Tag: productivity

How automation could affect employment for women and minorities

How automation could affect employment for women and minorities

As automation technologies advance— from natural language processing and machine learning to self-driving vehicles—the number of jobs, as well as their very nature, will be affected. In the United Kingdom, our research suggests that, with the right actions, women could benefit from the effects of advanced technologies on skills and jobs. In the United States, without concerted effort—including retraining—the impact of automation could heighten existing disparities for African American workers. The two stories that follow look at the magnitude of potential change and steps that could mitigate the downside. Automation and the future of women at work

Much has […]

As technology changes our lives, shouldn’t it change our taxes?

As technology changes our lives, shouldn’t it change our taxes?

Picture: iSTOCK Technology and the internet are changing our lives. Online shopping is displacing the high street. The gig economy is disrupting employment patterns and wages. Gaming and streaming are altering leisure habits.

However, economies are being affected by the transformations to our lifestyles resulting from smartphones, artificial intelligence (AI), virtual reality, autonomous cars, to the internet of things and 3D printing.

Online shopping and price-comparison websites give consumers better information and more choice of places from which to buy, making it harder for companies to raise prices. Central banks are thus questioning whether inflation targeting remains valid for setting interest […]

Walmart Announces New Workforce Addition: Thousands of Robots

Walmart Announces New Workforce Addition: Thousands of Robots

New addition to the workforce at Walmart. A new tech trend has emerged at the world’s largest retailer, as Walmart brings on board thousands of robots in nearly 5,000 of its 11,348 stores. According to CNN Business , these robots will be scrubbing floors, scanning boxes, unloading trucks and tracking shelf inventory at mostly domestic US locations.

Robots will replace lower-level jobs – serving in janitorial functions as well as performing basic inventory work – in order to manage rising costs. A new robot unloader has already been used on the docks in hundreds of stores, pulling boxes from delivery […]

Robots set for uprising against taxes after taking too many jobs from humans

Robots set for uprising against taxes after taking too many jobs from humans

New report warns against taxing robots

There are increasing calls for policymakers to impose taxes on robots and other capital goods based on the faulty analysis that doing so is necessary to raise adequate government revenue, restore labor income, and remove “distortions” in the tax code.

However, a new report from the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF), the world’s leading think tank for science and technology policy, shows that these concerns are illusory and that taxing robots would slow productivity growth, as well as growth in wages and GDP.Robert Atkinson, ITIF president and author of the report, […]

The new spirit of postcapitalism

The new spirit of postcapitalism

Barcelona is one of the ‘fearless cities’, where the seeds of postcapitalism can start to grow The streets are full of young people (and not just students)—sitting, sipping drinks, gazing more at laptops than into each other’s eyes, talking quietly about politics, making art, looking cool.

A time traveller from their grandparents’ youth might ask: when is lunchtime over? But it’s never over because for many networked people it never really begins. In the developed world, large parts of urban reality look like Woodstock in permanent session—but what is really happening is the devalorisation of capital.

Sure, somewhere on the edge […]

AI will create more jobs than it destroys

AI will create more jobs than it destroys

AI will bring productivity growth that will create demand for work, offsetting the displacement of workers. Despite fears that artificial intelligence (AI) will wipe out millions of jobs across the globe, technological advancement is poised to be a job engine that will create more employment than it destroys.

While jobs will be displaced by automation, some technology experts allay fears of robots completely taking over. They suggest the fourth industrial revolution presents both an opportunity and a challenge that will see technology pave the way for shifts in occupations, resulting in the creation of more jobs than it will ravage.

An […]

Blue Prism shows its colours around the rise of the ‘Digital Worker’

Blue Prism shows its colours around the rise of the ‘Digital Worker’

A common gripe in the UK and European tech communities is that there are few homegrown unicorns, few billion-dollar players to rival those of the US or China. “We just can’t grow them here,” people say – at least, not since SAP or (whisper it carefully) Autonomy. Even the UK’s DeepMind went for a song – a reported $500 million – when Google snapped it up and rebuilt its AI vision around it. Meanwhile Europe seems to want to break up the US giants rather than grow its own.

Yet if you mention the name Blue Prism to many analysts […]

Adjusting to the new world of work

Adjusting to the new world of work

Waking up on my first morning in Las Vegas, where the time is 14 hours behind Thailand, was not easy. Cup of coffee in hand, I walked past a group of senior citizens wearing red long-sleeved T-shirts outside a large conference hall. They were event ambassadors, hired to welcome and guide participants from all over the world, and the sight of their smiling faces helped to bring me awake. What a pleasant start to the day: I get to experience human interaction and some seniors have a chance to earn extra income, I was telling myself.

I was in Las […]

Not All Workers Fear Automation, Study Says

Not All Workers Fear Automation, Study Says

Many workers are surprisingly sanguine about the impact of automation on their jobs according to a survey of 5,000 business decision makers and knowledge workers. It reveals the majority of the latter (83 per cent) are comfortable with reskilling in order to work alongside the digital workforce.

The study was sponsored by Blue Prism, which along with Automation Anywhere and UIPath, is considered a leader in the at times controversial Robotic Process Automation market.

The impact of automation on employment featured heavily as a discussion point in last week’s Blue Prism World conference in London. The company was keen to emphasize […]

The new spirit of postcapitalism

The new spirit of postcapitalism

Capitalism emerged in the interstices of feudalism and Paul Mason finds a prefiguring of postcapitalism in the lifeworld of the contemporary European city. Raval, Barcelona, March 2019. The streets are full of young people (and not just students)—sitting, sipping drinks, gazing more at laptops than into each other’s eyes, talking quietly about politics, making art, looking cool.

A time traveller from their grandparents’ youth might ask: when is lunchtime over? But it’s never over because for many networked people it never really begins. In the developed world, large parts of urban reality look like Woodstock in permanent session—but what is […]