Tag: inequality

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 […]

Bill Gates Is Wrong That Robots and Automation Are Killing Jobs

Bill Gates Is Wrong That Robots and Automation Are Killing Jobs

In a recent interview, Microsoft (msft, 0.00%) founder Bill Gates proposed that robots should be taxed. He anticipates that robots will replace large numbers of workers over the next 20 years. By taxing the robots, he argued, we would slow down the pace of automation and the funds raised could be used to retrain and financially support displaced workers, who could then move into new jobs in health care, education, or other areas where human labor is needed.

While Gates is right that robots—not just traditional industrial robots, but all sorts of artificial intelligence applications—are indeed likely to automate a […]

Bill Gates Is Wrong That Robots and Automation Are Killing Jobs

Bill Gates Is Wrong That Robots and Automation Are Killing Jobs

In a recent interview, Microsoft (msft) founder Bill Gates proposed that robots should be taxed. He anticipates that robots will replace large numbers of workers over the next 20 years. By taxing the robots, he argued, we would slow down the pace of automation and the funds raised could be used to retrain and financially support displaced workers, who could then move into new jobs in health care, education, or other areas where human labor is needed.

While Gates is right that robots—not just traditional industrial robots, but all sorts of artificial intelligence applications—are indeed likely to automate a lot […]

Automation prefers man to the machine

Automation prefers man to the machine

Work experts and researchers believe that if jobs are going to become more automated in the future while shifting the role of humans in the workplace, further education and support must be given to workers who may become redundant.

Many economists argue that automation bears much more blame than globalization for the decline of jobs in the region’s manufacturing sector and the gutting of its middle class.

Indeed, in his farewell speech to thousands in a packed convention hall in Chicago, President Obama warned: ‘The next wave of economic dislocations won’t come from overseas. It will come from the relentless pace […]

MALPASS | A.I. : Benefit or Hazard?

MALPASS | A.I. : Benefit or Hazard?

For decades, pop culture has been fascinated by robot servants. It always seemed so far off, having a robotic servant to help in our day to day lives. Look at the Jetsons, they needed to have stratosphere, saucer houses before they had a robot maid. It makes it strange to think that we now live in a society where robotics not only exist, but are the norm. I’m not talking about independent, Turing Test beating automata, but increasingly intelligent machines are finding their way into day-to-day life. Self-checkout registers have gone from a novelty to a familiarity in the […]

“The Relentless Pace of Automation”

“The Relentless Pace of Automation”

Last October, Uber had one of its self-driving trucks make a beer run, traveling 200 kilometers down the interstate to deliver a cargo of Budweiser from Fort Collins to Colorado Springs. A person rode in the truck but spent most of the trip in the sleeper berth, monitoring the automated system. (The test came just a few weeks after Uber had announced its driverless car service in Pittsburgh .) The self-driving truck developed by Uber’s recently acquired Otto unit reflects remarkable technological achievements. It also provides yet another indicator of a looming shift in the economy that could have […]

As economy becomes more automated, is your job safe?

As economy becomes more automated, is your job safe?

Podcast

A study by Oxford professors Michael Osborne and Carl Benedikt Frey estimates that 47 percent of jobs in the U.S. are at risk of being automated in the next 20 years. In his farewell speech, former President Obama spoke of the relentless pace of automation that is making good middle class jobs obsolete. Tom Martin talks about the implications of automation with Dr. Chris Bollinger, professor of economics and director of the Center of Business and Economic Research in the University of Kentucky’s Gatton College of Business and Economics.

Click here to hear the audio version of the interview: […]