Tag: inequality

Technology is not here to take our jobs

Technology is not here to take our jobs

Illustration: Jayachandran/Mint Jack Ma knows a thing or two about technological innovation and disruption. The founder and executive chairman of Alibaba Group has built it into the world’s fifth-largest Internet company by revenue. In a letter to shareholders earlier this month, he had this to say: “Throughout history, technological disruptions have followed similar trajectories: 20 years of technological disruption followed by 30 years of further rapid change as new technologies are applied throughout society. The Internet revolution is a historical inflection point, much like when electricity was introduced, and it may have an even greater impact.”

This is in keeping […]

Clinton is wrong. You shouldn’t have to work to have a place in America.

Clinton is wrong. You shouldn’t have to work to have a place in America.

Hillary Clinton tours a factory during a campaign stop. (Chris Keane/Reuters) It is only because of audience member Ken Bone’s question about the effect that energy policy would have on employment at power plants that the presidential candidates addressed jobs at all during their debate Sunday night. But the night’s biggest statement about work didn’t come in response to Bone.

It came instead as Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton answered a question about Islamophobia. She said, “My vision of America is an America where everyone has a place, if you are willing to work hard, do your part and you contribute […]

How the Gig Economy Profits off Desperation

How the Gig Economy Profits off Desperation

Illustration by Laurent Hrybyk “Children are running the company [Homejoy] and they act like they are still in college. The poor cleaners are being treated like slaves; the children make fun of them behind their backs; this company is a tax-evader and a moral concern to the working class.” While the gig economy promises to free workers from the traditional, drab 9-to-5 work environment, the reality is quite different. Many contractors employed in gig economy–type jobs lack health care and retirement benefits, are at the mercy of their employers’ scheduling needs, and — despite being promised so much freedom […]

Tech Revolution But Few Jobs

Tech Revolution But Few Jobs

The digital and technology revolution has powered up internet searches, social media, smartphone apps and ecommerce over the past decade to the delight of Google, Twitter, Facebook and Apple to name but a few. But although the digital world has expanded, the exploding tech industry has not met expectations in the real world and has created surprisingly few jobs.

The giants Google Alphabet and Facebook had only 74,505 employees between them at the end of 2015, which is much less than Microsoft by about one-third, according to the Wall Street Journal.

For a clearer perspective, Facebook acquired Instagram in 2012 for […]

Automation Angst – The Polarization of the Labor Market in the 21st Century

Automation Angst – The Polarization of the Labor Market in the 21st Century

Success achieving the American Dream of homeownership is, in large part, dependent on the ability to earn a good income. For much of the last century, a job in manufacturing provided a stable and solid income. In fact, after World War II, the United States was the manufacturer to the world, as America’s post-war economic boom changed the way we worked, where we lived and our ability to own a piece of the American Dream.

Now, just as the Industrial Revolution transformed the way we worked at the turn of the 20 th century, the “information revolution” is profoundly re-shaping […]

The Skills Delusion

The Skills Delusion

LONDON – Everybody agrees that better education and improved skills, for as many people as possible, is crucial to increasing productivity and living standards and to tackling rising inequality. But what if everybody is wrong?

Most economists are certain that human capital is as important to productivity growth as physical capital. And to some degree, that’s obviously true. Modern economies would not be possible without widespread literacy and numeracy: many emerging economies are held back by inadequate skills. John Andrews views the country’s civil war in the context of the Middle East’s strategic disarray, assessing how Shlomo Ben-Ami, Christopher Hill, […]

Players For Hire: Games and the Future of Low-Skill Work

The following blog post, unless otherwise noted, was written by a member of Gamasutra’s community.
The thoughts and opinions expressed are those of the writer and not Gamasutra or its parent company. Summary

In this whitepaper I will use trends from automation and video game revenue models to make the following predictions about the future of low-skill work.
> Within five years, some game companies will be paying players in some way to play their games. This will be in the form of small points-based incentives that can be liquidated in the form of purchasing power. Within […]

How Technology Can Defuse the Demographic Time Bomb

How Technology Can Defuse the Demographic Time Bomb

As people live longer and working age populations face hardship, technology could help ease the growing dependency burden. Society is currently faced with two converging phenomena. On the one hand, rapidly aging populations are supported by a shrinking working age population. On the other, those in work are increasingly being replaced by machines as result of the technological revolution. Yet these subjects are rarely discussed together, which is surprising given that technology has important implications for work and employment and the problem of old-age dependency is, as a matter of fact, a problem of work and production. As a […]

Debate: will robots fuel inequality?

Gerald Huff and Jerry Kaplan debate whether robots will leave us all worse off Automation is coming. No: Jerry Kaplan

Computer scientist, entrepreneur and author of Humans Need Not Apply

First and foremost, robots are a form of automation, and automation is the substitution of capital for labour. Historically, automation first advances the interests of the people who invest in it, before the positive impact is felt more broadly across society. In other words, with any new technologies there are winners and losers, even if in the long run we are better off on average.Just as mechanical looms […]

The Wealth of Humans: Work, Power, And Status In The Twenty-first Century

The Wealth of Humans: Work, Power, And Status In The Twenty-first Century

Ryan Avent Ryan Avent, thank you very much for joining us today. You’ve got a new book out entitled ‘ The Wealth of Humans: Work, Power, and Status in the Twenty-first Century ’, and it addresses one of the hottest topics around at the moment – the digital revolution, and what it means for the future of work.

So, what do you think? What does it mean?

Well, I think it means big change. I think the starting point of the book is that the digital revolution actually is probably going to be as transformative as the industrial […]