Tag: robot

Opinion: Is Alberta ready for the Fourth Industrial Revolution?

Opinion: Is Alberta ready for the Fourth Industrial Revolution?

The world is entering the Fourth Industrial Revolution. How will Alberta play its part? Postmedia We are in the midst of a pivotal social and economic transformation; whether we know it or not, humanity — Alberta inclusive — has entered the early stages of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Advancements in computing, particularly the proliferation of machine learning within the Artificial Intelligence domain, are credited as heralds for this shift in the same ways steam engines, internal combustion and the internet marked the First, Second, and Third Industrial Revolutions, respectively.

Our daily lives are already algorithmically-augmented and assisted in much more […]

How AI Could Help — Or Hinder — Women in the Workforce

How AI Could Help — Or Hinder — Women in the Workforce

Jacob Lund/ Shutterstock My clients often ask me if the proliferation of AI will help or hurt women in the workplace. The potential impact is significant—and if we do not act now , women will bear the brunt of the negative effects. First, employment: According to the IMF, 11% of women’s jobs are at risk of elimination from AI—a higher percentage than for jobs currently held by men. But reskilling and upskilling can flip the odds and offer new opportunities for women. Additionally, AI could widen the gender gap in the leadership pipeline. While 56% of university graduates are […]

Retailers play down job threats in stores from AI and automation

Retailers play down job threats in stores from AI and automation

Major retailers played down the threat to job in stores from artificial intelligence (AI) and automation on Thursday, Reuters reported . Several global retailers pledged more training to help staff adopt more high-value tasks as machines take over their work.

Retail is one of the largest job creators in developed economies stepping up employment opportunities. Experts predicted automation puts millions of low-skilled jobs in the sector at risk, particularly as the introduction of self-checkouts makes cashiers redundant.

“Technology can liberate people from repetitive tasks,” Barbara Martin Coppola, chief digital officer at Swedish furniture giant IKEA, told Reuters on the sidelines of […]

Retail chiefs dismiss AI job threat, promise more training

Retail chiefs dismiss AI job threat, promise more training

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) – Executives from major global retailers played down the threat to employment in stores from artificial intelligence and automation on Thursday and pledged more training to help staff adopt more high-value tasks as machines take over their work. FILE PHOTO: Self checkout machines are seen at a supermarket of Swiss retail group Coop in Zumikon, Switzerland December 13, 2016. REUTERS/Arnd Wiegmann/File Photo

Retail is one of the largest employers in many developed economies and experts have predicted automation puts millions of low-skilled jobs in the sector at risk, particularly as the introduction of self-checkouts makes cashiers redundant.

“Technology can […]

Globalisation, automation and the history of work: Looking back to understand the future

Globalisation, automation and the history of work: Looking back to understand the future

The economy appears to be on the cusp of a third great transformation, driven by globalisation and automation. In this post, Richard Baldwin argues that the first step in thinking clearly about the future of work is to look at its historical transformations.

The future of work is a fascinating and important topic – and has been since steam power first got useful in the early 18th century. Since then, economies have struggled through two major economic transformations: when people moved from farms to factories, and when they moved from factories to offices.

Many believe that the economy is on […]

The Future Of Customer Service Is Humans And Machines Working Together

The Future Of Customer Service Is Humans And Machines Working Together

The robots are coming, and they are going to take our jobs. A simplification, perhaps – but if one were looking to find the simplest statement explaining the narrative following the era of automation, that would probably be it. In a world where customers can order on mobile, use a touchscreen or talk to an AI-based bot, the service industry will no longer need human workers, because machines will be able to do all of those jobs.

And while there are grains of truth mixed into that rather apocalyptic employment narrative, it gets a lot more wrong than it gets […]

OPINION | Jamie Dimon’s timely warning

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SOCIALISM is now woker than a two-for-one Che Guevara T-shirt sale, with Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez dominating the party’s imagination.

In a rare calling-out of this bogosity, JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon warned shareholders that “socialism inevitably produces stagnation, corruption and often worse.” He was echoing Winston Churchill’s observation that socialism allows for “the equal sharing of misery.” Why is it only capable of generating misery?Because under socialism, politics rather than productivity drives employment. Technological innovation is suppressed. Long ago, an Israeli explained to me that under socialism — Israel’s economic system until 1985 — you would always hire […]

Presidential Candidate Andrew Yang Is Wrong About the Future of Work

Presidential Candidate Andrew Yang Is Wrong About the Future of Work

Last evening, I attended a rain-soaked rally in New York City for long-shot Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang , a 44-year-old entrepreneur who is running on a platform based on three main ideas: a universal-basic income (UBI), Medicare for All, and what he calls "human-centered capitalism." He’s funny, smart, and forward-looking. Although he has effectively zero chance of becoming president (then again, who thought Donald Trump would ever win?) and his vision is built upon flawed premises (more on that in a moment), the conversation he’s trying to start is worth taking seriously, if only because his fear of […]

Back To The Future: Why We Must Look To The Past To Understand The Future Of Work

Back To The Future: Why We Must Look To The Past To Understand The Future Of Work

Not a day passes without a news article about the future of work. From the rise of AI and automation to the growing awareness of the need to reskill the global workforce to questions about what it means to lead in the new world of work, the future of work has become an integral part of the news cycle given its profound and widespread impact on all facets of society.

Yet, what seems to be lost in all these conversations about what is new is an interesting phenomenon where we are seeing the reversal of over 200 years of evolution […]

The good life after work

The good life after work

To manage the latest wave of automation, we must have ends that are more compelling than merely wanting more products and services. Robert Skidelsky Almost all ‘robots are coming’ stories follow a tried-and-true pattern. ‘Shop Direct puts 2,000 UK jobs at risk’ screams a typical headline . Then, quoting from authoritative reports from prestigious institutes and think tanks, the article in question usually alarms audiences with extravagant estimates of ‘jobs at risk’—that is, percentages of workers whose livelihoods are threatened by high-tech automation. To quote another representative example : ‘A new report suggests that the marriage of [artificial intelligence] […]