Tag: consumption

Future-proofing the youth to develop skills for a new age

Future-proofing the youth to develop skills for a new age

A man and a woman interact with a robot during Gitex Technology Week at Dubai World Trade Centre. New techhnology is expected to take away some jobs currently carried out by humans, but create others. Reem Mohammed / The National As digitalisation continues to grow in significance in more aspects of our daily lives, young people will need to develop a skillset that not only enables them to handle smart technologies but also equips them to adapt to the ever-changing demands of the workplace of the future

We stand at the cusp of a digital revolution and when we cross […]

Automation and the working class

Automation and the working class

Difference engine According to one account in 2013, 47% of jobs in the USA risk being automated away within “a decade or two”.[1] That prospect has been interpreted as utopia or as dystopia. The near future will be one of networked individuals freed from drudgery by automation, and able easily to get what they want to consume and to undermine all hierarchies. Or: only a techno-elite will retain employment and wages. The rest of us will be reduced to a new pauper class vegetating on “universal basic income” handouts.

Further research has queried the projections. Many tasks can be automated, […]

Automation: A guide for policymakers

Automation: A guide for policymakers

Introduction:

Advancing technologies are increasingly able to fully or partially automate job tasks. These technologies range from robotics to machine learning and other forms of artificial intelligence, and are being adopted across many sectors of the economy. Applications range from selecting job applicants for interviewing, picking orders in a warehouse, interpreting X-rays to diagnose disease, and automated customer service. These developments have raised concern that workers are being displaced by advancing automation technology. Indeed, over 18 recent studies predict job losses from new automation technologies, including some predictions of massive job losses (Winick 2018). A large literature on […]

The federal government’s foresight agency has identified five game-changing trends related to technology that could change the future of work.

The federal government’s foresight agency has identified five game-changing trends related to technology that could change the future of work.

The head of the federal government’s foresight agency says identifying the skills that workers will need in the future, as jobs rapidly change or disappear completely, is one of the toughest challenges policy-makers have in front of them.

Kristel Van der Elst, executive head of Policy Horizons, said artificial intelligence and automation’s impact on the nature of work is an issue confounding researchers and governments around the world.

“We have an idea, but what (skills) are actually needed is the biggest question,” said Van der Elst, who is also the CEO of the Global Foresight Group.“A lot of organizations are struggling […]

Economic Possibilities for Ourselves

Economic Possibilities for Ourselves

21 November 2019, Hamburg: A robot interacts with a woman at “Speed Dating with AI – Meet the Robots at AI Days” at the Hammerbrooklyn Digital Campus. On 22 and 23 November, a selection of highly developed robots from various fields will be shown, giving an insight into the current possibilities of artificial intelligence. Photo: Axel Heimken/dpa (Photo by Axel Heimken/picture alliance via Getty Images)

The most depressing feature of the current explosion in robot-apocalypse literature is that it rarely transcends the world of work. Almost every day, news articles appear detailing some new round of layoffs. In the […]

The 2020s are set to be an economic turning point, says global banking giant

The 2020s are set to be an economic turning point, says global banking giant

Bank of America Merrill Lynch says inequality will peak amid the rise of "moral capitalism". The 2020s are set to be a decade of dramatic economic and social upheaval, reversing many of the trends of the past 40 years, according to one of the world’s largest banks. Bank of America Merrill Lynch says the era of globalisation from 1981-2016 has ended and is reversing

The bank’s analysts expect inflation and interest rates to increase from their current 5,000-year lows

The bank is expecting wealth inequality to fall next decade as voters demand redistribution and taxes rise In what it […]

Robots, automation and AI, oh my!

Robots, automation and AI, oh my!

Last month, participants in Columbus VC firm Drive Capital’s second robotics and automation summit spent the day exploring the future.

Whether it was robots that deliver packages, using ant colonies to inspire a redesign of supply chain, or software that simplifies industrial robot programming, those attending Devol’s Dance — including startup founders, executives, investors and thought leaders — shared ideas about the world we’re shaping.

Drive Capital Partner Chris Olsen says he remembers the days of technology investing, where as part of due diligence, you looked in server rooms to see how they racked and stacked their hardware.“Then you could get […]

Voting for policy and candidates in elections

What if I were to tell you that every month, Americans 18 and over could receive $1,000 per month for the rest of their lives with no strings or gimmicks attached? This policy known as Universal Basic Income (UBI) is essentially a price floor that guarantees every American citizen over 18, a fixed amount per month regardless of your income or employment status.
You may think it sounds nice and wonder why no one has ever mentioned previously mentioned it; however, UBI isn’t a completely foreign concept in U.S. history. Back in the 1960s, UBI gained traction passing through […]

Automation and AI: Implications for African Development Prospects?

Automation and AI: Implications for African Development Prospects?

Introduction

Now that computers are capable of taking the jobs that require brain as well as brawn, it may appear there is little left for humans to do. There are many scary forecasts of the capacity of automation and AI to replace a lot of workers very fast. Self-driving vehicles may wipe out opportunities for taxi drivers and truckers, for example. Brynjolfsson, Rock, and Syverson note there are 3.5 million people employed driving vehicles in the US. If automation reduced that to 1.5 million, that alone would increase total US labor productivity by 1.7 percent, [1] but it would […]

Leaders Need To Embrace The Digitized Future Of Work, Not Fear

Leaders Need To Embrace The Digitized Future Of Work, Not Fear

The machines are coming for our jobs. This is a dystopian vision of the future of work popularized by the media and perpetuated in boardrooms across the globe.

South Africa is not immune from this misperception and here it has created a climate of fear and paralysis. Leaders, both civic and corporate, hesitate to encourage and incentivise the very digitalization needed to sustain and grow our economies out of a misguided fear of job losses and the ensuing civil backlash.

Ironically, the exact efforts to protect jobs from technology may end up being the biggest cause of job losses in the […]