Tag: manufactur

Will real life Blade Runners be tax collectors?

Will real life Blade Runners be tax collectors?

In 1979, an innovative two-minute TV commercial gave Britain a glimpse of the future. Choreographed to music from Rossini’s Barber of Seville, hi-tech machines built the Fiat Strada. The tagline was Handbuilt by Robots . Humans were nowhere to be seen in the Turin factory where the ad was shot, but the film crew knew where the people were: outside, on picket lines protesting the loss of their jobs.

Fast forward nearly 40 years and “ the robots are coming, they want to replace us, and there’s nothing we can do to stop them” isn’t the plot of the second […]

AI is synonymous with job automation in the minds of American workers

AI is synonymous with job automation in the minds of American workers

Artificial intelligence may well pose an existential threat to humanity. But that’s not what worries the public. What worries them is jobs.

According to a new study conducted by my team at SYZYGY, 70 percent of the American public fear that AI will have a negative impact on employment in the US. On average, Americans in work today believe that 30 percent of their work could be replaced by AI-enabled automation technology within five years. And overall, when asked about what they fear most from AI, job automation is the number one ranked fear. Fears of job automation are not […]

Crises and Automation

(The Artificial Fabrication of Arbitrary Value, Price, and Wage Across Post-Industrial, Post-Modern Capitalism)

According to Friedrich Engels, Anti-Duhring , “the only value known in economics is the value of commodities”. 1 Commodities are products produced, not for individual consumption by their producers, but products produced for general public consumption. The value of a commodity, according to Engels, is determined via comparison with other commodities, namely, “they can be…said to be equal or unequal [with other commodities], according to the quantity of [general human] labor embodied in each”. 2

As a result, for Engels, “social conditions remaining the same, two equal […]

Spotlight: Killer or savior, technology plays its two faces on employment

by Liu Tian, Mao Pengfei, Le Yanna

DA NANG, Vietnam, Nov. 9 (Xinhua) — As technologies play increasingly important role in pushing forward modern economy development, debates related to technologies have never stopped since it, although created numerous jobs in new economic fields, forced many laborers to leave their posts, especially in those traditional manufacturing industries.

The paradox has been subjected to discussion for the world’s business elites who are here for the meetings of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Leaders’ Week and seeking answers.Nicolas Aguzin, chairman and CEO of JP Morgan Asia-Pacific, said during a discussion at the APEC CEO […]

As Robots Replace Workers, What Is Happening to Employment Rates?

As Robots Replace Workers, What Is Happening to Employment Rates?

A Socibot Kiosk intercactive robot, developed by Engineered Arts. Bertrand GuayAFP/Getty

A Socibot Kiosk intercactive robot, developed by Engineered Arts. Bertrand GuayAFP/Getty

Peak coal industry employment was in 1930, when approximately 130,000 people had jobs in the coal industry. Today, as the Washington Post so memorably framed it, fewer people work in the mines than at Arby’s. Coal production, on the other hand, has continued to rise over time, from 400 million short tons in 1940 to 1.17 billion short tons by 2008.It’s not that miners have gotten superhumanly productive; it’s that machinery has replaced people.The current presidential administration frequently focuses […]

More Evidence that Humans and Machines Are Better When They Team Up

More Evidence that Humans and Machines Are Better When They Team Up

By worrying about job displacement, we might end up missing a huge opportunity for technological amplification.

Instead of just fretting about how robots and AI will eliminate jobs, we should explore new ways for humans and machines to collaborate, says Daniela Rus, director of MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab (CSAIL).

“I believe people and machines should not be competitors, they should be collaborators,” Rus said during her keynote at EmTech MIT 2017 , an annual event hosted by MIT Technology Review.How technology will impact employment in coming years has become a huge question for economists, policy-makers, and technologists. […]

Robots no threat to jobs and taxing them may harm economy

Robots no threat to jobs and taxing them may harm economy

The UK already has fewer robots than other leading economies Robots do not pose a threat to UK workers’ jobs, and proposals to tax them risk damaging the economy, a new report has found.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has warned of the danger of the rewards from automation going only to a few bosses of tech firms and argued for them instead to be “publicly managed to share the benefits”, though aides stressed he has not proposed a robot tax.

The new paper from the Centre for Policy Studies (CPS) think tank warns that restraints on investment in robots […]

How AI Could Reshape Economies

How AI Could Reshape Economies

(ktsdesign/Shutterstock) As the field of artificial intelligence continues to expand, prominent scientists, business leaders, and politicians are expressing concerns about what this will mean for the future of work. Many conversations focus on the probability of robots taking away people’s jobs, but economies could be impacted in other ways. According to experts, AI technologies may also change the nature of work and affect financial services. Even if you keep your job, your day to day duties could be drastically altered by new AI-powered tools. Instead of probing these economic nuances, the news media has largely favored more apocalyptic interpretations.

Increasingly, […]

OPINION: Kendall Stanley — Machines march on

I’ve written here before on the impact of computing power on the job market but a handful of recent reports beg the question of what will ultimately be the impact of automation and artificial intelligence.

The News-Review ran a story last Tuesday about how people feel automation will impact their workplace and employment. A poll taken by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research said most Americans believe their jobs are safe from automation, at least for the next decade.

The New Yorker took a look at Grand Rapids’ Steelcase where automation is thinning the ranks and other ways automation […]

Brave new world

Brave new world

Jason Kaplan Cascades tissue factory, Scappoose

Manufacturers grapple with automation.

In an industrial park on the outskirts of Portland, a small team of engineers are putting the final touches on an elaborate machine they have just built. The machine makes liners for bicycle helmets that are designed to protect against brain injury.Michael Bottlang, director of the Legacy Biomechanics Laboratory in Portland, spent more than 10 years researching and developing the new product, known as WaveCel. He also helped design the new machine that will mass produce the liners. Michael Bottlang Bottlang’s team is still refining and optimizing the machine, […]