Tag: productivity

Short of Workers, Fast-Food Restaurants Turn to Robots

Short of Workers, Fast-Food Restaurants Turn to Robots

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Job openings in hospitality, including restaurants, have increased since 2010 and account for more available positions than retail or manufacturing firms.

Note: Seasonally adjusted dataSource: Labor DepartmentExperts have warned for years that robots will replace humans in restaurants. Instead, a twist on that prediction is unfolding. Amid the lowest unemployment in years , fast-food restaurants are turning to machines—not to get rid of workers, but because they can’t find enough.The hospitality industry had 844,000 unfilled positions in April, a record high, according to the Labor Department. That accounts for about one out of every eight jobs available […]

First new all-electric mine dumps diesel; cuts costs, pollution

A worker walks underground at Goldcorp Inc’s Borden all-electric gold mine near Chapleau, Ontario, Canada, June 13, 2018. REUTERS/Chris Watt By Susan Taylor and Barbara Lewis

CHAPLEAU, Ontario/LONDON (Reuters) – Hundreds of feet below thick boreal forest blanketing the Canadian Shield, a squad of near-silent, battery-powered machines are tunneling toward gold in a multimillion-dollar mining experiment to ditch diesel.

Goldcorp Inc is building the world’s first new all-electric mine, a high-stakes gambit to replace noisy, fume-belching equipment being closely watched by a diesel-dependent industry.A rough-hewn tunnel, some 800 feet underground, seems an incongruous setting for revolutionary technology, but front-line workers call […]

Fear Not, Truckers: Robot Replacements Are Decades Away

Fear Not, Truckers: Robot Replacements Are Decades Away

The truck drivers who stand to lose their jobs to automated-driving technology? Many of them haven’t been born yet.

For all of today’s fretting over the potential for massive unemployment associated with the deployment of self-driving vehicles, a report issued last week by a transportation-policy think tank says the first ripples from automation won’t reach the labor market until the mid-2030s. Widespread impact won’t occur for more than a quarter of a century.

Even then, the report, published by Securing America’s Future Energy (SAFE), suggests job impacts will be minimal rather than a catalyst for broad economic turmoil. The SAFE think […]

Public overwhelmingly rejecting robots, finds UK Robotics Week report

Public overwhelmingly rejecting robots, finds UK Robotics Week report

With UK Robotics Week upon us, UK-RAS has released a survey trumpeting public support for the technology. However, the results reveal the exact reverse, says Chris Middleton.

A fifth of UK adults believe we are co-existing in harmony with robots, according to a new survey, while nearly one-quarter (24 percent) believe that there is much more scope for robots to be included in everyday society.

Over one-third of people (35 percent) would feel comfortable with having robots around the house, it says.The research, commissioned and given a positive spin by UK-RAS – the umbrella organisation for UK robotics and autonomous […]

Auto to See More Robots

Auto to See More Robots

Kristin Dziczek is vice president of the Industry, Labor, & Economics group of the Center for Automotive Research Automotive is one of the most highly-automated industries in the world, and it has been a leading force in expanding the use of industrial automation for decades. In fact, the first industrial robot in production was a Unimation UNIMATE that GM installed on a die-casting line in New Jersey in 1962.

Developments such as the Stanford Arm and MIT’s Silver Arm that were initially deployed in automotive led to widespread proliferation of industrial automation in the US auto industry throughout the 1970s […]

Automation and AI: why I’m looking forward to the Robopocalypse

Automation and AI: why I’m looking forward to the Robopocalypse

It’s confirmed. The robots are coming. And no, I’m not running scared. Is AI really coming for your job?

A recent study by thinktank Future Advocacy predicted that automation will affect one in five jobs across the UK. Another survey by UK research firm ADP found that on in three workers believes his or her jobs will be replaced by robots within the next ten years. And prior to his death, super-physicist Stephen Hawking ominously said, “I fear that AI may replace humans altogether.”

However, for forward-looking marketers all this fear-mongering seems a bit misplaced. After all, if there is anything […]

Global and Economic Expert John Manzella Gives Insight into Current U.S. Trends at AAMA Summer Conference

Global and Economic Expert John Manzella Gives Insight into Current U.S. Trends at AAMA Summer Conference

John Manzella | Photo: aamanet.org At the AAMA Summer Conference, a global and economics-focused keynote address stated that everything from the North American Free Trade Agreement and the U.S. relationship with China to automation and the opioid crisis are current economic impactful factors in an uncertain time.

At the American Architectural Manufacturers Association (AAMA) 2018 Summer Conference in Lake Tahoe, a global and economics-focused keynote address stated that everything from the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the U.S. relationship with China to automation and the opioid crisis are current economic impactful factors in an uncertain time. John Manzella, […]

Automation generates more jobs opportunities in Asia than it demolishes

Automation generates more jobs opportunities in Asia than it demolishes

According to a new report from the Asia Development Bank (ADB), new technologies like robots, automation, and Artificial Intelligence (AI) are creating more jobs in Asia than they destroy. Figure 1: The adoption of robotics and other connected systems stimulated higher productivity and economic growth, creating 134 million new jobs, compared with the 101 million lost to new technologies. Using productivity as a broad measure of technological advance, ADB’s input/output analysis of 12 economies in Asia found that, had output remained the same. Technology-driven increased productivity would have brought a 66 percent decrease in employment , equal to 101 […]

China to see more jobs in manufacturing, service sectors

Even with the rapid development of technology, especially in automation and artificially intelligence field, which can see tasks previously performed by humans taken over by robots, China is expected to create more jobs in both the manufacturing and service sectors, said an official from the World Bank.

"Since the global markets for manufacturing is expanding, our prediction is that the share of manufacturing jobs and the number of service jobs in China will continue to expand, much more than the last few years which were affected by the global financial crisis," said Simeon Djankov, director of the World Development Report […]

How Will Robotics and AI Evolve?

How Will Robotics and AI Evolve?

Precambrian marine life. Source: Ghedoghedo / CC BY-SA 3.0 At certain points in prehistoric epochs, the evolution of life experienced an explosion of diversified organisms within a relatively short time. The so-called Cambrian explosion is the best-known of these diversification events. Scientists have debated the scope and possible causes for the explosion for decades. Fossil records show that between 505 and 542 million years ago, all of our existing biological taxa appeared, forever altering the global ecosystem.

AI and robotics systems may become pervasive in society in the same way. Hundreds of years in the future, historians could look back […]