Tag: inequality

A ‘robot tax’ is not the way to save jobs

A 'robot tax' is not the way to save jobs

© Getty Images When two diametrically opposed figures such as Microsoft founder Bill Gates and Benoît Hamon, the Socialist candidate in the French presidential election, both come out in favor of a "robot tax," that should set the alarm bells ringing.

The tax is supposed to restore the balance between man and machine. However, there are better paths we can go down than this.

Unemployment The two gentlemen are right to be concerned. In their famous 2013 study, Michael Osborne and Carl Frey of Oxford University concluded that "about 47 percent of total US employment is at risk from automation."Later […]

How would a ‘robot tax’ work?

How would a 'robot tax' work?

On February 17, Bill Gates set the news agenda around the world by declaring that a so-called "robot tax" should be introduced in order to counteract job losses caused by automation. "Right now," he told online publication Quartz , "the human worker who does, say, $50,000 worth of work in a factory has that income taxed. If a robot comes in to do the same thing, you’d think that we’d tax the robot at a similar level."

There is no doubting that Gates’ vision of job displacement is not of a distant dystopian future, but today’s reality: in 2015 expenditure […]

Automation is Taking Over One of the Most Popular Professions

Automation is Taking Over One of the Most Popular Professions

Truck driving is the most popular job for people in most US states and the advent of the self-driving truck is going to completely disrupt that profession.

Universal Basic Income is one way to address the upcoming worker displacement that’s coming from automation.

Late last year, I took a road trip with my partner from our home in New Orleans, Louisiana to Orlando, Florida and as we drove by town after town, we got to talking about the potential effects self-driving vehicle technology would have not only on truckers themselves, but on all the local economies dependent on trucker […]

Think your job, your career, is secure? Think again!

Think your job, your career, is secure? Think again!

It’s not just repetitive labour jobs that are losing out to technology.Experts say Canadian workers could be in for some major upheaval over the next decade as increasingly intelligent software, robotics and artificial intelligence perform more sophisticated tasks in the economy. “There will be huge carnage and it is going to happen quickly” . Frank Graves

We’ve seen it in forestry; one machine can replace a hundred lumberjacks. We’ve seen it in construction where one worker with a nail gun can replace a dozen carpenters with hammers. In manufacturing, a dozen robots replace 200 or so assembly line workers. […]

Matt Nolan presents his Top 10 links on the economics of automation

Matt Nolan presents his Top 10 links on the economics of automation

Today’s Top 10 is a guest post from Matt Nolan, an economist at Infometrics , and an author at the blog site TVHE .

As always, we welcome your additions in the comment stream below or via email to david.chaston@interest.co.nz.

And if you’re interested in contributing the occasional Top 10 yourself, contact gareth.vaughan@interest.co.nz.Before writing this I had a search of interest.co.nz for “automation”. I found the following articles as the first 5 links: A top ten by Lena Hesselgrave , an article by Nigel Pinkerton (a colleague of mine), an article from NZIER , and two Top Tens from myself. Finally, […]

Automation and the prospects of economic development

Automation and the prospects of economic development

By Joselito T. Sescon

Technological anxiety has been with us since the first modern industries appeared. The angst toward new technologies is mainly about the fear of widespread substitution and displacement of human labor by machines. Historical experiences in early industrialization have shown that new technologies used in production initially had disruptive effects to labor and existing production assets. However, new technologies also ushered in the birth of new industries, created new jobs, becoming the source of productivity, economic growth and development.

Automation, like most new labor-saving technologies, has an effect of raising the comparative advantage and value of jobs that […]

Taxation of robots

Taxation of robots

On February 17, Bill Gates set the news agenda around the world by declaring that a so-called "robot tax" should be introduced in order to counteract job losses caused by automation. "Right now," he told online publication Quartz , "the human worker who does, say, $50,000 worth of work in a factory has that income taxed. If a robot comes in to do the same thing, you’d think that we’d tax the robot at a similar level."

There is no doubting that Gates’ vision of job displacement is not of a distant dystopian future, but today’s reality: in 2015 expenditure […]

Sorry, But Amazon Isn’t Actually Annihilating Retail Jobs

Sorry, But Amazon Isn’t Actually Annihilating Retail Jobs

Noah Berger/Reuters Beware the lurking variable. Even if you didn’t suffer through a semester of college statistics, you’re probably familiar with the adage “correlation doesn’t imply causation.” But if you haven’t had the pleasure, it’s a fairly easy concept to grasp.

Take a classic example: When ice cream sales rise significantly, the number of shark attacks escalates as well. But ice cream probably doesn’t cause shark attacks. The two things are correlated because they tend to occur at the same time of year but the relationship is not causal: Summer, in this case, is what’s called a lurking variable . […]

Geoff Johnson: How do we prepare kids for changing jobs?

Given limitless power, an unconstrained budget and a warm, safe place to sleep, I still would not want to be the person responsible for planning the future of public education. Not at any price.

This is not the place to enter the age-old academic debate about the overall purposes of education — individual fulfilment or preparation for employment. Legendary educator and philosopher John Dewey said: “The general purpose of school is to transfer knowledge and prepare young people to participate in a democratic society.”

The reality is that participation will involve finding something useful and fulfilling to do.But when we read […]

When Robots Take Bad Jobs

When Robots Take Bad Jobs

Workers at Otto, Uber’s self-driving truck company INDIANAPOLIS—James Ford worked at various printing presses for decades, eventually becoming head pressman at a bookbinding shop in Michigan. But the industry was changing, and as the work required fewer and fewer people, he searched around for his next career. He settled on truck driving.

“I want to see America and get paid for it,” he told me in December, in the cafeteria of Celadon Driving Academy, where he was completing a six-week driving course in order to get his commercial driving license (CDL). Celadon, which is also a trucking company, offers a […]