Tag: consumption

Robots to the Rescue—of Manufacturing

Robots to the Rescue—of Manufacturing

It’s mostly accepted wisdom in policy circles: automation means that manufacturing employment is destined to follow the historical example of farm work, becoming a negligible share of the U.S. workforce. Even those who embrace the Trump administration’s efforts to “onshore” factories say that we should be “honest about the facts,” especially to those Americans still out of work. The erudite Ben Sasse, a senator with a Ph.D. in history, has called the transformation an “irreversible trend.”

On the other hand, the latest Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data show that over the past 12 months, industrial domains created twice as […]

Job growth is on the rise, but who’s getting hired? Mary Meeker Report 2018

Job growth is on the rise, but who’s getting hired? Mary Meeker Report 2018

Employment and careers highlights from Mary Meeker’s annual Internet Trends Report covering transport, the on-demand economy, shifts in work-life values and the inevitable robot apocalypse.

Although the statistics from Mary Meeker’s Internet Trends Report are largely sourced from the US, trends seem to be reflective of an overall global net positive. The Report focused on the effects of technology and on-demand work platforms – Uber, Etsy, Waze and Airbnb – on the labour market. It’s mostly looking good, the robots aren’t taking over. Yet.

In her presentation at the Rancho Palos Verdes, California, Code Conference; Meeker touched on the […]

Rage against the machine

Rage against the machine

“I visualize a time when we will be to robots what dogs are to humans”, said Claude Shannon, the father of information theory, in an interview to Omni Magazine in 1987. From Alan Turing to Stephen Hawking, many renowned scientists and thinkers have shared a similar concern. But at this juncture of history, automation is helping a few powerful individuals to see humans as pets.

Whether machines will be able to take control of humans in the future is debatable. But these bots are definitely eating up our jobs. In the oil and gas sector alone, profits have risen tenfold […]

AI and Automation in HR: Impact, Adoption and Future Workforce

AI and Automation in HR: Impact, Adoption and Future Workforce

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Artificial intelligence (AI) has been changing our lives for decades, but today its presence is bigger than ever before. Sometimes, we don’t even realize it when a new AI-powered system, tool, or product appears and outperforms us, humans. In fact, AI is affecting human life on all kinds of levels varying from: The automation of tedious, time-consuming tasks to;

The augmentation of human capabilities and; The amplification of human functions. “While most of the use of this AI technology is still elementary at the moment, it is radically transforming […]

To ‘Protect’ Workers, World Bank Calls for Eliminating Minimum Wage, Giving Employers More Power

To 'Protect' Workers, World Bank Calls for Eliminating Minimum Wage, Giving Employers More Power

"Burdensome regulations also make it more expensive for firms to rearrange their workforce to accommodate changing technologies," the report noted.

In a major blow to labor rights, the World Bank in its annual flagship report, World Development Report, has called for the credit-states or "poor countries" to have fewer workers’ regulations, like eliminating a requirement for minimum wage, allowing the employers to fire workers without cause, and repealing laws limiting abusive employment contract terms.

The World Bank Report makes urgent policy recommendations to governments, and in its working draft it raised concerns over the growing use of artificial intelligence, […]

World Bank recommends fewer regulations protecting workers

World Bank recommends fewer regulations protecting workers

The World Bank is proposing lower minimum wages and greater hiring and firing powers for employers as part of a wide-ranging deregulation of labour markets deemed necessary to prepare countries for the changing nature of work.

A working draft of the bank’s flagship World Development Report – which will urge policy action from governments when it comes out in the autumn – says less “burdensome” regulations are needed so that firms can hire workers at lower cost. The controversial recommendations, which are aimed mainly at developing countries, have alarmed groups representing labour, which say they have so far been frozen […]

Guest Post — Perspectives on Automation and Employment

Guest Post -- Perspectives on Automation and Employment

Automation will have a global impact like nothing else we have ever seen. This is not to say that it is altogether a new idea. Decades ago, science minded dreamers from around the globe would paint philosophical dreamscapes that relayed a world built on the backs of human ingenuity. Starting in the early 20th century, automation introduced itself to the world in the form of massive materials factories that could speed up the productivity of workers and create form perfect products for mass consumption. These behemoths of the old world have become standard and ingrained into our minds […]

When technology takes over jobs

HARARE – The old photographer, with an incredible little mop of fringe, grey-white hair around his balding, mottled scalp sits solo on a bench in the vast Harare Gardens Park.

He has the resigned look of one who knows that at his age life has stopped giving and only takes away.

But the rate at which life has been taking away even his profession of over four decades has been merciless and brutal.“Photography does not pay any more these days. These new technologies have taken our professions away,” he says, referring to how new technological advancements have ruined his otherwise lucrative […]

Laboratory Grown Meat

Aim

Process

FocusThis Summer Research Scholarship was dedicated to analysing what the public sector could look like in 2035, in order for the IRD and related agencies to plan and prepare.To identify what the public sector could look like in 2035, things that had the capacity to change the public landscape (i.e. drivers of change) were identified and researched. Nine key drivers were analysed. The most significant driver and topic of this poster was Disruptive Technology. Two questions were asked of the research: Firstly, what is happening with this driver? And more specifically, so what does this mean for the IRD […]

Watching Washington, April 2018: Steep tariffs harm rails, wallets

Watching Washington, April 2018: Steep tariffs harm rails, wallets

Capitol Hill Contributing Editor Frank N. Wilner Debates rage over the wisdom of steeper tariffs on U.S. imports and/or withdrawing from global trade pacts in hopes of protecting domestic industry and jobs. History teaches such actions pose economic and national security risks.

Consider the 1930 Smoot-Hawley Tariff imposing steep imposts on some 20,000 imported goods. Consensus among economists and historians is that a resulting global trade war deepened and lengthened our Great Depression (retaliatory tariffs reduced American exports by 61%) and contributed to the rise of Nazi Germany by intensifying nationalist animosities.

Here are how the benefits of global trade […]