Tag: inequality

3 Questions: Christine Walley on the evolving perception of robots in the US

3 Questions: Christine Walley on the evolving perception of robots in the US

Christine J. Walley, professor of anthropology at MIT and member of the MIT Task Force on the Work of the Future, explores how robots have often been a symbol for anxiety about artificial intelligence and automation. Walley provides a unique perspective in the recent research brief “Robots as Symbols and Anxiety Over Work Loss.” She highlights the historical context of technology and job displacement and illustrates examples of how other countries approach policies regarding robots, skills, and learning. Here, Walley provides an overview of the brief.

Q: How are robots seen as a symbol when we think about […]

Robots will put people out of work – and hope

Robots will put people out of work – and hope

A recent global news story highlighted a three-year partnership between Fieldwork Robotics and French canned vegetable producer Bonduelle to develop a cauliflower-picking robot. Bonduelle operates across more than 100 countries, while Fieldwork Robotics was cofounded by Martin Stoelen, a lecturer in robotics at the University of Plymouth.

Fieldwork Robotics has already collaborated with one of the United Kingdom’s biggest soft-fruit producers, Hall Hunter Partnership, to develop a raspberry-harvesting robot.

If you type “vegetable harvesting robot” or “fruit harvesting robot” into a search engine, you will discover that Fieldwork Robotics is no mere anomaly. From Japan to Spain, inventors are ploughing the […]

How Pandemic is Changing Future of Work

How Pandemic is Changing Future of Work

COVID-19 has upended the workplace, leaving millions of Americans juggling childcare and Zoom meetings while working from home. Millions more are risking their lives as part of the low-wage essential workforce, while nearly 8 percent of workers throughout the country remain unemployed.

Adrienne Eaton, dean and Distinguished Professor in the Rutgers School of Management and Labor Relations , is tackling these and other issues as a member of New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy’s Future of Work Task Force . Eaton, who also serves as president of the Labor and Employment Relations Association (LERA), discusses how COVID-19 is affecting workers and […]

Machines Predicted to Do Half Of All Jobs By 2025, per Report

Machines Predicted to Do Half Of All Jobs By 2025, per Report

Half of all work tasks will be carried out by machines by 2025, a World Economic Forum (WEF) report has predicted.

Though the oncoming " robot revolution " will create 97 million jobs worldwide, it will get rid of almost the same number, and will likely increase inequality and the digital divide, the think tank said. Robots replacing and creating jobs

The forecast is based on surveys carried out across 300 of the world’s biggest companies, who between them employ approximately eight million people globally, the BBC reports.Over 50 percent of employers surveyed said they expect the automation of certain […]

Algorithms Are Making Economic Inequality Worse

Algorithms Are Making Economic Inequality Worse

HBR Staff/Oleksandr Shchus/Getty Images The risks of algorithmic discrimination and bias have received much attention and scrutiny, and rightly so. Yet there is another more insidious side-effect of our increasingly AI-powered society — the systematic inequality created by the changing nature of work itself. We fear a future where robots take our jobs, but what happens when a significant portion of the workforce ends up in algorithmically managed jobs with little future and few possibilities for advancement?

One of the classic tropes of self-made success is the leader who comes from humble beginnings, working their way up from the mailroom, […]

Machines to ‘do half of all work tasks by 2025’

Machines to 'do half of all work tasks by 2025'

Half of all work tasks will be handled by machines by 2025 in a shift likely to worsen inequality, a World Economic Forum report has forecast.

The think tank said a "robot revolution" would create 97 million jobs worldwide but destroy almost as many, leaving some communities at risk.

Routine or manual jobs in administration and data processing were most at threat of automation, WEF said.But it said new jobs would emerge in care, big data and the green economy.The Forum’s research spanned 300 of the world’s biggest companies, who between them employ eight million people around the world.More than […]

Robots Encroach on Up to 800 Million Jobs Around the World

Robots Encroach on Up to 800 Million Jobs Around the World

(Bloomberg) — Advances in automation technology threaten a significant share of jobs in industries accounting for nearly a quarter of the global workforce, according to Bloomberg Economics’ estimates.

In a report released Tuesday, economists Ziad Daoud and Scott Johnson said that could mean as many as 800 million people face a high exposure to the risk of their employment becoming obsolete. The Gulf Cooperation Council, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Japan are most vulnerable to disruption from automation, they wrote.

That’s because those countries have a large segment of the workforce in the kind of simple, routine roles that can be most […]

Letter – Buy local isn’t BIG enough

Letter - Buy local isn’t BIG enough

× The cost of living in Namibia is always on the increase. The price of electricity has basically doubled in the last ten years. The price of a taxi went from N$7 to N$14 in the same time. The Consumer Price Index for Namibia continues to rise month on month as life gets more expensive. There is no commensurate rise in people’s wages so that they are able to keep pace with the prices. If you add to this situation massive job losses caused by the coronavirus pandemic, the need for a Universal Basic Income Grant is becoming apparent. […]

Should Automation Be Feared?

Should Automation Be Feared?

Does automation put people out of work?

Economists, politicians and union leaders have been asking this question for as long as I can remember. And it’s a legitimate concern.

Consider driverless vehicles.In the last 16 years, since the first DARPA Grand Challenge was held in the Mojave Desert, the race to develop a fully autonomous vehicle has been on.More than two dozen companies are working on it. The current leader is Alphabet’s Waymo, whose fleet of 600 vehicles has logged in more than 20 million miles. (Waymo stands for “a new way forward in mobility.”) And although we are not there […]

JOB SCARE: Accounting staff be warned; 97 percent of jobs could vanish

JOB SCARE: Accounting staff be warned; 97 percent of jobs could vanish

The issues arising from the changing nature of work in light of the current COVID-19 global pandemic formed the basis of a robust presentation and discussion in the first of a webinar series hosted by the School of Computing and Information Technology (SCIT), UTech, Jamaica on October 1, 2020.

Leading the presentation, Professor Sean Thorpe, Head, SCIT, postulated that several categories of work will become defunct, necessitating persons in those sectors to remould themselves to fit the new paradigm.

Thorpe said the webinar marked the school’s contribution to the conversation on current and future opportunities available for students in light of […]