Tag: mobility

Humanities and the Rise of Robots

Humanities and the Rise of Robots

The threat that recent advances in job automation , machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) represent for human workers is becoming more and more relevant in the economic and social debate.

CEOs like John Cryan of Deutsche Bank clearly state that robots can replace thousands of workers. In two different interviews, Cryan said that “in our banks, we have people behaving like robots doing mechanical things. Tomorrow we’re going to have robots behaving like people” and that “we’re too manual, which can make you error-prone and it makes you inefficient. There’s a lot of machine learning and mechanisation that we […]

What The Digital Revolution Means for Middle-Class Jobs

What The Digital Revolution Means for Middle-Class Jobs

(All graphics courtesy of the Metropolitan Policy Program at Brookings) According to popular narrative, technology’s rapid remake of the U.S. workforce has benefited wealthy coastal metro areas — and their more highly educated residents — and left the rest of the country behind. It’s a force that’s fostered inequality, benefited the already privileged and widened the urban-rural divide.

But as with most popular narratives, that one isn’t entirely true. From nurses who use portable vein finders for blood tests to auto mechanics troubleshooting cars on their laptops, technology is reshaping industries across the board — not just the higher-skilled ones […]

There’s No You in AI

There’s No You in AI

This thoughtful piece on what ‘robots’ are going to do to employment by Kevin Drum might be published in Mother Jones (and it comes with quite a few Mother Jones flourishes), but take the time to read it, (very) stiff drink in hand.

Drum’s focus is less on robots (as conventionally understood) than on Artificial Intelligence (AI): AI is improving exponentially, a product of both better computer hardware and software. Hardware has historically followed a growth curve called Moore’s law, in which power and efficiency double every couple of years, and recent improvements in software algorithms have been even more […]

European Companies Are Investing at Home Again

European Companies Are Investing at Home Again

European business is coming home.

Daimler AG is planning to spend billions to get its German factories ready for an electric-car push. Property giant Unibail-Rodamco SE is expanding its shopping-mall footprint across the region and laser-equipment maker Trumpf GmbH has built a new distribution center in Germany to handle surging demand.

For years, European business has chased growth abroad, spending billions to build new factories in the U.S., Mexico, China, Brazil and other fast-growing emerging economies while investment in Europe languished. Now, as growth takes hold in Europe nearly a decade after the financial crisis, industry is investing in Europe again."What’s […]

The flying drones putting workers out of a job

The flying drones putting workers out of a job

Enable it in your browser or download Flash Player here .Sorry, you need Flash to play this. Media captionPinc’s flying drone scans warehouse packages Flying drones and robots now patrol distribution warehouses – they’ve become workhorses of the e-commerce era online that retailers can’t do without. It is driving down costs but it is also putting people out of work: what price progress?

It could be a scene from Blade Runner 2049; the flying drone hovers in the warehouse aisle, its spinning rotors filling the cavernous space with a buzzing whine.

It edges close to the packages stacked on the shelf […]

The grids are all right: Robots have never and will never steal jobs

The grids are all right: Robots have never and will never steal jobs

Careers They probably are not going to allow you to live in Oscar Wilde’s work-free, creative, socialist utopia either.

On a November night in 1811, angry workers smashed textile machines in Nottingham. This wasn’t the first time something like this had happened – the first such incident, on 11 March of the same year, had to be disbanded by British troops. No one managed to catch a glimpse of their elusive leader, Ned Ludd.

Unbeknownst to the protesters, they had inadvertently established a long legacy of the term “Luddite” forever being associated with fears that automation would lead to mass job […]

Unifor’s fight to secure jobs at Cami highlights the shift of work to Mexico under NAFTA

Unifor’s fight to secure jobs at Cami highlights the shift of work to Mexico under NAFTA

Striking Cami workers march Friday in a rally outside the Ingersoll plant. As the dispute nears its fourth week, there’s no end in sight. GM Canada and Unifor remain “far apart,” says the union representing the 2,800 workers. The two sides are to resume bargaining on Tuesday. (BRUCE CHESSELL/Sentinel-Review) It’s a microcosm of a larger fight.

As the strike by 2,800 workers at Ingersoll’s Cami assembly plant nears its fourth week, the standoff underlines what’s happened to Canada’s auto industry under the North American Free Trade Agreement

(NAFTA) and why the stakes are so high, especially with a tough-talking Donald Trump […]

Do we need a robot tax for businesses?

Do we need a robot tax for businesses?

Cyber capital: taxing robots could help slow the pace of automation Credit: Getty Rob Waugh

Since Bill Gates made the case for taxing robots like human workers, governments worldwide have been weighing up how this would really affect the global economy

Self-driving lorries are going to be on Britain’s roads next year – part of a coming wave of automation that could see jobs such as drivers, security guards and even accountants swept away by a robotic revolution.This year, Bill Gates suggested a radical idea – that governments should tax these new robot “employees”, just like they do […]

The Next Hot Millennial Trend: Never-Ending Labor in Dystopian Warehouses

The Next Hot Millennial Trend: Never-Ending Labor in Dystopian Warehouses

The death of retail, workers’ rights, and pension plans have sent migrant seniors into the arms of Amazon. What does this mean for a generation saddled with debt?

Allie Conti

Sep 27 2017, 5:25pm All photos by Jessica Bruder As online retail has become a way of life, the classic American shopping mall has been presented with seemingly inevitable extinction. Mom-and-pop stores succumbing to big-box competitors is an old story, but these days even retail behemoths like J.Crew , Sears, and Kmart are in trouble . One recent casualty on this front was Toys R Us, […]

Why skills and education are the real robot battleground

Why skills and education are the real robot battleground

This has been a record-breaking year for industrial robotics, says the Robotic Industries Association (RIA) of the US.

In total, over 19,000 industrial robots worth $1 billion were sold in North America alone during the first half of 2017, the highest ever number of orders for the region. The figures reveal a one-third year-on-year increase in shipments for the first two quarters, and a 26% surge in spending.

Orders grew most in the automotive sector, which saw a 39% increase in purchases. Globally, the automotive robotics market is set to expand at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 10.74 per […]