Tag: robot

Where Do Good Jobs Come From?

Where Do Good Jobs Come From?

Aleksandar Georgiev/Getty Images Many regard the falloff in the creation of high-wage jobs as the inevitable result of advances in artificial intelligence and robotics. It isn’t. Technology can be used either to displace labor or to enhance worker productivity.

CAMBRIDGE – Around the world this May Day, policy proposals that would have appeared radical just a few years ago are now on the agenda. In the United States, for example, high marginal tax rates, wealth taxes, and single-payer health care have become mainstream ideas. Yet unless policymakers get their priorities right, the opportunity for meaningful reform could be squandered, leading […]

Amazon Used An AI to Automatically Fire Low-Productivity Workers

Amazon Used An AI to Automatically Fire Low-Productivity Workers

Automation Station

This time, artificial intelligence is literally taking jobs.

Documents obtained by The Verge show how Amazon used a computer system to automatically track and fire hundreds of fulfillment center employees between for failing to meet productivity quotas — a grim glimpse of a future in which AI is your boss.While not every decision was made by a computer system, the documents — including a signed letter by an Amazon attorney describing the system — reveal how deeply automated the process really is. It’s not clear whether Amazon is still using the system.“Amazon’s system tracks the rates of each […]

Generation Alpha: Four Predictions on the children of Millennials

Generation Alpha: Four Predictions on the children of Millennials

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Baby boomers have taken all the houses and millennials have taken all the avocados . It appears that generations enjoy categorising each other, and many of us might have heard some variation of this type of generalisation.

Yet to be old enough to have their own say however is the Alpha Generation whose oldest members are now around eight-years-old and youngest are yet to exist.Identified as being born between the years 2010 and 2025 and also dubbed the iGeneration , this new generation is the offspring of millennials, the first to be born completely in the 21st century and […]

Why Horticulture Is Ripe for Artificial Intelligence

Why Horticulture Is Ripe for Artificial Intelligence

Laura Drotleff Artificial intelligence (AI) is everywhere in the news right now, from autocorrecting cell phones to self-driving cars to new forays into agriculture by large companies like Microsoft. In many ways, it is an overarching term for a number of different tools that it encompasses, from computer vision to machine learning to deep learning to actual robots. It’s more complex than one broad definition, which experts worldwide are still struggling to come up with and agree upon. Add to that the other technologies that interface with AI — like the Internet of Things (IoT), big data, and Blockchain, […]

Minister Thinks Singapore Needs to Stop Snubbing Seniors for Fintech Talent

Minister Thinks Singapore Needs to Stop Snubbing Seniors for Fintech Talent

Technology isn’t just changing the way businesses work, it is also impacting careers across all fields and disciplines. This is especially true for the financial sector, as financial services institutions are investing heavily in new technological capabilities to enhance competitive positioning and operating efficiencies.

While it may seem like a rat race when it comes to adopting new technologies, it is crucial to not neglect the humans who will ultimately be driving that change. An ageing workforce

In Singapore, the traditional “hire-and-fire strategy” – hiring people with the skills for emerging jobs and firing those in less relevant jobs […]

DOL Urged to Better Track Impact of Advanced Technologies

DOL Urged to Better Track Impact of Advanced Technologies

According to officials from the 16 firms GAO interviewed for its report, cost savings and other considerations led them to adopt advanced technologies, despite facing certain risks with the technologies.

In a recent report , the Government Accountability Office (GAO) recommends that the Department of Labor develop ways to use existing or new data collection efforts to identify and systematically track the workforce effects of advanced technologies. According to the report, DOL agreed with the recommendation and plans to identify and recommend data collection options to fill gaps in existing information about how workers and workplaces are affected by new […]

OECD: Automation could cause mass disruption to workforce

OECD: Automation could cause mass disruption to workforce

The OECD Economic Outlook, a twice-yearly forecast of megatrends by The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), has signalled major disruptions to the job market in the immediate future thanks to automation.

Around half all jobs will be impacted by automation, the OECD predicts in its new Economic Outlook. 14% of jobs will be replaced entirely by automation and another 32% will be radically changed by the new technology.

This issue is exacerbated by widespread skills shortages. Some 60% of workers lack basic computer skills, the OECD said. Further, those most in need of training in the new skills are […]

The AI revolution

The AI revolution

Image: U1208 Lab at Inserm, which studies cognitive sciences and robot-human communication. A number of emotions can be reproduced with Reeti using an interface that is easy to use by medical staff to encourage communication with autistic children. Children with autistic disorders concentrate more with a robot who can endlessly, and without getting bored, repeat attitudes that represent easily identifiable emotions. (BSIP/UIG via Getty) Artificial Intelligence is transforming the way we work and live.

The most obvious example of this is when it’s used to automate tasks that have previously done by humans.

But, as Daron Acemoglu points out, ‘as automation […]

Will We Really Need Humans To Fix The Robots?

Will We Really Need Humans To Fix The Robots?

In every conversation of the coming apocalypse of AI and robotics taking human jobs is a discussion of how the rise of intelligent machines will create a vast class of new and better human jobs taking care of those robots. This optimistic line of reasoning suggests that as AI and robotics displace lower-paying manual and rote labor, they will create an entirely new class of jobs for those that design, install and maintain these complex systems. Yet, what happens if these new generations of machines are able to design, install and repair themselves without human intervention? Would there be […]

Robot redundancy: four future scenarios for Kiwis’ jobs

Robot redundancy: four future scenarios for Kiwis' jobs

We’ve long been hearing about the threat of "robot redundancy" – and just whose jobs are at risk of automation.

Fewer than 5 per cent of jobs can be done entirely through automation today – and researchers have thrown out wildly varying forecasts how this might soon change.

One headline-grabbing study from Oxford University, suggesting that 47 per cent of all employment in the US was at risk of being replaced by computers and algorithms in the next 20 years, appeared overblown when set against findings of a forensic OECD investigation.Of the 21 advanced nations that report looked at, only 9 […]