Tag: consumption

Automation will not lead to fewer jobs – but it is hollowing out the middle class

Automation will not lead to fewer jobs – but it is hollowing out the middle class

Throughout modern history there has been a recurrent fear that jobs will be destroyed by technology. Everybody knows the story of the Luddites, bands of workers who smashed up machinery in the textile industry in the second decade of the 19th century.

The Luddites were wrong. There has been wave after wave of technological advance since the first Industrial Revolution, and yet more people are working than ever before. Jobs have certainly been destroyed. Banks, for example, no longer employ clerks to log every transaction in ledgers with quill pens. At this time of year, 150 years ago, the fields […]

Minimum Wage Hikes and Automation Risks

Minimum Wage Hikes and Automation Risks

A couple years ago, I wrote , Other studies show that an increased minimum wage causes firms to incrementally move toward automation. Now, this too could be seen as a trade-off: automation and technological progress tend to make processes more efficient and therefore increase productivity (and eventually wages ), raising living standards for consumers (which include the poor). Nonetheless, the point is that while unemployment in the short-term may be insignificant, the long-term effects could be much bigger. For example, one study finds that minimum wage hikes lead to lower rates of job growth: about 0.05 percentage points a […]

Labour force concerns over rise of robots in Asia

Labour force concerns over rise of robots in Asia

Young engineer using a tablet computer to control an automated robot machine in an Asian industrial factory | Zapp2Photo/Shutterstock The old question of whether China would “get old before it becomes rich” is being superseded by an even more pressing calculation.

Will Asian workers become obsolete before they get worthwhile jobs?

Robotics, automation and artificial intelligence are making industrial manufacturing jobs redundant, and with them the classic road map of how a developing economy progresses from peasant agriculture to a self-sustaining, middle class state.The conundrum is an immediate concern in India, which is beginning to embrace manufacturing in the way China […]

A new urban economic agenda: how to localise, socialise, and democratise the economy

A new urban economic agenda: how to localise, socialise, and democratise the economy

There are sensible ways through which we can reorganise the UK economy, argues Neil McInroy . He explains how a new urban economic agenda can be implemented and how it can help build a more socially just future.

All things must pass and the dominant urban economic model of the last few years is starting to creak, and a new progressive agenda is threatening to replace it. At its core is a rejection of liberal economics, a questioning of urban economic policy, and a desire to reorganise our city economies: social justice and environmental sustainability are not just hopes […]

Driverless cars and trucks don’t mean mass unemployment—they mean new kinds of jobs

Driverless cars and trucks don’t mean mass unemployment—they mean new kinds of jobs

As business leaders who work with scores of senior leaders across the private and public sectors, the topic of automation and its implications for workers is inescapable—and often anxiety-inducing. Understandably so. Technology and social changes are poised to reshape nearly every aspect of what and how work gets done, and by whom. When we speak and write on this topic , the audience response is usually intense and ranges from excitement to deep anxiety.

Our response to these fears is two-fold.

First, the details matter—a lot. While every industry will likely be impacted, the nature of those impacts may vary considerably. […]

Artificial Intelligence Will Widen The Gap Between Rich And Poor

Artificial Intelligence Will Widen The Gap Between Rich And Poor

BEIJING, CHINA – APRIL 14: An Ultraman-shaped robot makes shaved noodles in 10 seconds. It’s been working at the restaurant for over two years with no failure. Globally, the economic divide is growing. The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. In Australia, more than a quarter of households have recently experienced a decrease in income. The reasons for the growing economic divide are many and complex. They include factors such as job insecurity, wage cuts and underemployment.

Underemployment and unemployment are being affected by growing use of artificial intelligence in the workplace. As technology rapidly progresses, […]

Robots in Transportation

Robots in Transportation

Fear of robots taking away jobs is spreading, but is that really the case? Or will increasing automation bring new types of jobs to control and use their productivity? Maybe a little of both, but we don’t need to have a Luddite mentality. The benefits of automation can be sizeable, including performance, quality and speed improvement; error reduction; boosting economic growth and offsetting the declining working-age population.

Think about how robots are already being used today. The military employs them to transport soldiers, allow observations in situations where it would be too dangerous for a soldier to maneuver and defuse […]

My Say: The future of inequality and what we can do about it

My Say: The future of inequality and what we can do about it

As we think of the future in a world of Deep Learning Artificial Intelligence (AI) — where machines are created to “think” the way a human brain does — the question of jobs is a crucial one. Machines have been making routine jobs obsolete for scores of years, now they are capable of making even non-routine jobs obsolete. I have, in a previous column, discussed what the future of education should look like in a world such as this, arguing that our ability to be human is our strongest defence against the rising tide that is to come.

In this […]

RISE of the ROBOT

RISE of the ROBOT

A four-part look at how robots are changing the way we work. First up, robots aren’t killing jobs, they’re creating new ones and more of them
— at least at a GE Aviation plant in Quebec

By Drew Hasselback in Bromont, Que.
About 180 robots here are doing work that humans used to do at a GE Aviation plant that makes parts for jet engines. But they haven’t replaced the humans. Indeed, the opposite is true. Since a new, automated section of the plant ramped up at the start of the decade, the number of people working here […]

Labour and Artificial Intelligence: Visions of despair, hope, and liberation

Labour and Artificial Intelligence: Visions of despair, hope, and liberation

Science-fiction scenarios of rampant AI are interesting thought-experiments but already-existing AI is here, and requires well-crafted policy

A conventional delivery truck of Germany’s biggest retailer Metro AG stands behind the world’s first commercial delivery robot of Starship Technologies during a demonstration at Metro’s headquarter in Duesseldorf, Germany, June 7, 2016.(REUTERS) In the United States, job demographic data from censuses since the 1900s reveal a startling fact. Despite the two post-Industrial revolutions of electricity and computers, the occupations with the largest employment numbers are still jobs for drivers, retail, cashiers, secretaries, janitors etc, i.e. old professions needing simple skills and […]