Tag: productivity

PM Narendra Modi Promotes Use Of Artificial Intelligence In Agriculture

PM Narendra Modi Promotes Use Of Artificial Intelligence In Agriculture

PM Narendra Modi at the convocation ceremony of Sher-e-Kashmir University of Agriculture Sciences and Technology, Jammu. (Image source: @narendramodi/Twitter) Reiterating his as well as his government’s stance on new technologies, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi emphasised the use of artificial intelligence in sectors like agriculture.

Speaking at the convocation ceremony at the Sher-e-Kashmir University of Agriculture Sciences and Technology in Jammu, PM Modi said that the future of agriculture lay in AI and blockchain technology. Embracing AI and Block Chain Technology would be beneficial for our agriculture sector. pic.twitter.com/hUVeGIscin Advertisement — Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) May 19, 2018 According to reports […]

Robots, Employment And The Mis-Measurement Of Productivity

Robots, Employment And The Mis-Measurement Of Productivity

‘I am convinced that the substitution of machinery for human labour is often very injurious to the interests of the class of labourers’. While Marx, writing only a few decades later, envisaged a time when man would be enabled to: – ‘…to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticise after dinner… without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, herdsman or critic.’ As for Keynes essay on the, ‘Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren’, his optimism is laudable if laughable – 15-hour working week anyone?

The paranoia continues, nonetheless – The Economist – A study finds nearly […]

The future of manufacturing lies in digital transformation

The future of manufacturing lies in digital transformation

Mike Vincent, Deloitte Consulting C&IP Leader and Africa Industrial Products & Services Leader The South African manufacturing industry has come under significant pressure in the last decade with the traditional manufacturing industry currently in the throes of a digital transformation that is accelerated by the exponential growth of smart technologies.

The adoption and impact of Industry 4.0 in South Africa has been relatively low at a foundation stage in the manufacturing industry overall, with some sector differences.

The concept of digitizing everything is becoming a reality. Automation, artificial intelligence, IoT, machine learning and other advanced technologies can quickly capture and analyze […]

How to prepare for AI in the workplace

How to prepare for AI in the workplace

Tweet Artificial Intelligence

Mention artificial intelligence, and most people think one of two things – either “it’s science fiction” or “robots are going to steal our jobs”. Now it’s true that when it comes to the workplace, AI stands to significantly change the daily work environment, but that change is much more likely to mean increased efficiency and productivity, and not the doom and gloom that many claim. In fact, recent research suggests that robots create jobs – a study by the Centre for European Economic Research (ZEW) on behalf of the German Federal Ministry for Education and Research […]

Bullshit Jobs by David Graeber Review

Bullshit Jobs by David Graeber Review

Graeber, an anthropology professor at the London School of Economics, was a mover and shaker in the Occupy Wall Street movement and is well known for his approachable critiques of neoliberal free market ideology. His new book, Bullshit Jobs: A Theory (Simon & Schuster; $27), sprang from a shorter essay he published in 2013 in a feminist-activist magazine called Strike , which quickly struck a nerve. (One that kept thrumming: on a Monday morning in 2015, an anonymous group plastered the London Underground with quotations from the writings.)

“Huge swathes of people spend their days performing jobs they secretly believe […]

Self-employed think artificial intelligence won’t majorly affect the workplace

Self-employed think artificial intelligence won’t majorly affect the workplace

Half of self-employed worker aren’t too worried about artificial intelligence Half of the UK’s independent workers don’t think that artificial intelligence will have a significant impact on the world of work.

Accenture data has predicted that the growing trend of AI in the workplace could double annual economic growth rates, but independent workers aren’t convinced.

A Qdos Contractor survey with over 1500 contractor respondents shows that: 50 per cent think AI will have ‘little impact’ on their career 21 per cent believe that AI will have a ‘ big positive impact ’ 11 per cent expect a ‘big negative impact’ 18 […]

Did Manufacturing Collapse In the Aughts?

Did Manufacturing Collapse In the Aughts?

What happened to manufacturing in the aughts? The usual story is that employment plummeted but output increased. Apparently manufacturing got a lot more efficient during this period, which is why so many people lost their jobs.

Susan Houseman begs to differ. Using sophisticated decompositions, she finds that it’s all a mirage: computer manufacturing got more efficient, but that’s about it. And even that’s a bit of a mirage due to the way inflation is calculated: it’s not that American workers are making a lot more computers than they used to, it’s that they’re making more MIPS, so to speak. […]

China really is to blame for millions of lost U.S. manufacturing jobs, new study finds

China really is to blame for millions of lost U.S. manufacturing jobs, new study finds

Robots are not to blame for the loss of millions of U.S. manufacturing jobs. Millions of Americans who lost manufacturing jobs during the 2000s have long ”known” China was to blame, not robots. Evidently many academics who’ve studied the issue are finally drawing the same conclusion.

For years economists have viewed the increased role of automation in the computer age as the culprit for some 6 million lost jobs from 1999 to 2010 — one-third of all U.S. manufacturing employment. Firms adopted new technologies to boost production, the thinking goes, and put workers out of the job in the process. […]

How the World’s Biggest Companies Are Fine-Tuning the Robot Revolution

How the World’s Biggest Companies Are Fine-Tuning the Robot Revolution

Fritz is more efficient at handling the dangerous and repetitive task of lifting the 8-inch metal-and-circuitry pieces out of the furnace. This leaves Mr. Rösch less exposed to potential accidents and gives him time to test 20% more parts than he did before the robots.

The big question surrounding automation has long been whether robots would compete with workers or help them. Initially, workers feared robots would destroy jobs across the economy. Scholarly research and real-life experience has eased that concern, although some types of workers and industries are ending up on the losing side.

Today, the question is more precise: […]

Why we need to protect our income from robot automation

Why we need to protect our income from robot automation

The future is here. It’s time to take action. Robots conjure images of some distant future – a crisp, white-walled existence. Except that time is now.

Last month, one leading futurologist predicted that the global robot population, already more than 57 million, will outnumber humans by 2048, and that’s a conservative estimate.

Automation is already ingrained in everything from warehouse management to selling financial products. Workers are worried that they are going to find themselves replaced in the jobs market; employer services provider ADP recently surveyed 1,300 working adults and found that a third believe their job will be automated within […]