Tag: consumer

Facebook touts AI benefits as job risks loom

Facebook touts AI benefits as job risks loom

Silicon Valley is training computers to see, hear and speak. ThinkStock by Jessica Guynn

Silicon Valley is training computers to see, hear and speak and cars and trucks to drive themselves.

Some people aren’t so sure how they feel about this new wave of artificial intelligence that summons fears of Terminator-like sentient machines. So Facebook is trying to dispel some of the pop-culture myths with a series of six instructional videos that attempt to explain this complex field of computer science."I think the more open we can be about it and the more we can demystify and explain how it actually […]

Maybe robots aren’t the enemy, as jobs and economy surge: Don Pittis

Maybe robots aren't the enemy, as jobs and economy surge: Don Pittis

Man’s best friend challenges the worker’s worst enemy, but even as robots improve, employment figures seem to indicate there are still plenty of jobs left for humans. Whether they are good jobs is the question. (Boston Dynamics) If the robot revolution is supposed to take away all the jobs, why is unemployment falling?

We’ll get more information this morning as jobless data comes out here and in the United States. But improving employment figures, especially in the U.S., seem to indicate, at this point anyway, that robots haven’t succeeded yet in putting us out of work.

That doesn’t mean warnings about […]

Fear of jobless future?

Fear of jobless future?

IT sector may lose 6.4 lakh “low-skilled” jobs to automation by 2021 The World Bank has recently released a report which underscores the threat awaiting India and other emerging economies from the onslaught of automation.

It says that 69 per cent of jobs in India and 77 per cent in China are under threat. Bangladesh, Malaysia, Nepal, and Thailand are also reported to be in the same boat. The biggest risk is faced by routine jobs like those of clerks, in which humans can be replaced easily by computer software.

India’s unemployment, according to the Census of 2011, increased from 6.8 […]

Facebook touts AI benefits as job risks loom

Facebook touts AI benefits as job risks loom

SAN FRANCISCO — In Silicon Valley, technology leaders are training computers to see, hear and speak and cars and trucks to drive themselves.

Some people aren’t so sure how they feel about this new wave of artificial intelligence that summons fears of Terminator-like sentient machines. So Facebook is trying to dispel some of the pop-culture myths about AI with a series of six instructional videos that attempt to explain this complex field of computer science.

Whether searching on your smartphone for a good place to eat or trying to avoid traffic on the commute home, Facebook says you are already using […]

Confusion about job creation is obscuring America’s productivity crisis

Confusion about job creation is obscuring America's productivity crisis

Robots work on a new Volkswagen Crafter production line at the newly opened Volkswagen factory in Wrzesnia near Poznan, Poland, in September. There is perhaps no other topic in economics that is more prone to illogical thinking than job creation. It is a wellspring of hysterical nonsense.

Let’s start with the canard that technology and automation kill jobs. Notwithstanding the fact that US productivity growth rates are at an all-time low, a growing chorus blames technology for killing our jobs. Writing in The New Yorker, NYU professor Gary Marcus alleges that, “as machines continue to get smarter, cheaper, and more […]

Welcome to the future of work

Welcome to the future of work

Brooks Rainwater is the director of the Center for City Solutions and Applied Research at the National League of Cities .

How to join the network

Nicole DuPuis is the senior associate for infrastructure at the Center for City Solutions and Applied Research at the National League of Cities How to join the network With advances in information technology, robotics, and artificial intelligence developing at a rapid rate, workforce dislocations are happening now and are here to stay. As existing trends accelerate and irreversibly change the workforce as we know it, the question to be answered is–what will […]

Divide and Automate

Divide and Automate

Illustration by Lydia Wojack-West

As a species, we are poised at the brink of a transformation unlike any before.

The ancestor of this coming metamorphosis was not political or philosophical in nature; it did not emerge from the ashes of the American Revolution or the Bolshevik’s, nor did it germinate from the teachings of Jesus, Buddha or Muhammad. The predecessor to the singularity we so boldly march toward was something far more primordial, far more tangible. It was industrial.The last three industrial revolutions transformed the fabric of human civilization: The first, borne of steam and coal, powered newly invented […]

How Robots Are Changing Minnesota’s Workforce

How Robots Are Changing Minnesota's Workforce

Photo by Ibrahim Hirsi/MinnPost Baxter, a two-armed robot, has been with Atlas Manufacturing for more than a year, performing tasks that would otherwise require two human operators. Atlas Manufacturing is just one of a growing number of places in Minnesota and across the country where automation is quickly and radically transforming the labor market.

On the main floor of Minneapolis-based Atlas Manufacturing, Baxter is hard at work: She places metal pieces on a giant machine in a process that bends and punches parts before picking up the pieces and carefully arranging them on a nearby counter.

It’s a repetitive task, […]

Robots vs humans? AI and the future of the workplace

Robots vs humans? AI and the future of the workplace

TV series "Humans" shows robots taking over simple human tasks Photo: Channel 4 As more work becomes automated, jobs will be lost but also created. How can HR respond to the changes in the workplace that artificial intelligence brings, and build the right skills and culture to make the most of them?

Robots. Siri. Image recognition software. Thinking machines. Over the last decade, the types and definitions of Artificial Intelligence (AI) have ranged across a wide spectrum. A future of smart homes and smart cars, driven by AI, is no longer a distant reality.

This future poses questions to businesses; […]

Trump is right to ditch TPP. How about the WTO next?

Trump is right to ditch TPP. How about the WTO next?

President-elect Donald Trump faces heavy pressure from the establishment to abandon his campaign promises on trade policy. His announcement on Monday saying that he would pull out of President Obama’s Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) on his first day in office shows that he’s not giving in – and for the sake of a healthy economy he must stand his ground.

Tune into Worldwide Exchange on Wednesday Nov. 23 at 5:15 am when Alan Tonelson will make a guest appearance.

Trade supporters are employing arguments that have repulsed challengers for decades, at least in the halls of government: that the string […]