could get worse as “lower paid workers (are) likely to be […]

Automation, robots and the ‘end of work’ myth

Automation, robots and the ‘end of work’ myth

Can you imagine travelling to work in a robotic “Jonnycab” like the one predicted in the cult Arnold Schwarzenegger movie Total Recall? The image from 1990 is based on science fiction, but Mercedes Benz does have a semi-autonomous Driver Pilot system that it aims to install in the next five years and Uber is also waging on a self-driving future. Its partnership with Volvo has been seen as a boost to its ambitions to replace a fleet of self-employed drivers with autonomous vehicles.

Jonnycab might belong to futurology but if MIT academics Erik Brynjolfson and Andrew McAfee are right, we […]