Tag: consumer

Technology, Automation, and Employment: Will this Time be Different?

Technology, Automation, and Employment: Will this Time be Different?

Technology, Automation, and Employment Western societies have exhibited a continuing worry that automation, particularly automation associated with artificial intelligence, will lead to massive unemployment and the impoverishment of large segments of society. In different epochs, technological change has triggered concerns and social protests. Those concerns date back to the early stages of the industrial revolution and the use of coal-fired weaving machines to automate textile manufacturing, and they continue through to the present-day and adoption of computerized algorithms that “learn” how to automate tasks through the use of data-driven “machine learning.”

In fact, the history of automation affirms that concerns […]

Ethics and automation: What to do when workers are displaced

Ethics and automation: What to do when workers are displaced

As companies embrace automation and artificial intelligence, some jobs will be created or enhanced, but many more are likely to go away. What obligation do organizations have to displaced workers in such situations? Is there an ethical way for business leaders to usher their workforces through digital disruption?

Researchers wrestled with those questions recently at MIT Technology Review’s EmTech Next conference . Their conclusion: Company leaders need to better understand the negative repercussions of the technologies they adopt and commit to building systems that drive economic growth and social cohesion.

Pramod Khargonekar, vice chancellor for research at University of California, Irvine, […]

10 facts about expansion

10 facts about expansion

A man walks in downtown Miami. Ten-straight years of growth. Unemployment at a five-decade low. Higher wages for the poorest workers. The economic expansion that just became America’s longest on record didn’t produce an especially fast pace of growth. It didn’t narrow the vast gap between the wealthiest Americans and everyone else. AP

Ten straight years of growth. Unemployment at a five-decade low. Higher wages for the poorest workers.

The economic expansion that just became America’s longest on record didn’t produce an especially fast pace of growth. It didn’t narrow the vast gap between the wealthiest Americans and everyone […]

Plentiful jobs but slow growth: 10 facts about the expansion

Plentiful jobs but slow growth: 10 facts about the expansion

Ten straight years of growth. Unemployment at a five-decade low. Higher wages for the poorest workers.

The economic expansion that just became America’s longest on record didn’t produce an especially fast pace of growth. It didn’t narrow the vast gap between the wealthiest Americans and everyone else.

But the expansion has lasted so long and it followed such a disastrous recession that it would be easy to overlook how much healthier the economy has become.We’re giving away 4 tickets to The Magic of Taylor Reed , 4 tickets to the Main Street Lake Cruises , and a two night stay at […]

Plentiful jobs but slow growth: 10 facts about the expansion

FILE- In this June 12, 2019, file photo a man walks in downtown Miami. Ten straight years of growth. Unemployment at a five-decade low. Higher wages for the poorest workers. The economic expansion that just became America’s longest on record didn’t produce an especially fast pace of growth. It didn’t narrow the vast gap between the wealthiest Americans and everyone else. (Brynn Anderson, File/Associated Press) WASHINGTON — Ten straight years of growth. Unemployment at a five-decade low. Higher wages for the poorest workers.

The economic expansion that just became America’s longest on record didn’t produce an especially fast pace of […]

‘Fully Automated Luxury Communism’ Author Has a Big Problem With Lettuce

'Fully Automated Luxury Communism' Author Has a Big Problem With Lettuce

Is lettuce slowly killing the planet? For Aaron Bastani, it’s emblematic of humanity’s cavalier approach to markets and the environment.

“Flying a lettuce from North America to Europe, which has zero calories, burning hydrocarbons to do so is really stupid,” Bastani author of the recent Fully Automated Luxury Communism: A Manifesto , said during a Virtual Futures event about his new book.

The author, known among the British left for co-founding Novara Media , caused a stir this month when he penned a New York Times article outlining his post-capitalist vision. New technologies like robots and automation could provide a rich […]

How digital technology could redefine Canada’s economy

How digital technology could redefine Canada’s economy

With foresight, perhaps we can better understand the challenges and opportunities digital technologies present and play a role in shaping our futures.

Digital technologies are changing not only what happens in our economy, they are also changing its fundamental character. At this moment, a 3D printer is producing a human replacement organ using a digital model and the patient’s own cells. As you read this, iron ore is being extracted from a mine in Australia by autonomous machines supervised by a small crew of people more than a thousand kilometres away. While you slept last night, an architectural engineer […]

5 trends defining the future of retail

5 trends defining the future of retail

Shutterstock elenabsl Chinese online retailer JD.com recently launched the first fully automated warehouse, where only four employees are needed to do work that previously required 400. Forty German supermarkets tested using facial recognition technology to serve personalized advertisements to customers waiting in checkout lines. Two hundred ninety companies have committed to ensure 100 percent of their plastic packaging can be reused, recycled or composted by 2025.

As the signals of change above show, retail is changing in complex ways, and the future will look quite different from today. We need to prepare for new challenges — such as job loss […]

Robots might turn out to be great coworkers

Robots might turn out to be great coworkers

In this June 26, 2015, file photo, workers assemble parts next to robot arms at an auto parts manufacture factory in Dafeng city in east China’s Jiangsu province. By Noah Smith / Bloomberg Opinion

The idea that automation will drive up unemployment or drive down wages—in other words, that robots will take people’s jobs—has become almost an article of faith for many Americans.

Everyone can point to instances of automation reducing demand for certain workers. And with so-called artificial intelligence (AI) technology improving rapidly, there’s widespread worry that many humans will simply be made obsolete. News outlets are full of […]

Robots will help people, not replace them

Robots will help people, not replace them

The idea that automation will drive up unemployment or drive down wages — in other words, that robots will take people’s jobs — has become almost an article of faith for many Americans.

Everyone can point to instances of automation reducing demand for certain workers. And with so-called artificial intelligence technology improving rapidly, there’s widespread worry that many humans will simply be made obsolete. News outlets are full of eye-grabbing forecasts of the percentage of jobs that will be replaced.

But those estimates are little more than guesswork. The truth is, nobody knows how many jobs will be replaced by automation, […]