Tag: inequality

Is automation coming for Cincinnati jobs?

Is automation coming for Cincinnati jobs?

Julie Heath is the director of University of Cincinnati Economics Center at the College of Education, Criminal Justice and Human Services. She also holds the Alpaugh Family Chair in Economics. (Photo11: JP Leong) The alarm has been sounding for a few years about the coming robot invasion and the jobs that will be displaced by automation.

Has it matched the hype? And what does it mean for the local labor market?

The effect of automation on labor markets is more nuanced than a robot-for-worker exchange. In some cases, automation can replace workers, but total substitution is not the norm. It is […]

We can choose how automation will change society

We can choose how automation will change society

Columns

Workers should have a say in the future of their jobs Close What will the future of work look like? It is a question that is being asked by many people — not just by economists, but by political scientists, labor organizers and everyday people alike. The reason for the popularity of this question has to do in part with what we see happening to labor in the marketplace. Go to a Walmart around here and you will find multiple self-checkout kiosks where you input the items you want to purchase through a scanner instead of employees scanning […]

Super Bowl Ads Suggest Unwarranted Fear of Emerging Technologies

Sunday’s Super Bowl ads showcased many emerging technologies , including artificial intelligence (AI) and robots. The Pringles ad featured a speaker reminiscent of Amazon’s Alexa, and showed that while a digital assistant may accurately list flavor combinations, it cannot actually physically taste the chips. Michelob Ultra narrated the story of an athletic robot that can golf, bike run, but can’t drink alcohol. TurboTax ’s ad showed a robot child saying it wanted to be a TurboTax CPA when it grows up, but a woman rejects that dream and says, “all TurboTax Live CPAs are human beings with real emotions. […]

Threat of automation varies greatly by location, occupation, education

Is a robot coming for your job?

A new study by the Brookings Institution suggests that intelligent machines may well take over many more tasks from humans in the future. But it forecasts dramatic differences among cities, occupations, ethnic and racial groups, educational levels and age groups.

"California turns out to have super-stark variations — regions with both the highest and lowest exposures to disruption," said Mark Muro, director of Brookings’ Metropolitan Policy Program and author of the report along with researchers Robert Maxim and Jacob Whiton.The Brookings study comes as a slew of academic and policy group papers have sought […]

Lousy Jobs, Lovely Jobs – and the Sagging Middle

Lousy Jobs, Lovely Jobs – and the Sagging Middle

Job-market polarisation is impeding class mobility. What does this mean for the future of management? This article is part of a series entitled “The Future of Management”, about how changes in culture and technology are reshaping what managers do. INSEAD professors Pushan Dutt and Phanish Puranam serve as academic advisors for this series.

The past four decades or so have been hard on those with dreams of climbing the socio-economic ladder. With social mobility having effectively ground to a halt in many of the world’s most advanced economies, divisions between the blue- and white-collar segments of society have clarified […]

Automation won’t bring an apocalypse—but that doesn’t mean it will be easy

Automation won’t bring an apocalypse—but that doesn’t mean it will be easy

One takeaway of our new analysis of automation’s impacts is that the trends might not be that much more disruptive in the next few decades than they were in the last few.

Technological possibility doesn’t mean reality, after all.

In fact, our analysis of the past three decades shows the ratio of jobs to workers actually increased in the years 1980 to 2016—the era that we call IT-driven automation. Authors What’s more, our main forward-looking forward analysis, employing detailed occupational forecasts provided by McKinsey Global Institute, suggests that only about one quarter of today’s jobs stand to be heavily disrupted by […]

IMF study highlights how digitization has transformed China

IMF study highlights how digitization has transformed China

How digitization has transformed China. Source: Shutterstock CHINA has grown to become a force to reckon with thanks to its championing of artificial intelligence (AI), 5G, and other new and emerging technologies. A new study by the International Monetary Funds (IMF) takes a hard look at the country’s digitization achievements so far.

Despite the debates and discussions that the US-China trade war is certain to make an impact on technology, China’s digital economy is expected to continue to expand rapidly. US-CHINA STRAIN MUCH BIGGER THAN TRADE WAR SAYS NUS PROFESSOR 0are quoted to have revitalized the economy.

Thanks to digitization, businesses […]

Guarantee Jobs …to Robots?

Earlier this week, and just months before the Lok Sabha elections, Congress president Rahul Gandhi promised guaranteed income for the poor if his party comes to power at the Centre.

For it to fly, the populist plan should also account for a future where technology efficiency will spawn mass unemployment. Gandhi’s income guarantee will have to be expansive and nimble to take the sting out of income disparity and looming social discontent.

Widespread unemployment from technology changes can no longer be dismissed as an alarmist theory, nor can its social impact. Silicon Valley has known this for a while. Everyone, from […]

It Turns Out That Socialism is Very Popular in America

It Turns Out That Socialism is Very Popular in America

Above: Democratic Socialists of America protest in Washington, DC (Credit: Washington.carpe-diem.events) The following is part one of a two-part essay on the reasons for the growth of Socialism in 2010s America . Above: Residents protest evictions in San Francisco, where Sillicon Valley’s gentrification has resulted in skyrocketing housing costs and growing homelessness (credit: Zelda Bronstein, The Nation /Ted Gullicksen, Antievictionmappingproject.net).

One out of three millennials in Donald Trump’s America embrace socialism . That number rises to nearly half of all millennial Democrats. More millennials voted for Bernie Sanders, a self-described Democratic Socialist, in the 2016 Democratic primaries than for Hillary […]

Automation is a bigger threat, depending on race, education and where you live, among other factors

Automation is a bigger threat, depending on race, education and where you live, among other factors

Is a robot coming for your job?

That is more likely for Californians who work in Riverside, San Bernardino, Merced or Modesto, according to a report released Thursday by the Brookings Institution. Those who live in San Francisco or San Jose have a better chance of weathering a coming onslaught of automation and artificial intelligence.

The new study by the Washington think tank suggests that intelligent machines may well take over many more tasks from humans in the future. But it forecasts dramatic differences among cities, occupations, ethnic and racial groups, educational levels and age groups.“California turns out to have super-stark […]