Tag: robot

The robo-apocalypse won’t be in your lifetime

The robo-apocalypse won't be in your lifetime

Berkeley

WILL the imminent "rise of the robots" threaten all future human employment? The most thoughtful discussion of that question can be found in Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) economist David H Autor’s 2015 paper, Why Are There Still so Many Jobs?, which considers the problem in the context of Polanyi’s Paradox.

Given that "we can know more than we can tell", the 20th-century philosopher Michael Polanyi observed, we should not assume that technology can replicate the function of human knowledge itself. Just because a computer can know everything there is to know about a car does not mean that it […]

Dan Sutter: The great truck driver shortage

Dan Sutter: The great truck driver shortage

The Alabama legislature lowered the minimum age for a truck driver’s (CDL) license to 18 for within-state transport (the minimum age remains 21 in interstate trucking) to help alleviate a driver shortage the American Trucking Associations (ATA) says has existed since 2005. Trucking has long been a major employer in Alabama and Pike County. What are the economics of this shortage and the future of trucking?

Trucking contributes enormously to our economy. Seventy percent of freight, over 10 billion tons annually, ships via trucks. Our modern economy could not exist without reliable truck transportation; any uncertainty would render just-in-time production […]

What If Presidential Hopeful Andrew Yang Is Right?

What If Presidential Hopeful Andrew Yang Is Right?

(AP Photo/John Locher) photo credit: ASSOCIATED PRESS At the most recent Future of Everything Festival , presidential candidate Andrew Yang jokingly said that when the first Democratic debate takes place in Miami on June 26 th Americans will be wondering, “Who is the Asian guy standing next to Joe Biden?”

Maybe Americans ought to be paying more attention to his platform than simply his ethnicity.

I’ve begun to devote a little more thinking to Yang in recent months, wondering aloud where he’s headed. I’m also pondering whether Americans—or Democrats who hold power to select their presidential candidate to confront President Trump—are […]

‘What happened to all the file clerks?’ Automation makes humans moreuseful, not less

'What happened to all the file clerks?' Automation makes humans moreuseful, not less

A nice piece on the BBC website today illustrates the fallacy behind this idea that robots will make humans useless. The piece describes the creation of VisiCalc, the first electronic spreadsheet program.

With VisiCalc’s introduction in 1979, 99% of the drudgery that accountants had to perform (or hire others to perform) in updating each cell in a spreadsheet by hand was eliminated overnight. And as a result, hundreds of thousands of accounting clerk jobs simply vanished.

Given that one of the Democratic presidential candidates is running on the fear that people will become obsolete and irrelevant to the economy, it is […]

Low-Income Jobs at Highest Risk of Automation

Low-Income Jobs at Highest Risk of Automation

While there are many examples of technology changing the way people work, the latest advancements in artificial intelligence and robotics have many people worried that their work will no longer be required at all.

According to OECD estimates, more than 1 in 5 low-income jobs across its member countries are at high risk of automation. But it’s no longer just manual routine tasks that are affected by automation. Artificial intelligence is increasingly capable of performing “cognitive routine” tasks that are typical of the service sector. For example, artificial intelligence has recently surpassed humans at speech and image recognition, indicating that […]

Creative workers future of manufacturing, alliance leader says

Creative workers future of manufacturing, alliance leader says

Oklahoma is close to experiencing a generational gap in the manufacturing sector, with more than 20,000 unfilled jobs over the next five years, said Oklahoma Manufacturing Alliance President Dave Rowland.

The problem, he told members of the Oklahoma City Rotary Club on Tuesday, is that Oklahoma’s demographics won’t fill the gap. Manufacturing companies instead will have to rely more on technology to stay competitive.

Like the industry nationwide, companies in the state must embrace several 21st century trends, like automation, cybersecurity and robotics."We’re not going to have enough workers to traditional manufacturing jobs," Rowland said. "These robots are going to help […]

VeriCall to create 209 jobs at new base in Kirkcaldy

VeriCall to create 209 jobs at new base in Kirkcaldy

A contact centre firm has announced plans to open a "flagship" office in Kirkcaldy, creating more than 200 jobs.

The move by VeriCall is being backed with a Regional Selective Assistance grant of £1m from Scottish Enterprise.

The government agency had worked in partnership with Fife Council to attract the firm to the town.VeriCall said it planned to create 209 jobs over two years once the company moves into new premises in John Smith Business Park.It added that all the roles would be full-time and permanent and meet the Scottish living wage of £9 an hour.Welcoming the news, Scottish Business Minister […]

The Answer to Rising Inequality Isn’t Redistribution

The Answer to Rising Inequality Isn’t Redistribution

robot Uncredited Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez made headlines by calling for “ taxing the robots ” of the emergent digital economy. That followed upon her previous call for a 70% top marginal income tax rate on the richest and Senator Elizabeth Warren’s plan for a 2% wealth tax on assets worth more than $50 million (and 3% on assets worth more than $1 billion).

By putting inequality front and center on the political agenda as the U.S. heads into the election season, Democratic politicians are trying to capture the populist zeitgeist.

The redistributionist rhetoric has some investors concerned . Ray Dalio, who […]

Robo-Apocalypse? Not in Your Lifetime

Robo-Apocalypse? Not in Your Lifetime

Getty Images Not a week goes by without some new report, book, or commentary sounding the alarm about technological unemployment and the "future of work." Yet in considering the threat posed by automation at most levels of the value chain, we should remember that robots cannot do what humans cannot tell them to do.

BERKELEY – Will the imminent “rise of the robots” threaten all future human employment? The most thoughtful discussion of that question can be found in MIT economist David H. Autor’s 2015 paper , “Why Are There Still so Many Jobs?”, which considers the problem in the […]

Meet the secret ‘ghost workers’ paid to keep the internet safe

Meet the secret ‘ghost workers’ paid to keep the internet safe

Enlarge Image Ghost workers are meant to make consumers believe in the autonomous intelligence of robots, when really there’s a human workforce behind the cogs and gears. Kala, a 43-year-old mother of two, sits alone at her home office, in the corner of a tiny bedroom, and studies her laptop screen, trying to determine if what she’s reading is offensive.

Her part-time job, which she picked up as a way to feel “fruitful” between making meals and helping her kids with their homework, involves “content moderation.” As an independent contractor for UHRS, an outsourcing company run by Microsoft, she spends […]