Tag: inequality

A turning point in labour history

A turning point in labour history

The latest wave of automation heralds new transformations for society, but how can we ensure that nobody is left stranded? "The so-called sharing economy and the new wave of automation are appearing to rewrite the old rules." Cab drivers protest against Uber in Lisbon, 2016. Flickr/Stròlic Furlàn – Davide Gabino Follow. Some rights reserved. Several profound transformations are taking place in the world of labour at the same time. Aspects of a so-called sharing economy and the new wave of automation are appearing to rewrite old rules. The long-term consequences of this turning point depend on the policies adopted […]

Jobs, Robots, and ‘Humans Need Not Apply’

Humans Need Not Apply: A Guide to Wealth and Work in the Age of Artificial Intelligence by Jerry Kaplan

Published in August of 2015.

What books are on your Robots bookshelf ?What have you been reading that has helped you make sense of whether automation will degrade or improve our future?How have you been trying to make sense of how higher education should adapt and change to stay relevant in an age of driverless cars, lawyer-less legal services, and professor-less teaching?If you are developing such a library (and I bet that you might be), then I would recommend adding Humans Need […]

Only Humans Need Apply: Job Prospects Following Advances in AI

This post was authored primarily by CDT Summer 2016 intern Elaine Chou . “America was not built on fear. America was built on courage, on imagination and an unbeatable determination to do the job at hand.” Last week, in response to a Request for Information from the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, CDT submitted a report on “Preparing for the Future of Artificial Intelligence” (“AI”). Our comments focused on how the government can reduce inequality in the workforce and promote societal progress as AI advances. CDT believes in the power of AI, and suggests policy improvements […]

Income inequality affecting the masses, expected to continue

Income inequality affecting the masses, expected to continue

Income inequality continues to increase, hitting the young with low skills the hardest. In the UK, 60% of the population has seen a stagnation or decrease in their disposable income. In the US, those below 30 with low levels of education are 15% worse off in 2012 than in 2002. Continued low growth, as well as the possible acceleration of automation and digitalisation, is likely to exuberate the situation, with the income of up to 80% of the workforce stagnant or declining to 2025.

Income inequality has become an issue for a range of stakeholders, forming a political flashpoint, […]

US: President’s top economic adviser rejects basic income

US: President’s top economic adviser rejects basic income

Jason Furman, President Obama’s top economics adviser, rejected the idea of a universal basic income in remarks made on Thursday, July 7, at a White House workshop on automation.

The last of four workshops on automation co-hosted by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy was held on Thursday, July 7 at New York University in New York City, New York.

At this workshop , Jason Furman , an economist who has served as Chairman of President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers since June 2013, present prepared remarks entitled “ Is This Time Different? The Opportunities and Challenges […]

Obama adviser warns that robots could worsen inequality

Obama adviser warns that robots could worsen inequality

Artificial intelligence is an innovation that must be pursued, President Obama’s top economic adviser said Thursday, but greater automation of work could increase income inequality and push some people out of the workforce if the right policies are not implemented.

Speaking at New York University, Council of Economic Advisers Chairman Jason Furman said he rejected very pessimistic or highly optimistic views of the effects that automization will have on work, saying that labor markets can adjust to technology making certain work obsolete. But those same changes, he said, have also resulted in extra inequality in the past, and that dynamic […]

The race between machines and humans: Implications for growth, factor shares and jobs

The race between machines and humans: Implications for growth, factor shares and jobs

Concerns that new digital technologies, artificial intelligence, and robotics will create widespread technological non-employment are now widespread. Various recent labour market trends, ranging from declines in US labour force participation to increases in wage inequality and the share of capital in national income, are seen as harbingers of this new normal (e.g. Brynjolfsson and McAfee 2012, Akst 2014, Autor 2015, Karabarbounis and Neiman 2014, Oberfield and Raval 2014). A major shortcoming of the typical arguments about technological non-employment is that there is no clear reason why the effect of new technologies will be different this time than in the […]

The return of the machinery question

The return of the machinery question

THERE IS SOMETHING familiar about fears that new machines will take everyone’s jobs, benefiting only a select few and upending society. Such concerns sparked furious arguments two centuries ago as industrialisation took hold in Britain. People at the time did not talk of an “industrial revolution” but of the “machinery question”. First posed by the economist David Ricardo in 1821, it concerned the “influence of machinery on the interests of the different classes of society”, and in particular the “opinion entertained by the labouring class, that the employment of machinery is frequently detrimental to their interests”. Thomas Carlyle, writing […]

Re-educating Rita

Re-educating Rita

IN JULY 2011 Sebastian Thrun, who among other things is a professor at Stanford, posted a short video on YouTube, announcing that he and a colleague, Peter Norvig, were making their “Introduction to Artificial Intelligence” course available free online. By the time the course began in October, 160,000 people in 190 countries had signed up for it. At the same time Andrew Ng, also a Stanford professor, made one of his courses, on machine learning, available free online, for which 100,000 people enrolled. Both courses ran for ten weeks. Mr Thrun’s was completed by 23,000 people; Mr Ng’s by […]

March of the machines

March of the machines

EXPERTS warn that “the substitution of machinery for human labour” may “render the population redundant”. They worry that “the discovery of this mighty power” has come “before we knew how to employ it rightly”. Such fears are expressed today by those who worry that advances in artificial intelligence (AI) could destroy millions of jobs and pose a “Terminator”-style threat to humanity. But these are in fact the words of commentators discussing mechanisation and steam power two centuries ago. Back then the controversy over the dangers posed by machines was known as the “machinery question”. Now a very similar debate […]