Tag: robot

Will robots kill chemistry?

Will robots kill chemistry?

A robot holds a flask. ’m just barely a midcareer professional, and tumult is one word that I can use to describe the economic shifts within chemistry that I’ve witnessed. In my short time in the industry, I’ve seen countless layoffs, the effects of off-shoring, and the dramatic swings in the business cycle that the Great Recession brought chemistry. Many jobs in the chemical enterprise have shifted to China and India, and mergers and acquisitions of companies have led to the shutdown of long-standing giants in the world of industrial chemistry. So it’s no surprise that chemists often discuss […]

Walmart Announces New Workforce Addition: Thousands of Robots

Walmart Announces New Workforce Addition: Thousands of Robots

New addition to the workforce at Walmart. A new tech trend has emerged at the world’s largest retailer, as Walmart brings on board thousands of robots in nearly 5,000 of its 11,348 stores. According to CNN Business , these robots will be scrubbing floors, scanning boxes, unloading trucks and tracking shelf inventory at mostly domestic US locations.

Robots will replace lower-level jobs – serving in janitorial functions as well as performing basic inventory work – in order to manage rising costs. A new robot unloader has already been used on the docks in hundreds of stores, pulling boxes from delivery […]

How Digital Natives and Automation Are Reshaping the Workforce

How Digital Natives and Automation Are Reshaping the Workforce

Dr. Julie Albright during her keynote presentation at the Data Center World 2019 conference in Phoenix. (Photo: Rich Miller) PHOENIX, Ariz. – If you sometimes feel uneasy about the pace of technology and how quickly it is changing our world, you’re not alone. The exploding use of mobile devices is changing how we live and work, according to Dr. Julie Albright, especially for a generation of younger “digital natives” who have grown up with these technologies.

Albright is a Digital Sociologist at the University of Southern California, who studies the impact of technology on human behavior and society. She says […]

The future of work: Why every prediction you read is wrong

The future of work: Why every prediction you read is wrong

Fifth Frame co-founder Jon Williams. Source: Supplied. Every prediction you have read about the future of work will be wrong.

And the impact on workers in five or 10 years’ time is not an issue for the future, has the potential to be either positive or destructive and will be a consequence of actions taken today.

While the debate about the future of work continues to get plenty of media coverage, much of it is of the alarmist ‘the robots are coming to take your job’ version. It makes for good press and interesting, populist stories.However, the predictions for the near-term […]

Robots set for uprising against taxes after taking too many jobs from humans

Robots set for uprising against taxes after taking too many jobs from humans

New report warns against taxing robots

There are increasing calls for policymakers to impose taxes on robots and other capital goods based on the faulty analysis that doing so is necessary to raise adequate government revenue, restore labor income, and remove “distortions” in the tax code.

However, a new report from the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF), the world’s leading think tank for science and technology policy, shows that these concerns are illusory and that taxing robots would slow productivity growth, as well as growth in wages and GDP.Robert Atkinson, ITIF president and author of the report, […]

Mark Casci: Britain not at all prepared for impact of automation

Mark Casci: Britain not at all prepared for impact of automation

Picture Jonathan Gawthorpe Social unrest grips the nation as the very way of life people have known for decades begins to slip away.

Don’t worry my friends, this is not another doom-laden polemic on a post-Brexit Britain. Rather what I am talking about is the genuine and very much real threat posed to the UK’s economy, and indeed that of the world’s by the threat of automation. Embargoed to 0001 Monday April 08”Undated file photo of social media icons displayed on a mobile phone screen, as plans for new laws making tech giants and social networks more accountable […]

AI will create more jobs than it destroys

AI will create more jobs than it destroys

AI will bring productivity growth that will create demand for work, offsetting the displacement of workers. Despite fears that artificial intelligence (AI) will wipe out millions of jobs across the globe, technological advancement is poised to be a job engine that will create more employment than it destroys.

While jobs will be displaced by automation, some technology experts allay fears of robots completely taking over. They suggest the fourth industrial revolution presents both an opportunity and a challenge that will see technology pave the way for shifts in occupations, resulting in the creation of more jobs than it will ravage.

An […]

Blue Prism shows its colours around the rise of the ‘Digital Worker’

Blue Prism shows its colours around the rise of the ‘Digital Worker’

A common gripe in the UK and European tech communities is that there are few homegrown unicorns, few billion-dollar players to rival those of the US or China. “We just can’t grow them here,” people say – at least, not since SAP or (whisper it carefully) Autonomy. Even the UK’s DeepMind went for a song – a reported $500 million – when Google snapped it up and rebuilt its AI vision around it. Meanwhile Europe seems to want to break up the US giants rather than grow its own.

Yet if you mention the name Blue Prism to many analysts […]

Perspective: Artificial intelligence and automation — the U.S. manufacturing challenge

Perspective: Artificial intelligence and automation — the U.S. manufacturing challenge

In the U.S. manufacturing sector, there are “production-focused” positions that are low-skilled and “skilled production” positions that require specific training to develop complex skill-sets. As to the future of production-focused positions, the manufacturing sector is choosing to eliminate them through increased automation .

However, for skilled production positions, more than half of manufacturing executives in the skills gap study cite technology/computer skills, digital skills, programming skills for robots/automation, working with tools and technology, and critical thinking skills to be in demand over the next three years.

what is the U.S. manufacturing sector doing beyond turning more to automation and AI to […]

Adjusting to the new world of work

Adjusting to the new world of work

Waking up on my first morning in Las Vegas, where the time is 14 hours behind Thailand, was not easy. Cup of coffee in hand, I walked past a group of senior citizens wearing red long-sleeved T-shirts outside a large conference hall. They were event ambassadors, hired to welcome and guide participants from all over the world, and the sight of their smiling faces helped to bring me awake. What a pleasant start to the day: I get to experience human interaction and some seniors have a chance to earn extra income, I was telling myself.

I was in Las […]