Tag: robot

U.S. factory jobs increasing, but automation plays key role

Reports of NASA’s Juno spacecraft’s entering the orbit around Jupiter lit a sparkler in this American heart — on the Fourth of July, no less. It showed that Americans still have what it takes.

To keep spirits orbiting, let’s note another recent American feat that few could have imagined a couple of years ago. The United States is now gaining, not losing, factory jobs. This glad trend has some sobering asterisks attached, but there’s no denying this:

There are now nearly a million more factory jobs in this country than there were in 2010. Many of them are coming — surprise, […]

White House economist: Don’t fear the rise of the robots (He’s right)

How much should we fear the “rise of the robots”? (And I mean this from the perspective of worker employment, not human survival.) In a speech today on artificial intelligence and automation, White House economist Jason Furman gives a pretty reasonable and defensible perspective. No, smart machines aren’t going to take all our jobs.

That’s not really the issue, as he sees it. Rather, “it is that workers will either lack the skills or the ability to successfully match with the good, high paying jobs created by automation.” In a short-run that could last decades, “not all workers will have […]

The real impact of robotics and automation advancements

The real impact of robotics and automation advancements

Dear Senate, don’t mess with my automation.

Senator Dan Coats (R-Ind.) chaired a Joint Economic Committee hearing on May 25, titled, “The Transformative Impact of Robots and Automation.” The hearing touched on the impact of robots and automation on jobs and the economy . Of course, any time a Senate committee starts quoting, "One study found that nearly half of American jobs are at risk of being automated over the next couple of decades," I take an interest.

Several experts testified with some interesting thoughts, and I have many of my own. Also read: Is machine learning smart enough to help […]

A scary glance at the job market of 2035

Talk about “burying the lede.” A World Economic Forum piece from earlier this year examined an Australian report on the likely jobs in demand less than twenty years from now. Among them: remote operators for airplanes and “online chaperones” to help prevent cybercrime.

But dig down and you find just how much dislocation the so-called Fourth Industrial Revolution could bring. The World Bank predicts that 47 percent of U.S. jobs are at risk of automation. (This jibes with other scholarship I’ve written about before ). If it gives Seattleites any schadenfreude, Oklahoma City is in even greater danger of seeing […]

Southeast Asia – Robot age could leave half of workers without jobs in the next 20 years

A new study by the ILO (International Labour Organization) Bureau for Employers’ Activities, ASEAN in transformation: How technology is changing jobs and enterprises , shows that more than half of workers in five Southeast Asian countries are at risk for losing their jobs to robots in the next 20 years.

The report examines how technology is affecting workplaces in five major sectors across the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the transformation that enterprises and workers can expect in the next decade.

It shows that low-skill workers will find themselves displaced in favour of automation, and more than 60% […]

Obama adviser warns that robots could worsen inequality

Obama adviser warns that robots could worsen inequality

Artificial intelligence is an innovation that must be pursued, President Obama’s top economic adviser said Thursday, but greater automation of work could increase income inequality and push some people out of the workforce if the right policies are not implemented.

Speaking at New York University, Council of Economic Advisers Chairman Jason Furman said he rejected very pessimistic or highly optimistic views of the effects that automization will have on work, saying that labor markets can adjust to technology making certain work obsolete. But those same changes, he said, have also resulted in extra inequality in the past, and that dynamic […]

Robots threaten 137m Asian jobs in automated future

Robots threaten 137m Asian jobs in automated future

Technologies including 3D printing, wearable technology, nanotechnology and robotic automation are predicted to disrupt the sector Robots and automation could endanger the jobs of more than half of workers in five South-east Asian countries over the next two decades, according to an International Labour Organisation (ILO) study.

It found that those working in the garments industry were particularly vulnerable, but jobs in other industries were also found to be at high risk.

About 137 million workers – approximately 56 per cent of the salaried workforce from Cambodia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam – fall under the high-risk category, the study […]

Millions of SE Asian jobs may be lost to automation in next two decades: ILO

More than half of workers in five Southeast Asian countries are at high risk of losing their jobs to automation in the next two decades, an International Labour Organization study found, with those in the garments industry particularly vulnerable.

About 137 million workers or 56 percent of the salaried workforce from Cambodia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam, fall under the high-risk category, the study showed.

“Countries that compete on low-wage labor need to reposition themselves. Price advantage is no longer enough,” said Deborah France-Massin, director for the ILO’s bureau for employers’ activities. The report said workers have to be trained […]

Top Economist Makes Case For Why New Laws Are Destroying Jobs

Top Economist Makes Case For Why New Laws Are Destroying Jobs

McDonald’s automated kiosk (REUTERS/Rick Wilking) A former top federal economist warned in an opinion piece Wednesday government policies are often counterproductive to the jobs they’re meant to save.

Industries phase out employment opportunities naturally due to factors like robotics and automation. Lawmakers have proposed policies to preserve and improve jobs, but often, those ideas backfire. International Trade Commission Former Chief Economist Peter Morici said a better approach is to prepare people for the jobs not easily replaced.

“The robotics and artificial intelligence revolution is all around us,” Morici wrote in a piece for Fox News. “Tasks requiring complex manual dexterity have […]

If automation is the future, what comes next?

If automation is the future, what comes next?

Tanner Mirrlees Instead of hiring workers, many companies are employing new technology. No job seems safe from automation.

The factories of the world are filled with gigantic robotic arms programmed to put together everything from BMV luxury automobiles to Apple iPhones. Assembly lines are working with fewer blue collars.

Distribution warehouses, like those run by Amazon.com, employ robotic dollies to fill and carry shelves of books and beauty accessories to the small human workforce that packs these goods into the boxes mailed to our doors.Customer service is being designed away by user-friendly interfaces that shift tasks once done by paid workers […]