Tag: productivity

Robots Are More Likely To Take Women’s Jobs Than Men’s, Study Shows, But It Might Not Be All Doom & Gloom

Robots Are More Likely To Take Women's Jobs Than Men's, Study Shows, But It Might Not Be All Doom & Gloom

Threats that robots will soon be taking over the world have been happening for decades. In my opinion, this seems highly unlikely in our lifetime, if ever. But there are some worrying statistics surrounding automation and how this process — which uses technology to do things that humans would usually do — could detrimentally impact women. In fact, a new report by the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) has found that robots are more likely to take women’s jobs than men’s.

Their research has revealed that 9% of women work in occupations with a "high potential for automation" compared […]

What Happened to Weirton? Part 5: Moving Forward

What Happened to Weirton? Part 5: Moving Forward

A crowd of attendees at the Festival of Nations at the Millsop Community Center in Weirton If someone had a crystal ball, they could tell you exactly what the future holds for Weirton. Sadly, there are no magic tools to make this a short story. But, with a bit of help from the gift of gab, I’ll tell you about the current trajectory of the area.

As it’s already been established, Weirton Steel offered a seemingly unbreakable backbone of employment, high wages, and community identity to the city and the nearby stretch of the Ohio Valley. The mill helped Weirton […]

Axios Future

Axios Future

Welcome to a special edition of Future. Six years ago, two little-known researchers from Oxford University came out with a startling and controversial paper : By their calculations, 47% of American jobs were vulnerable to automation. With their frightening outlook, Carl Frey and Michael Osborne ignited everything from robot hysteria to outraged denunciation, the latest in a cycle of visceral emotion that has accompanied every wave of new technology since before the Industrial Revolution.

Frey’s new book: " The Technology Trap: Capital, Labor, and Power in the Age of Automation " pivots off of the now-famous 2013 paper to […]

‘Cruel changes’ ahead as automation comes for employment, Forrester says

'Cruel changes' ahead as automation comes for employment, Forrester says

Credit: Adobe Stock Dive Brief:

By 2030, automation will cut jobs by 29% while contributing as little as 13% to job creation, according to Forrester’s Future of Work report .

Automation will disproportionately impact digital laggards because non-digital workers will be unable to upskill at the rapid pace of change, according to the report. Companies already have a portfolio of intelligent technologies used for automation, though right now the use cases are fragmented and small. Eventually automation will stretch further into new use cases, risks and rewards, according to the report. Designed for 60-second consumption, the CIO Dive newsletter […]

Automation and Robotics: Manufacturing Tomorrow

Automation and Robotics: Manufacturing Tomorrow

The process of training robots through virtual reality is referred to as imitation learning. Robots can easily mimic the human, guided by machine learning algorithms.

FREMONT, CA: Industrial robotics is a gigantic industry and is radically changing since its introduction. Industrial robots perform diverse motions and can be controlled to do different functions, such as transportation, assembly, searching, inspection, and targeting. The industrial robots mainly consist of six fundamental elements including, dynamic system, end-of-arm tool, actuators, sensors, controllers, and feedback devices.

Robotics has been employed in a wide range of sectors with a high social and economic impact in […]

‘The Technology Trap’ as Companion to ‘Robot-Proof’

'The Technology Trap' as Companion to 'Robot-Proof’

The Technology Trap: Capital, Labor, and Power in the Age of Automation by Carl Benedikt Frey

Published in June of 2019.

What recently published nonfiction book should a higher ed person read, if they only have time to read one book in 2019?A book that is not about higher ed, but is essential for higher ed?This was a question one of my smartest – and crazy busiest – colleagues asked me a few weeks ago. I might have an answer. The Technology Trap is written by one of the authors of a 2013 study that found that 47 […]

Automation, aging and employment: winners and losers

Automation, aging and employment: winners and losers

The developed societies are witnessing a technological revolution that is advancing rapidly in a globalized world. The clearest manifestation is possibly the automation of productive processes. The development of machines / robots that perform tasks, mostly routine and codifiable, that we previously made humans, is undoubted opportunities but also no lesser challenges. It entails opportunities because the robots undoubtedly perform these tasks with greater precision and speed -and consequently increases productivity-, and in addition they prevent people from carrying out very heavy and / or unpleasant tasks in many cases. These increases in productivity are undoubtedly an opportunity that […]

Inside the hellish workday of an Amazon warehouse employee

Inside the hellish workday of an Amazon warehouse employee

Living

Enlarge Image The labor can be so grueling at Amazon that one worker in Kentucky said she needs four pain meds just to get through the workday. It took just three days of working full time at an Amazon “fulfillment center” outside of Louisville, Kentucky, for Emily Guendelsberger’s body to break down.

She’d been warned by her supervisors that it would be physically demanding. She’d be on her feet for 12-hour shifts, walking a total of 15 to 20 miles through a 25-acre warehouse — as long as seven New York blocks — looking for merchandise to fulfill […]

Is Jeff Bezos Proving the Fed’s De-linking of Unemployment and Inflation?

Is Jeff Bezos Proving the Fed’s De-linking of Unemployment and Inflation?

I’ve written a couple of times over the years about the threat to jobs by technological automation and several pieces of news this week feels make now feel like an appropriate juncture to pick up the thread again. For a primer on the relationship between interest rates, job automation and inflation, have a read of this piece where I discussed some of the considerations facing the Fed. Of importance will be the basic understanding of the traditional interpretation of the Phillips Curve. An economic idea which fairly effectively conceptualised the basic principle that the level of unemployment within an […]

Neo Cab Takes On Uber & Lyft’s Gig Economies Via Near Future Sci-Fi

Neo Cab Takes On Uber & Lyft's Gig Economies Via Near Future Sci-Fi

The gig economy is beginning to define America’s employment system. Uber and Lyft (and others) changed the way people work. There’s the positive – work when you want for as long as you want – and negatives – minimal pay and no benefits. Eventually, that could all be automated. That’s the future Chance Agency’s Neo Cab explores.

“A close friend of mine was a part of the initial Lyft beta (when Uber was still black cars and limos), and we interviewed dozens of drivers, delivery folks and other gig workers to gather ideas about the entire ‘app worker’ space. Driver […]