Tag: inequality

Professors from MIT and Boston University discuss why you need to worry about the ‘wrong kind of AI’

Professors from MIT and Boston University discuss why you need to worry about the ‘wrong kind of AI’

Daron Acemoglu, a professor from MIT (Massachusettes Institute of Technology) and Pascual Restrepo, a professor from Boston University published a paper earlier this month, titled, “The Wrong Kind of AI? Artificial Intelligence and the future of Labor Demand”.

In the paper, professors talk about how recent technological advancements have been biased towards automation, thereby, changing the focus from creating new tasks to productively employ labor. They argue that the consequences of this choice have been ceasing the labor demand, decreasing labor share in national income, increasing equality, and low productivity growth. Automation technologies do not increase labor’s productivity

Professors […]

Inequality warning over increasing automation in the workplace

Inequality warning over increasing automation in the workplace

Ministers must ensure that the rewards of automation are fairly distributed, a report says.

Ministers are being urged to intervene to ensure the spreading use of robots in the workplace does not result in rising levels of inequality.

A report by the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) think tank said increasing automation had the potential to deliver a powerful boost to the productivity of UK business, bringing a future of “economic plenty”.However it warned that unless the change was properly managed by government, there was a danger that the benefits would be “narrowly” concentrated in the hands of investors and […]

Robotics and jobs: Where do we stand?

Robotics and jobs: Where do we stand?

With the AI-powered workplace of tomorrow arriving sooner than expected, what does this mean for us?

The debate about robotics on the future economy and job market is one divided squarely between transformationalists and sceptics, but that debate has in fact been increasingly undermined by the dynamics of AI and its relentless acceleration. Recent evidence indicates that robotics and AI are heavily impacting the economy, destroying low-wage jobs and increasingly eating away at higher-skill occupations as people are increasingly replaced by intelligent algorithms. There is evidence that the workplace of tomorrow, powered by AI and accelerating digital technology, is about […]

Science: Our misplaced concern of job-stealing robots [Report]

Some good news: The robots aren’t coming for your job. Experts say fears that rapid advances in artificial intelligence, machine learning, and automation will leave all of us unemployed are vastly overstated.

But concerns over growing inequality and the lack of opportunity for many in the labor force—serious matters linked to a variety of structural changes in the economy—are well-founded and need to be addressed, four scholars on artificial intelligence and the economy recently told an audience at Stanford Graduate School of Business.

That’s not to say that artificial intelligence isn’t having a profound effect on many areas of the economy. […]

Robot Revolution? 10 Jobs That Won’t Be Lost To Robots

Robot Revolution? 10 Jobs That Won’t Be Lost To Robots

Jobs Lost To Robots And Automation – Automation seems to be advancing faster than ever with robotics, computer science, and artificial intelligence.

Many white collar positions, such as accountants, receptionists and even attorneys find their jobs threatened by the ‘Robot Revolution’. What Is The Robot Revolution?

You probably didn’t think “Robot Revolution” when McDonald’s instituted their kiosk ordering system, or when Amazon’s drone delivered your mail.Instead, we thought “how convenient.”Today, we read about tens of thousands of driverless automobiles descending on the Interstate near your house.What do the above advancements in technology have in common?They are all Robot Revolution, and […]

Why Women’s Jobs are Disproportionately Threatened by Automation

Why Women's Jobs are Disproportionately Threatened by Automation

If the automation revolution is as bad as some researchers believe, almost half of all occupations in the United States are at risk of replacement by 2026. Truck drivers will be swapped out for self-driving AI. Manufacturers will use smarter machines instead of hands. Supermarkets will go cashier-free. Even more conservative projections acknowledge that some kind of transition is coming: The Bureau of Labor Statistics has projected that the overall number of jobs of the future will grow , but that 1.4 million current ones could soon become "redundant."

As it rages, the automation debate has tended to center on […]

How inequality was digitalised

How inequality was digitalised

Danny Sriskandarajah Thirty years ago this week, the world wide web was born. At some point this year, half the world will be online . That is remarkable progress. But, we cannot simply assume that technology – or access to it – is a force for social good. Of course, it could be used to make life much better for everyone. But, so far, the short-term benefits of the digital revolution have largely consolidated the wellbeing of the few , rather than society as a whole. In the battle against inequality, the allegiance of digital tech is still up […]

Don’t Blame Robots for Low Wages

Don’t Blame Robots for Low Wages

Luke Sharrett/Bloomberg

The other day I found myself, as I often do, at a conference discussing lagging wages and soaring inequality. There was a lot of interesting discussion. But one thing that struck me was how many of the participants just assumed that robots are a big part of the problem — that machines are taking away the good jobs, or even jobs in general. For the most part this wasn’t even presented as a hypothesis, just as part of what everyone knows.

And this assumption has real implications for policy discussion. For example, a lot of the agitation for a […]

Globalisation 4.0 and proliferation of AI: Are we ready for this?

Globalisation 4.0 and proliferation of AI: Are we ready for this?

In the last two centuries, globalisation has been interpreted as being about the things that we make and send across borders via air, land and sea.

As the numbers of buyers and suppliers rise, the network becomes more attractive to the new traders. By Soumyatanu Mukherjee

In the last two centuries, globalisation has been interpreted as being about the things that we make and send across borders via air, land and sea. Without reducing the importance of this usual notion of trade, future globalisation is also going to be concerned about the stuff that we do (services), not just the […]

Our misplaced fear of job-stealing robots

Our misplaced fear of job-stealing robots

Credit: CC0 Public Domain Some good news: The robots aren’t coming for your job. Experts say fears that rapid advances in artificial intelligence, machine learning, and automation will leave all of us unemployed are vastly overstated.

But concerns over growing inequality and the lack of opportunity for many in the labor force—serious matters linked to a variety of structural changes in the economy—are well-founded and need to be addressed, four scholars on artificial intelligence and the economy recently told an audience at Stanford Graduate School of Business.

That’s not to say that artificial intelligence isn’t having a profound effect on many […]