Tag: inequality

Richard Kyte: Value of work is more than a paycheck

Richard Kyte: Value of work is more than a paycheck

One day I asked my dad why he never used rollers for painting houses. Whenever he painted large flat surfaces — interior walls, ceilings, exterior siding — he used heavy 6-inch brushes. His forearms were like Popeye the Sailor’s. Richard Kyte “I’m a professional,” he answered. “Rollers are for do-it-yourselfers.”

He took pride in his work, and he respected the work of other professionals.

If a tail light went out in the family car, he would have me take the car down to Riewer’s service station to have the bulb replaced. Once I offered to do it. “No,” he said, “take […]

The continent enters the Robot Age

The continent enters the Robot Age

The future’s now: The shop floor robot has arms that are changed for different functions. (Oupa Nkosi, M&G) Science fiction writers predicted robots. They didn’t predict that they would look so boring. At the Africa Automation Fair in Johannesburg this week, there were no cyborgs on display, or R2D2-lookalikes scuttling between the stands. Instead, some of the most powerful machines were little more than black boxes with small screens and glowing lights, connected to a thicket of wires.

“Now you can control your factory from your phone. You don’t even need to be there,” said Unitronics salesman Dewald Potgieter.

He sells […]

Labor Markets in the Age of Automation

Labor Markets in the Age of Automation

BERKELEY – Advances in artificial intelligence and robotics are powering a new wave of automation, with machines matching or outperforming humans in a fast-growing range of tasks, including some that require complex cognitive capabilities and advanced degrees. This process has outpaced the expectations of experts; not surprisingly, its possible adverse effects on both the quantity and quality of employment have raised serious concerns.

To listen to President Donald Trump’s administration, one might think that trade remains the primary reason for the loss of manufacturing jobs in the United States. Trump’s treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin, has declared that the possible technological […]

Capitalism is destructive and unsustainable – It needs to be replaced

Capitalism is destructive and unsustainable – It needs to be replaced

Dissatisfaction with capitalism has grown since the Great Recession. Here, protesters march in Oakland in November 2011. | Occupy Oakland This article is based on remarks made by the author at the CPUSA National Labor Conference, May 20-21, in Chicago.

Several crises of contemporary capitalism have reached or are reaching dangerous tipping points. They are rooted in a path of destructive and unsustainable development.

They include extreme wealth and social inequality, job loss and dislocation from automation, and the existential threat posed by the ecological crisis.These interconnected crises are impacting everything and must be addressed together. And they can be.But […]

The robots are coming

The robots are coming

 Automation has driven up living standards, but could AI bring an economic and social storm? T he abandoned factories littered across America’s Rust Belt stand as a testament to the collateral damage of globalisation. As competition from abroad has limited job opportunities for low-skilled workers in many Western countries, populists have capitalised, painting globalisation as a disease, and protectionism as the cure.

But another threat to the working classes looms in cities such as Greenville, South Carolina. Greenville is a modern manufacturing success story that is home to BMW, Bosch, Michelin and General Electric factories, providing job opportunities and […]

If automation destroys jobs then why countries that use automation the most…

Automation doesn’t destroy jobs; it merely replaces certain manual labor tasks to be maintenance tasks and, as Marx already said back in the day, the modernization of technology merely ups the disciplining of labor alongside it.

Because in western europe theres a growing trend of people (being forced to) start their own one-person legal entity and sell their labour under minimum wage and without benefits to others. Theres also a massive growing population of zero hour contract workers.

Both of these groups can work for zero hours a month, without being counted as unemployed. To be counted as unemployed in germany […]

Machines Coming to Take Millions of Thai Jobs: Report

Machines Coming to Take Millions of Thai Jobs: Report

Original image: A farmer irrigates his rice fields in a 2013 photo. Photo: Chris Graham / Flickr BANGKOK — Millions of Thais are at risk of losing their jobs in the coming years – and it’s not “illegal immigrants” or “outsourcing” to blame. Yes, the robots are coming to steal jobs.

Thanks to rapid improvements in automation and artificial intelligence, up to 9.2 million Thais are at high risk of being replaced by machines, while millions of other jobs are on the line in the next two decades, said a U.N. report published Tuesday.

If the International Labor Organization’s, or ILO, […]

News from EPI No evidence that automation leads to joblessness or inequality

In The zombie robot argument lurches on , EPI President Lawrence Mishel and Research Director Josh Bivens challenge the popular media narrative that the pace of automation is increasing, and that it will lead to overall joblessness and greater inequality.

Automation—the implementation of new technologies as capital equipment or software replace human labor in the workplace—has been ongoing for decades, and there is no evidence that this has led to greater joblessness or increasing unemployment, even though certain jobs were lost. Simply put, if automation necessarily led to higher unemployment, the United States would have experienced an ever-rising unemployment rate […]

Is the Robo-pocalyse Upon Us?

Is the Robo-pocalyse Upon Us?

The argument over the impact of continuing technological advances on labor markets has been around at least since the Industrial Revolution introduced steam power and mechanization to the world. Overall it’s pretty hard to argue that technology has made the world worse, even if its benefits have been mixed.

The current terms of the argument include people who think that the displacement of human workers by automation is either very close at hand or very far in the future.

Economists Daron Acemoglu and Pascual Restrepo recently studied the impact of rising industrial robot usage and found that each new robot reduced […]

NONFICTION | Software developer argues robots will impact economy

Bob Funk
Contributing writer

For those who worry about the future for their loved ones, and others in general, add another dire prediction to the menu of impending disasters looming over the horizon.
In addition to global warming and natural resource depletion, a crushing national debt, and an arc of political, economic, and social instability across Africa and the Middle East and its causal relationship to global terrorism, now add the rise of robots.Anyone concerned with the future of employment and work should read “The Rise of Robots: Technology and the Threat of a Jobless Future,” written by Martin Ford, a […]